--- title: Hot Titles to Read This November, From The Friday Bookshop to Judi Dench's Memoir description: "The best new books for November 2026: The Friday Bookshop, Whale Harbor, Judi Dench's memoir, Solvej Balle, Cassandra Clare, John Scalzi and more." author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-01T10:23:47.939Z updated: 2026-11-01T10:23:47.974Z canonical: https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/hot-titles-to-read-this-november-from-the-friday-bookshop-to-judi-dench-s-memoir image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/unsplash-eht3qtdmao8.webp categories: Reading Lists content_type: Guide region: Global publication: Rich Books schema_type: Article --- November is a reading month. The light goes by teatime, the heating comes on and a new book becomes the best plan for the evening. This year the month brings a strong crop: two novels in translation, two big memoirs, a family saga that starts in Connemara, a Gilded Age drama, a history for America's 250th anniversary and two genre favourites. Here are the nine titles to put at the top of your pile. Dates are for US publication unless we say otherwise. ## 1. The Friday Bookshop by Sawako Natori ### Book: The Friday Bookshop By Sawako Natori Translated from Japanese by Yui Kajita. Fumiya, a student who rarely reads, finds a small bookshop inside a rural train station north of Tokyo while looking for a book for his ill father. Run by three old school friends, with a cafe whose dishes come from the books they recommend, the shop teaches him how books bring people together. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/the+friday+bookshop+sawako+natori) If you loved the recent run of Japanese novels about cafes and bookshops, start here. Fumiya, a student who rarely reads, goes looking for a book for his ill father and finds a small bookshop inside a rural train station north of Tokyo. Three friends who have known each other since school run it. There is a cafe with a menu that changes every day, its dishes inspired by the books the owners recommend, and a vault of books in a disused underground platform. Fumiya becomes a regular, then a part-time bookseller, and through the shop's customers he learns how books help people find each other and get through the hard parts of life. Yui Kajita translated it from Japanese, and Berkley publishes it on 3rd November. ## 2. On the Calculation of Volume (Book V) by Solvej Balle ### Book: On the Calculation of Volume (Book V) By Solvej Balle The fifth volume of Solvej Balle's seven-part novel, translated from Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell. Tara Selter, a former bookseller trapped in a repeating 18th November, has settled into a new life with others caught in the same loop. Published in the UK by Faber on 5th November 2026. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/on+the+calculation+of+volume+v+solvej+balle) No novel suits this month better. Balle's heroine, the former bookseller Tara Selter, lives the same day over and over, and that day is 18th November. In Book V she has moved past the confusion of the early volumes and settled into a new life with others caught in the same loop. Balle uses the repeating day to write about loss, longing, loneliness inside a marriage and the fact of mortality, and she keeps testing what a novel can be. This is the fifth of seven planned volumes, translated from Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell. Faber publishes it in the UK on 5th November, and New Directions in the US on 17th November. If you have not yet started the series, begin with Book I and enjoy knowing that four more are waiting for you. ## 3. Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? by Judi Dench ### Book: Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? *A Memoir* By Dame Judi Dench Judi Dench's fourth book, written with Brendan O'Hea, tells her story from childhood to the present: pranks on and off stage, her best-known screen roles, her marriage to Michael Williams and her love of nature and animals. Published in the UK on 22nd October 2026 and in the US by St. Martin's Press on 3rd November 2026. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/is+it+too+late+to+make+a+run+for+it+judi+dench) Dench wrote her fourth book with Brendan O'Hea, out of long conversations in which, as she put it, they kept 'recalling stories from my childhood all the way through'. You get the pranks on and off stage, the stories behind her best-known screen roles, her marriage to the actor Michael Williams and her love of nature and animals. The book reached UK shops on 22nd October and arrives in the US from St. Martin's Press on 3rd November, so it is already waiting for you. Read it on a cold night with a pot of tea and you will feel you have spent the evening in very good company. ## 4. Whale Harbor by Mary Beth Keane ### Book: Whale Harbor By Mary Beth Keane Eleven Joyce brothers from a remote corner of Connemara scatter across the world after their mother dies in 1963. Macdara, sixteen, takes on the weight of the family, and when his younger brother Rian runs away at thirteen and disappears, Macdara carries a broken promise through the decades that follow. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/whale+harbor+mary+beth+keane) The author of *Ask Again, Yes* returns with a saga that crosses the Atlantic. Eleven Joyce brothers grow up in a remote corner of Connemara. When their mother dies in 1963, sixteen-year-old Macdara takes on much of the weight of the family while their father is often away. The household breaks apart, and Macdara leaves for work in Montana, leaving behind his younger brother Rian, whom he had promised to stay close to. At thirteen, Rian runs away and disappears. The novel follows that broken promise across decades and generations, and asks how family bonds survive distance and neglect. Scribner publishes it on 3rd November. Read it if you love big Irish family novels about what brothers owe each other. ## 5. Peregrine Hill by Nina de Gramont ### Book: Peregrine Hill By Nina de Gramont Gilded Age New York. Isabelle Bishop, widowed by a shipwreck that also took three of her children, pushes her daughter Mariah into marriage with a wealthy man who holds a scandal over her. Inside her new home, Mariah and her ambitious maid Hetty find their own routes to independence, between Manhattan and the Rhode Island coast. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/peregrine+hill+nina+de+gramont) The author of *The Christie Affair* takes you to Gilded Age New York. Isabelle Bishop lost her husband and three of her children in a shipwreck, and she needs security for her surviving daughter, Mariah, and her elderly mother. When the wealthy John Whitten comes calling, his real interest turns out to be Mariah, and he threatens to expose a scandal from her past unless she marries him. Isabelle pushes her daughter into the match, knowing the harm it may do. Inside her husband's confining house, Mariah finds her own interests with the help of her ambitious maid, Hetty, and the two women look for independence in a world built to deny it to them. The story moves between Manhattan and the Rhode Island coast, and the publisher compares it to Edith Wharton and the Brontë sisters. Simon & Schuster publishes it on 10th November. ## 6. Take My Word for It by LeVar Burton ### Book: Take My Word for It *A Memoir* By LeVar Burton LeVar Burton's memoir, written with Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts, looks beyond Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow to his childhood during the Civil Rights Movement, the mother who raised him, his life as a parent and husband and his long commitment to equity. Includes family photographs. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/take+my+word+for+it+levar+burton) The title will ring a bell if you grew up with *Reading Rainbow*, where the line 'you don't have to take my word for it' introduced the children's own book reviews. Burton's memoir, written with Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts, looks past *Roots*, *Star Trek: The Next Generation* and the show that made millions of children readers. 'This is my attempt to pull back the curtain,' he writes. He tells you about growing up during the Civil Rights Movement, the mother who raised him and the moment he found his calling as a storyteller. He writes about acting as both a way to transform himself and an escape from the hardest parts of his past, and about his life as a father, a husband and a campaigner for equity. In his words, the book holds 'the fears. The fight. The survival. And yes, the joy. All of it.' Random House publishes it on 10th November, with family photographs throughout. ## 7. America in 25 Revolutions by Garrett M. Graff ### Book: America in 25 Revolutions *The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union* By Garrett M. Graff Garrett M. Graff traces 250 years of Americans pushing their country to keep its promise of equality, from the Reconstruction Amendments and Brown v. Board of Education to the Social Security Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, through the ordinary people who drove each change. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/america+in+25+revolutions+garrett+graff) As the United States marks 250 years since independence, the historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff tells its story through the ordinary people who pushed the country to keep its promise that all people are equal. You move through famous turning points and forgotten ones: the Reconstruction Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts, *Brown v. Board of Education*, the Social Security Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Graff shows that each change began with people shut out of the country's ideals, that many failed before they succeeded and that progress never ran in a straight line. America's history, he writes, is 'one of revolutions, *plural*'. Avid Reader Press publishes it on 10th November. Pair it with Jill Lepore's *We the People*, this year's Pulitzer winner for History, and you have two very different portraits of a country trying to change its own rules. ## 8. The Last King of Faerie by Cassandra Clare ### Book: The Last King of Faerie *The Wicked Powers, Book One* By Cassandra Clare The first book in The Wicked Powers, the final Shadowhunter trilogy. Dru Blackthorn is taken to Faerie by Prince Ash Morgenstern, while Kit Herondale and Ty Blackthorn set aside old bitterness for a dangerous quest. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/the+last+king+of+faerie+cassandra+clare) The saga that began with *The Mortal Instruments* is heading for its end. *The Last King of Faerie* opens The Wicked Powers, the final Shadowhunter trilogy. Dru Blackthorn, in her fourth year at Shadowhunter Academy, meets a stranger at a nightclub and the night ends with her kidnapping. Prince Ash Morgenstern carries her off to Faerie, a beautiful and deadly realm, and Dru finds herself drawn to him and to the darkness around him. Meanwhile, a sudden disappearance shakes the Shadowhunter world, and Kit Herondale and Ty Blackthorn must set aside their bitterness for a dangerous quest. The first edition comes with sprayed edges and illustrated endpapers, so collectors will want it on the shelf as much as in their hands. It publishes on 3rd November. ## 9. Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi ### Book: Monsters of Ohio By John Scalzi Richland, Ohio, a small farming village under social and economic strain, is about to erupt in very strange ways. Daniel Garvey comes home to settle some affairs and is caught up in events that turn the eyes of the world on the town. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/monsters+of+ohio+john+scalzi) Richland, Ohio, is a small farming village of old families and old traditions, and the social and economic pressures on it are about to break out in very strange ways. Daniel Garvey, who left years ago, comes home to settle some affairs and is caught up in events that turn the eyes of the world on the town and may doom it. Scalzi, the author of *Old Man's War*, has called the book 'Cozy Cronenberg', which tells you to expect small-town comfort with a large dose of the strange. Tor publishes it on 3rd November. Read it if you like your science fiction weird and your monsters close to home. ## How to choose your first November read - **For a cosy evening:** *The Friday Bookshop*. - **For a literary adventure:** *On the Calculation of Volume*. - **For a life story:** Judi Dench or LeVar Burton. - **For a family saga:** *Whale Harbor* or *Peregrine Hill*. - **For history:** *America in 25 Revolutions*. - **For escape:** *The Last King of Faerie* or *Monsters of Ohio*. **Buy the books** - [The Friday Bookshop on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/the+friday+bookshop+sawako+natori) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9798217189113) - [On the Calculation of Volume (Book V) on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/on+the+calculation+of+volume+v+solvej+balle) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9780811240383) - [Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/is+it+too+late+to+make+a+run+for+it+judi+dench) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9781250438928) - [Whale Harbor on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/whale+harbor+mary+beth+keane) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9781668224632) - [Peregrine Hill on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/peregrine+hill+nina+de+gramont) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9781668214732) - [Take My Word for It on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/take+my+word+for+it+levar+burton) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9798217198276) - [America in 25 Revolutions on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/america+in+25+revolutions+garrett+graff) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9781668247525) - [The Last King of Faerie on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/the+last+king+of+faerie+cassandra+clare) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9780593903476) - [Monsters of Ohio on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/monsters+of+ohio+john+scalzi) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9780765389039) **Also in this piece** - [We the People on Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/we+the+people+jill+lepore) / [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/We+the+People+Jill+Lepore) ### Book: We the People *A History of the U.S. Constitution* By Jill Lepore Winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History. Published for the 250th anniversary of American independence, Jill Lepore's history of the US Constitution explains why it is so hard to amend: only 27 amendments have been ratified, and none of real weight since 1971. Drawing on the Amendments Project, a database she built, Lepore tells the story of the mostly ordinary Americans who tried to change the Constitution, nearly all of whom failed. [Waterstones](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/we+the+people+jill+lepore)