What are some of the most anticipated nonfiction books of 2026?
If 2025 was the year of the AI agent, perimenopause awareness, radical authenticity, and economic uncertainty, 2026 is slated to be the year of America’s 250th birthday (!), more progress for women’s health, growing economic concerns — and a ripe time to read stories that help to make sense of it all. With that in mind, here are several new nonfiction books we’re pre-ordering now — all of which promote progressive thinking and thriving.
New health books
The Cure for Everything: The Epic Struggle for Public Health and a Radical Vision for Human Thriving
By Michelle A. Williams with Linda Marsa
Public health is an unusual discipline — a combination of science, sociology, politics, and logistics — with a simple goal: to create the conditions for human thriving. Despite a century of massive improvements in our health and quality of life, Americans — reeling from disastrous pandemic response, epidemics of depression and isolation, and a failing healthcare system — are understandably distrustful of public health. But the true history of public health doesn’t just reveal one of the greatest feats in human history — our great escape from early death and infectious disease — it points toward a future of even greater improvements. The cure for everything? It’s all of us, working together for our collective health.
In The Cure for Everything, public health innovator Michelle A. Williams tells the dramatic hidden history of public health in America: a story of how radicals and renegades — from W.E.B. Du Bois to Alice Hamilton to the activists of ACT UP — and the institutions and infrastructure we built together helped transform our world. As she takes readers through these dramatic stories, she draws out their deeper lessons. In the end, she makes a powerful argument that it is public health that should drive our country’s policies and politics — that if our policies fail to increase the health and well-being of everyone, regardless of race or economic status, we have failed as a society.
This is a dramatic, sweeping history with a galvanizing vision for how we can address new threats and complete the unfinished business of public health.
The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again Hardcover (April 7, 2026)
By Mary Claire Haver, MD
Though menstrual cycle changes and the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies them are the hallmarks of the transition to menopause, many women with regular periods as young as 35 can also start to feel irregular, with perimenopause symptoms that include anxiety, fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, sexual symptoms, and volatile moods. This array of symptoms can be hugely disruptive all the more so when a doctor dismisses a woman’s complaints as all in her head or prescribes unnecessary and potentially harmful treatment.
Thankfully Dr. Mary Claire Haver, MD, author of the No. 1 New York Times bestselling The New Menopause explains everything a woman needs to know to thrive during the often-misdiagnosed and medically ignored perimenopausal years.
New sociology and psychology books
The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness (March 31, 2026)
By Arthur C. Brooks
If you struggle to discern life’s meaning, you’re definitely not the only one. Millions of people describe a growing sense of emptiness, a lack of purpose and significance. And there’s a reason: Rapid cultural, economic, and technological changes have rewired our brains, reducing their ability to perceive depth and purpose.
In The Meaning of Your Life, social scientist and happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks shows you how to push back against these changes and find the meaning you need to live a happy, fulfilling life. Relying on cutting-edge science, he offers practical, evidence-based strategies for breaking free of the powerful trends and personal habits that dull your focus on the why of your life. Drawing on the great philosophers and the world’s faith traditions, he shows how everyone can — and must — approach life’s most important and mysterious questions and provides a blueprint that will help even the most skeptical person find a life of spiritual transcendence, passionate love, and true calling.
“What is the meaning of my life?” is not an unanswerable question, but rather the start of a pilgrimage into unexplored corners of your consciousness. The Meaning of Your Life is your handbook for this journey.
Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results
By Nir Eyalwith Julie Li
In Beyond Belief, bestselling author Nir Eyal reveals how the hidden assumptions you carry shape what you see, how you feel, and what you do —and how to replace them with beliefs that unlock your true potential.
Drawing on breakthrough research and real-world case studies, Beyond Belief gives you practical tools to make your beliefs work for you instead of against you.
Whether you’re leading a team, building something meaningful, or striving to become who you’re meant to be, this book will fundamentally change what you believe is possible.
New relationships books
Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life (April 7, 2026)
By Amir Levine, M.D.
Amir Levine, MD, coauthor of the groundbreaking bestseller Attached, is back with bold new promise: anyone can learn to create a secure life. Out in April 2026, Secure offers cutting-edge tools to make it a reality. This is the definitive guide for anyone looking to improve their emotional health, deepen their connections, and build more fulfilling lives.
Years after first introducing attachment styles to the general public and forever revolutionizing our understanding of human connection, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine returns with a brilliant, paradigm-shifting work on the science and practice of secure attachment. As Dr. Levine explains in Secure, people with a secure attachment style are the most comfortable not just in their relationships, but also in their own skins. And remarkably, the latest research shows that anyone, regardless of how insecure they may feel, can learn to create a secure life.
The benefits of living in “secure mode” are extraordinary: people tend to be healthier and have a better relationship with their health care providers. When they do have a difficult illness, they have fewer symptoms and handle it better emotionally. If they’re looking for a job, they’re more effective in their search and their self-esteem doesn’t suffer as much. They are less susceptible to consumerism. They even navigate social media better and experience fewer of its negative impacts.
In Secure, Dr. Levine presents his pioneering approach, Secure Therapy and Coaching, offering practical, neuroscience-backed tools to help readers cultivate security so that they can thrive. Secure is the definitive guide for anyone looking to improve their emotional health, deepen their connections, and build more fulfilling lives.
New leadership books
Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment (February 3, 2026)
By Daniel Coyle
What is a meaningful life, and how do we make one? How do certain communities foster closeness, fulfillment, happiness, and energy?
In Flourish, bestselling author and leading culture expert Daniel Coyle trains his eye on the groups and people who demonstrate exceptional connectivity, presence, and dynamism. He draws on research and original reporting — taking us inside an unlikely brotherhood of thirty-three men who were trapped in a Chilean mine, a tiny Michigan deli that blossomed into a $90 million ecosystem of businesses, an inventive Dutch soccer team that revolutionized the sport as we know it, and a disconnected Paris district that remade itself into a tight-knit neighborhood—to reveal the principles and practices that ignite and sustain thriving. He finds that flourishing groups do two things: They make meaning (creating deep connections) and build community (forging a common good).
Through captivating real-world stories, rigorous scientific studies, and firsthand accounts, Coyle reveals what sets some groups apart — and offers you the tools and insights to flourish in your own life.
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