All lists
9 PICKS · JAN–SEP 2026

Read with Jenna, 2026

Jenna Bush Hager's monthly Today Show picks, announced at the start of each month.

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JANUARY
Homeschooled
Stefan Merrill Block

A memoir of being pulled from school at nine and raised under his mother's private educational theories.

FEBRUARY
One & Only
Maurene Goo

Cassia comes from a family of Korean American matchmakers and has spent ten years searching for her fated match. Then she starts a fling with a man whose boss turns out to be the one she was looking for.

MARCH
Wait for Me
Amy Jo Burns

Set in Appalachia, a mystery about the 1973 disappearance of a rising country-folk star and the woman who uncovers her past.

APRIL
Upward Bound
Woody Brown

Set at a Los Angeles adult day care center, this debut novel follows several staff members and clients -- including an aide and his sister, a nonspeaking client, and the center's director -- as they work toward a holiday show that brings the group together.

MAY
Caller Unknown
Gillian McAllister

On a trip to Texas, a British mother wakes to find her daughter gone and a phone in her bed. The kidnappers don't want money; they want her to commit a crime.

JUNE
The Children
Melissa Albert

The two adult children of a famous children's book author confront the magic and mystery of their upbringing.

JULY
The Shampoo Effect
Jenny Jackson

A young writer arrives in a small Massachusetts beach town for a residency and shakes up a tight-knit group of old friends and their marriages.

AUGUST
Sunlight Finds You
Laura Moriarty

In 1949 Florida, a young woman's love affair is forced apart, and one choice shapes the rest of her life.

SEPTEMBER
The Witches of Cambridge
Alice Hoffman

In 1950s Cambridge, two Radcliffe students join a secret society of witches, then girls from the society start to go missing.