6 of the Best New Book Releases Out October 27, 2026

If you’ve been following our book banning coverage and seeing how anti-intellectual this current administration is, then you know that libraries desperately need our help, and right now, we have a promotion to do just that. Just by signing up to get emails from the Chicago Public Library Foundation, you will be entered to win $250 to be donated to a library of your choice. It’s a library win-win. Now, when it comes to the new books out this week, the featured titles have an abundance of great sci-fi and fantasy. Before we get to them, there are two YA fantasies to know about: Where We Go at Night by Ikwo Ntekim and Mortal Things by Marie Lu. For Webtoon readers that like to hold something, Gourmet Hound, Vol. 1 by Robyn Lee Hamada is the latest comic from the site to be unscrolled (or turned into a print edition from the original digital). Those looking for gorgeous picture books will find one in Mountainous by Julia Kuo. Switching gears to adult novels, Nick Medina’s horror mystery Savage Lake is out now, as is the campus tome The Brightness by Chad Harbach. As mentioned before, the books below are steeped in sci-fi and fantasy, and include eldritch dark academia, “a genre-blendin...