What to Read Next: Big Books for Big Reading Goals Edition

Everything you’re hearing and reading about this novel is true: it’s a deeply satisfying read that combines fantastical elements, varieties of love and a supernatural bargain, all set in a picturesque seaside town.

This luminous and epic debut novel from an acclaimed poet (Mutiny) — conjured from humankind’s quest for freedom, folklore and magic, indelible characters and gorgeous prose — is exceptional. There are few others like it.

This is a spectacular novel of family and female friendship, love and loss, loyalty and legacy, that cuts across decades as the story runs from Philadelphia to the coast of Maine.

High fantasy, dragons, and a royal court hanging in the balance in a brand new world — this will satiate any Game of Thrones fanatic. This book, and its prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, is such a treat.

A deeply profound, moving and emotional work that examines the intimate ties between families bound by choice rather than blood. This is a heartbreaking story sure to be solidified as a modern classic — you’ll want to keep the tissues close by.

We know, we know, everyone else has already finished their Sarah J. Maas tandem reads. But just in case you need it, we’re dropping a reminder here about kicking off a binge-read to end all binge-reads.

Nathan Hill (The Nix) knows how to open a novel — we promise you’ll be hooked from the first page — and keep his story moving as his characters learn that the grass isn’t always greener next door.

A book about a book set in postwar Spain, this lyrical novel is steeped in magic, mystery, and a deep love of literature.

Packed with secrets and lies and characters you’ll love (even a couple you’ll tell yourself you can’t possibly like, let alone love), this is a barn-burner of a story about money, power and family mythologies.

An ambitious, thousand-page historical novel, stuffed with character and incident just like the Gotham where its story takes place. Has the verve of The Flamethrowers and A Visit From the Goon Squad.

If epic, multi-generational sagas are what you love most, you need to read this National Book Award finalist — a story of love, loss and family, ambition and survival.

We waited 15 years for Abraham Verghese’s new novel, and wow is it worth it. A story of three generations of one family, this is a tribute to the choices we make for the people we love most.

Eleanor Catton is the youngest winner of the Booker Prize and this is the extraordinary book that did it. This is a literary novel that reads like a thrilling mystery, one that will keep you in your seat (and marking great sentences).

Bob Marley’s name is almost synonymous with Jamaica, but less known are the multiple attempts made to assasinate him. Marlon James’ Booker Prize-winning novel drops us into a new world and never lets us go. This is a wild — and beautifully written — story.

Before The Satanic Verses, there was Midnight’s Children, the novel that made Rushdie’s reputation as a great modern storyteller. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the partition of India and Pakistan, this is a deeply human story with global reach.

This is a family that will surprise you and one you’ll love to get to know (even reluctantly). This National Book Award-winning novel is funny and moving, and an immense pleasure to read.

A genre-busting, roller coaster ride of a story that pulls two complicated, fantastical, and seemingly unconnected lives together.

This is historical fiction at its best — perfect for fans of Dickens and Brontë. (And the inspiration for the hit movie The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook.)

A finalist for the National Book Award, poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers has conjured an epic and indelible story of an American family with her debut novel. Beautifully written, it’s a book we never wanted to end (and you won’t either).

We were shocked and surprised (in the best ways) by Ed’s audacious second novel. Pop culture and tech, hit-men and the promise of a unified Korea. Think Squid Games with a literary twist.

Set aboard a ship in the Indian Ocean in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of the Opium Wars, and featuring an excellent cast of characters, this kicks off a series of novels worth binge-reading — especially if you love 19th-century adventure stories, but also if you love true stories like The Wager by David Grann.

For readers who want to know everything about everything — The World is humanity’s history told through time and family trees. Cinematic triumphs, betrayals, love affairs and even all-out war — woven through 1300 pages of stories from names you’ll know to those you’ll be fascinated to see for the first time.

Happy days are here again! EGOT, icon and the funny girl herself shares her story — from Brooklyn to Broadway to Brolin, and everything in between.