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May 5, 2026

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of May 4th and May 11th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our Summer Reading Contests and Feature, which we have brought back for a 22nd year. On select days through mid-August, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book that we know people will be talking about this summer and giving five lucky readers the chance to win it.

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May 5, 2026

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest by Wednesday, May 6th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE CALAMITY CLUB by Kathryn Stockett, which is now available and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

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May 5, 2026

Library Saturdays

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By Marie Benedict
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Marie Benedict is back with her latest work of historical fiction, DAUGHTER OF EGYPT, a sweeping tale of a young woman who unearths the truth about a forgotten pharaoh --- rewriting both of their legacies forever. As a child, Marie always looked forward to spending Saturday mornings with her mother at the library, where a treasure trove of books awaited her.

Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of DAUGHTER OF EGYPT, THE QUEENS OF CRIME, THE MITFORD AFFAIR, HER HIDDEN GENIUS, THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE, THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, LADY CLEMENTINE, CARNEGIE'S MAID, THE OTHER EINSTEIN, and (with Victoria Christopher Murray) the "Good Morning America" Book Club pick THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN and the Target Book of the Year THE FIRST LADIES.

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Special Preview: Bookreporter.com's Summer Reading 2026

This Bookreporter.com SPECIAL PREVIEW Newsletter brings you a sneak peek at the titles that are included in our Summer Reading feature.

Each title below will be featured in a contest where you will have a 24-hour window of opportunity to enter for your chance to win a copy of the book being featured that day. You will need to act quickly! Learn more about the feature here.

We encourage you to scroll down and click on each image to read more about that book on our site.

Please note that more titles may be added to this feature in the weeks to come.

If you know anyone who you think may be interested in these 24-hour contests, please forward this newsletter to them so they can sign up for it. 

Our first contest kicks off TOMORROW, Tuesday, May 5th at noon ET.

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May 4, 2026

My Mother, the Octopus, and Me

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By Casey Scieszka
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THE FOUNTAIN, Casey Scieszka’s debut novel, blends the spectacular with the everyday in a tale about eternity and mortality that asks what it would mean to live forever. Casey’s mother developed an appreciation for the octopus after watching a documentary and reading Sy Montgomery’s bestseller about this surprisingly complex creature. Years later, another book about an octopus would take on an even greater and deeper meaning for Casey and her mother.

Casey Scieszka

Casey Scieszka is a born and raised Brooklynite who has lived in Beijing, San Francisco, Fez and Timbuktu where she was a Fulbright Scholar. In 2013, she and her husband, artist Steven Weinberg, moved to the Catskill Mountains and opened the Spruceton Inn: a Catskills Bed & Bar, which runs an annual Artist Residency hosting world-renowned painters, bestselling authors, and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists.

Photo Credit: Steven Weinberg

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Lena Dunham, author of Famesick: A Memoir

For the last decade, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the set of the hit show that you --- as a 25-year-old --- are writing, directing, producing and starring in. But Dunham does it --- even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she’s meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her --- because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again --- if only she could remember who that self was.

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Anthony Horowitz, author of A Deadly Episode

Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne is dead. Or, rather, the actor playing him in the film adaptation of The Word is Murder is. Rising star David Caine has been stabbed, and it seems that everyone on the set had a motive. Caine had just fired his PA. He had fallen out with his director, slept with the screenwriter, humiliated his co-star, and dropped his agent days before he was about to sign a multi-million-dollar deal to appear in the next Spider-Man movie. But what if Caine’s murderer had made a mistake? What if it was the real Hawthorne who was the intended victim? For it turns out that the brilliant detective may have gotten it wrong 10 years earlier. An innocent man has died in jail. And perhaps someone has decided that Hawthorne must pay the price.

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Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town

Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers. One is a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality. The other is a smart, eccentric girl, to whom Jimmy finds himself drawn as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which just may offer the only salve to their grief. As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. 

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