Welcome to Bay Books

The 2026 book lineup brings together emotional literary fiction, gripping mysteries, heartfelt family stories, and unforgettable historical dramas. These standout reads explore themes of identity, belonging, love, resilience, ambition, and the secrets that shape us. From the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Depression-era Mississippi and the dark corners of Scotland’s academic world, this year’s most anticipated books invite readers into deeply human stories filled with beauty, tension, heartbreak, and hope. Whether you enjoy reflective memoirs, haunting mysteries, or character-driven novels that stay with you long after the final page, 2026 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for readers.

“John of John” by Douglas Stuart

AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK – Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Oprah Daily, and Vogue

“Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story of identity, what it means to belong, and the courage to claim your own truth.”–Oprah Winfrey

Read More

“All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me” by Patrick Bringley

New York Times bestseller

Named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, the Financial Times, the New York Post, Book Riot, and The Sunday Times (London).

An “exquisite” (The Washington Post) “hauntingly beautiful” (Associated Press) portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.

Read More

“Heart the Lover” by Lily King

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Lily King has written another masterpiece. This book overflows with her brilliance and her heart. We are so lucky.” –Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, and the lasting impact of first love

Read More

“The Calamity Club” by Kathryn Stockett

The multimillion-copy-selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what’s rightfully theirs–and the power of friendship to change everything.

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.

Read More

“The Wreck” by Catherine Newman

“Wreck is a delight. What an absolute joy to be reunited with Rocky and her family, the characters we all fell in love with in Sandwich. Newman’s prose is laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also profound. I couldn’t stop reading, even though I didn’t want it to end.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs

The acclaimed bestselling author of Sandwich is back with a wonderful novel, full of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned.

Read More

“The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox” by Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell takes readers on a journey to the darker places of the human heart, where desires struggle with the imposition of social mores. This haunting story explores the seedy past of Victorian asylums, the oppression of family secrets, and the way truth can change everything.

Read More

“The Burning Library” by Gilly MacMillan

From the internationally bestselling author of The Nanny and What She Knew comes a thrilling dark academic tale of murder, obsession and ruthless ambition, set in remote St Andrews, Scotland.

A deadly rivalry.

A chilling secret.

One woman who can decipher the truth.

Read More

A new chapter is beginning at Bay Books, every third Thursday at 6:00.
Our Bay Books Silent Reading Club will begin at 6:00 with a time of socializing, sharing what we’re reading, pouring a cup of tea or perhaps a glass of wine from a bottle that someone brought to share, and then settling in for silent reading from 6:30 to 7:30. 7:30- 8:00 it’s more time to socialize and share other things you might be reading. If you need to browse around a little bit, we’re there to help you with that too.

RSVP by sending us an email to baybooksmi@gmail.com or giving us a call at (231) 944-6809.

Future dates are June 18, July 16, August 20, and September 17.
Come get comfy at Bay Books!

If You Liked…You Might Like…

Have you ever read a novel that transported you to a place you never wanted to leave? Did you wish another author offered a slightly different but equally absorbing take on that place? Well, jump aboard: “If You Liked…” pairs a book that plunges a reader into a fictive world with that of another author who does the same thing, but a little differently. Both are equally fascinating!

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

In Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds we’re initially thrust into colonial America, into a town that’s not only riddled with Puritan cruelty, but with contagious disease. When a servant girl seizes her chance to escape both, she must fend for herself in the wilderness. What combination of pluck, wits, courage, and pure luck must she draw upon in order to survive?

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Similarly in Isola, Allegra Goodman’s heroine Marguerite, a French noblewoman, travels to the New World in the 16th century only to find herself marooned on an island en route. She, too, must summon skills she didn’t know she possessed in order to live to tell the tale. Based on a true story, Isola foregrounds a young woman’s tenacity, intelligence, and compassion.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Described as a “tree-mad” novel by Nathaniel Rich in The Atlantic, Richard Powers’ The Overstory is a sweeping epic about the imminent loss of our forests. A polemic, this book engulfs the reader in the lives of its five protagonists for whom trees really, really matter. The urgency, the importance of saving our forests comes to the fore through passion, violence, science, and mysticism.

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston

The Overstory is a novel, but The Wild Trees by Richard Preston, tells the true story of people who ascend into some of the tallest trees in this country to explore the ecosystems that are found only there. Little was known about the flora and fauna that live in the upper reaches of California redwoods until some of these intrepid tree climbers ventured upwards. This is armchair adventure at its best!

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams and This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff

Here are two coming of age novels that treat a boy’s discovery of himself with love while never being treacly. Cranky as these times might make us, a plunge into rural Ireland might be a cure for what ails you.

In This is Happiness, Noel retreats to his grandparents’ cottage in the west of Ireland after a career setback. The villagers he finds there, his clumsy attempts to wend his way in the world as one of them, his willingness to see the sad, the lovely, the hilarious, and yes, even the bleakness, allows him to begin to understand the world in its complexity and thus his place in it. Happiness is reading this book.

Similarly and differently at the same time, Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, recalls his brutal boyhood with the clarity that time and age bring. Wolff doesn’t sugarcoat the awfulness of being the stepson of a psychopath, but he does allow us to root for his younger, smart, perceptive, always hopeful, and definitely delinquent self. A kid who was always at the mercy of adults who rarely had his wellbeing in mind, we marvel at the young Tobias’ resilience and resourcefulness.

Let’s Talk about Some Books You Really should have Read by Now

~~~the uncommon bookworm

But first let’s keep in mind the immortal words of Virginia Woolf, in her book titled “How Should One Read a Book?”

                “The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading

                is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason,

                to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel

                at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not

                allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality

                that a reader can possess.”

With that in mind, here are a few ideas and suggestions put forth as books you probably should have read already and why.

· “Tuck Everlasting” by Natalie Babbitt. Shows us that without the dimension of aging, our lives would lose their shape. In order to not just ‘be’, we need the balance of life and death.

· “James” by Percival Everett. Gives a different perspective and knowledge of culture, language and who gets to tell the story.

· “The Mountain in the Sea” by Ray Nayler. It will blow your mind. There is intelligent life out there and it just might be below the ocean surface. Get ready.

· “The Women’s Room” by Marilyn French. Earth shattering when it was written and  rugged commentary on society’s expectations of women. Declared at the time to be a ‘game-changer’—-but you will ask yourself after reading it, did anything change?

· “The Light Pirate” by Lily Brooks-Dalton. A different take on the effects of climate change and how we could possibly adapt to the changes the earth will undergo and also how some things just don’t change in human nature.

· “A Prayer for Owen Meaney” by John Irving. A story about a man who is convinced of his purpose in life. A character-driven story, it explores complex themes of faith, destiny, and friendship through the narrator’s relationship with the extraordinary Owen Meany, “a boy with a wrecked voice–not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God”. Incredible.

· “Ulysses” by James Joyce. Because no one has actually finished reading this book and you can claim that you have. Tah dah!