Now Trending – Books in the News – October 2026

In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, but her daughter Mel knows she’s really been gone for years. No one knows whether Daisy was murdered, or if it was a simpler, slower death: her years-long spiral of alcohol, abuse, and helplessness. But when Mel enters the estate, she finds Daisy’s ghost, somehow frozen at twenty-three, and a charming, bleeding phantom that used to be Jay Gatsby.

In an age of noise, outrage, and tribal certainty, the most radical act of leadership is listening to the soft, still voice instead of the echo chamber–and moving in faith even when you have to stand alone.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s.

Detective Andy Cooper is about to retire. She isn’t sure what’s next … perhaps traveling in the RV she has yet to buy, with a dog she doesn’t currently own. Perhaps gardening near the ever-shrinking patch of woods behind her house–once the cable company’s backhoe is removed. She’ll need to do something, if only to distract herself from how empty her life has become.

Pittsburgh, 1995. Jessica Greer has exactly one enemy worth hating: the theater critic who just stole her column. She never wanted him dead. But when he collapses in the newsroom from a lethal dose of ricin, the timing couldn’t look worse. Suddenly she’s all over the news. Not as a writer. As the prime suspect.

This book celebrates pioneer industrial landscapist Aaron Gorson’s paintings of the Pittsburgh steel mills. Maxwell King sets the mill paintings within the epic story of the place and the times: the development of the Pittsburgh steel industry and how the industrial and technological achievements of that era changed Pittsburgh and the world.

This Patch of Earth is a collection of over 20 essays including observations and insights about the fields, forests, and farms of western Pennsylvania.

Fawn shares her experiences of living with endometriosis while navigating community activism, highlighting how she had to unlearn white supremacy and embrace African spiritual practices, like Hoodoo, as pathways to healing.

Discover how individuals and institutions are redefining the second half of life through science, reinvention, and purpose, proving that living a centenarian life is no longer a distant dream–it’s today’s reality with the new longevity movement.