TBR 2026
A collection of books on my wishlist for 2026.
Every year, as a tradition, I create a TBR list (To Be Read). Last year, even though life took me for a ride, this list helped me come back and turn some pages here and there. Here’s last year’s list, if you’re interested — here.
Until last year, I based my reading list on Goodreads / Reddit recommendations and added some book covers that I loved! This year, I decided to pick most of them from my bookshelf. Looking at my bookshelf, I felt overwhelmed, so I used AI to make a book list.
Glimpses from My Bookshelves and Input to Gemini Pro
Gemini did a pretty decent job of preparing a TBR for me. I threw in a few books that I had previously planned (or that were missing from the shelf), and here is the final list.
| Name | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin | Reading | Recommended by @andrew. I have already started reading this; it is very gripping. |
| Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson | Reading | AlphaSense Book Club Read. I have been missing out for quite some time, so it is time to catch up. |
| Built to Last by Jim Collins | Ready to Start | This is the last pending book in the series, following Great by Choice and Good to Great. Recommended by Satish Khannan (CEO, MediBuddy). |
| Music of Primes by Marcus du Sautoy | Ready to Start | Time for some fun with Math. |
| Escape From Shadow Physics by Adam Forrest Kay | Ready to Start | And Physics, too! |
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | Ready to Start | And the Galaxy! |
| Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree | Ready to Start | This International Booker Prize winner has been on my list for quite some time. The premise is gripping: a woman’s journey across the border to find her true self! |
| DNA by James Watson | Ready to Start | Back to understanding what is happening in our brains! |
| Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë | Ready to Start | Time for some classics! |
| Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore | Ready to Start | A city I have always been fascinated by. Religion, Politics, War—you name it, and this city has it all! |
| Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson | Ready to Start | |
| A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab | Ready to Start | A light read towards the end of the year. |
| To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee | Ready to Start | I want to end the year with this epic (a re-read for Christmas!). |
All the best for your 2026 reading goals! If you wish to follow along for my reviews / additional books, that I tend to add to this list; here is my notion page</a>.
All the best for your 2026 reading goals! here is Notion page, where I keep track of my reading status and reviews.
Appendix I
List of all books on my shelves.
| Book Name | Author | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| A Brief History of Intelligence | Max S. Bennett | Non-Fiction - Science/AI |
| A Darker Shade of Magic | V.E. Schwab | Fiction - Fantasy |
| A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | Fiction - Literary/Historical |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | Fiction - Classic |
| A Thousand Splendid Suns | Khaled Hosseini | Fiction - Historical |
| All the Bright Places | Jennifer Niven | Fiction - YA Contemporary |
| An Era of Darkness | Shashi Tharoor | Non-Fiction - History |
| Anxious People | Fredrik Backman | Fiction - Contemporary |
| Apache Solr 3 Enterprise Search Server | Various/Technical | Non-Fiction - Tech/Software |
| Attention Factory | Matthew Brennan | Non-Fiction - Business/Tech |
| Attention Management | Maura Nevel Thomas | Non-Fiction - Productivity |
| Autumn | Ali Smith | Fiction - Literary |
| Breaking Dawn | Stephenie Meyer | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| Building a Second Brain | Tiago Forte | Non-Fiction - Productivity |
| Clean Code | Robert C. Martin | Non-Fiction - Tech/Programming |
| Cold Mountain | Charles Frazier | Fiction - Historical |
| Crooked Kingdom | Leigh Bardugo | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| Dan Brown (Inferno) | Dan Brown | Fiction - Thriller |
| Dare to Lead | Brené Brown | Non-Fiction - Leadership |
| Data Science for Business Professionals | Probyto | Non-Fiction - Data Science |
| Design as Art | Bruno Munari | Non-Fiction - Art/Design |
| Eclipse | Stephenie Meyer | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| Elon Musk | Ashlee Vance | Non-Fiction - Biography |
| Factfulness | Hans Rosling | Non-Fiction - Statistics/Society |
| Fifty Shades of Grey | E.L. James | Fiction - Romance |
| Funny Story | Emily Henry | Fiction - Romance |
| Getting Things Done | David Allen | Non-Fiction - Productivity |
| Guide to Investing | Robert T. Kiyosaki | Non-Fiction - Finance |
| Hands-On Machine Learning… | Aurélien Géron | Non-Fiction - Data Science |
| HBR at 100 | Harvard Business Review | Non-Fiction - Business |
| Heads You Win | Jeffrey Archer | Fiction - Thriller |
| Hooked | Nir Eyal | Non-Fiction - Product Design |
| How to Day Trade for a Living | Andrew Aziz | Non-Fiction - Finance |
| How to Predict the Unpredictable | William Poundstone | Non-Fiction - Science/Math |
| How to Talk So People Listen | Sonya Hamlin | Non-Fiction - Communication |
| Introduction to Algorithms | Cormen et al. | Non-Fiction - Computer Science |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | Fiction - Classic |
| Java: The Complete Reference | Herbert Schildt | Non-Fiction - Programming |
| Kafka: The Definitive Guide | Gwen Shapira et al. | Non-Fiction - Tech/Software |
| Learn Kannada Through Telugu | Unknown | Non-Fiction - Language |
| Let’s Talk Money | Monika Halan | Non-Fiction - Personal Finance |
| Manager’s Handbook | Harvard Business Review | Non-Fiction - Management |
| Midnight’s Children | Salman Rushdie | Fiction - Magical Realism |
| Mind Master | Viswanathan Anand | Non-Fiction - Memoir/Sports |
| Mindset | Carol S. Dweck | Non-Fiction - Psychology |
| My Sister, The Serial Killer | Oyinkan Braithwaite | Fiction - Satire/Thriller |
| New Moon | Stephenie Meyer | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| No Hard Feelings | Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy | Non-Fiction - Business/Psych |
| Palpasa Cafe | Narayan Wagle | Fiction - Contemporary |
| Poldark | Winston Graham | Fiction - Historical |
| Sharp Objects | Gillian Flynn | Fiction - Thriller |
| Shoe Dog | Phil Knight | Non-Fiction - Memoir/Business |
| Six of Crows | Leigh Bardugo | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| So Good They Can’t Ignore You | Cal Newport | Non-Fiction - Career/Self-Help |
| Software Engineering | Ian Sommerville | Non-Fiction - Tech/Textbook |
| Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach | Roger Pressman | Non-Fiction - Tech/Textbook |
| Start with Why | Simon Sinek | Non-Fiction - Leadership |
| Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson | Non-Fiction - Biography |
| Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! | Richard P. Feynman | Non-Fiction - Memoir/Science |
| Tales from Arabian Nights | Various | Fiction - Folklore/Classic |
| The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen R. Covey | Non-Fiction - Self-Help |
| The 80/20 Principle | Richard Koch | Non-Fiction - Business |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | Fiction - Classic |
| The Age of AI | Kissinger, Schmidt, Huttenlocher | Non-Fiction - Tech/Society |
| The C++ Programming Language | Bjarne Stroustrup | Non-Fiction - Programming |
| The Daily Stoic | Ryan Holiday | Non-Fiction - Philosophy |
| The Daughter from a Wishing Tree | Sudha Murty | Fiction - Mythology |
| The Everything Store | Brad Stone | Non-Fiction - Business |
| The Five Dysfunctions of a Team | Patrick Lencioni | Non-Fiction - Business Fable |
| The Fury | Alex Michaelides | Fiction - Thriller |
| The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins | Fiction - Thriller |
| The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy | Fiction - Literary |
| The Historian | Elizabeth Kostova | Fiction - Historical/Horror |
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | Fiction - Sci-Fi |
| The Host | Stephenie Meyer | Fiction - Sci-Fi/Romance |
| The Hungry Tide | Amitav Ghosh | Fiction - Historical |
| The Immortals of Meluha | Amish Tripathi | Fiction - Mythology |
| The Innovators | Walter Isaacson | Non-Fiction - Tech History |
| The Intelligent Investor | Benjamin Graham | Non-Fiction - Investing |
| The Palace of Illusions | Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | Fiction - Mythology Retelling |
| The Personal MBA | Josh Kaufman | Non-Fiction - Business |
| The Rainbow Runners | Dhrubajyoti Borah | Fiction - Contemporary |
| The Red Sari | Javier Moro | Non-Fiction - Biography |
| The Theory of Everything | Stephen Hawking | Non-Fiction - Science |
| The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | Fiction - Literary/Satire |
| The Winter Mantle | Elizabeth Chadwick | Fiction - Historical |
| The World of Malgudi | R.K. Narayan | Fiction - Short Stories |
| Think & Grow Rich | Napoleon Hill | Non-Fiction - Self-Help |
| Thinking, Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman | Non-Fiction - Psychology |
| Twilight | Stephenie Meyer | Fiction - YA Fantasy |
| Unconventionals | O’Toole | Non-Fiction - Business |
| Using C and C++ | Various | Non-Fiction - Programming |
| What Matters Now | Gary Hamel | Non-Fiction - Business |
| Why does E=mc2? | Brian Cox | Non-Fiction - Science |
| Word Power Made Easy | Norman Lewis | Non-Fiction - Education |
| You Are Not Expected to Understand This | Torie Bosch | Non-Fiction - Tech History |
| You Can Achieve More | Shiv Khera | Non-Fiction - Self-Help |
| Zero to One | Peter Thiel | Non-Fiction - Business/Startups |