The Poetry Book Society Autumn Choice 2026

Following on from their decorated debut, which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2022 and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry 2023, Padraig Regan’s The Matter deepens the ekphrastic concerns of their previous work, directing their gaze towards naturally occurring objects. Divided into three parts of lyrical abundance – Animal, Mineral and Vegetable – the parts are linked by their attempts to imaginatively encounter the non-human (and at times, the inorganic) in ways that pay attention to the different formal or material possibilities of embodiment, and offer new foils for this remarkable poet’s intense reflections on mortality and desire.

About the Author:

Padraig Regan's debut collection Some Integrity was published by Carcanet in 2022 and received the Clarissa Luard Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. They are the author of two poetry pamphlets: Delicious (Lifeboat, 2016) and Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real (Emma Press, 2017). In 2015, they were a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, and in 2020 they were awarded the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Prize. They hold a PhD on creative-critical and hybridised writing practices in medieval texts and the work of Anne Carson from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen's University Belfast, where they were a Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow in 2021. They were a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge from 2022 to 2024.

Publisher:  Carcanet

Date Published: 24 September 2026

Paperback,  98 pgs.

ISBN: 9781800175822

A tender and insightful read-aloud picture book about anxiety: showing children aged 3-7 years old that they do not have to carry their worries alone – there’s always room under your umbrella for someone else. Tallulah doesn’t like the rain. It spoils her new dress.

It makes her favourite biscuits soggy. It ruins EVERYTHING. So she gets an umbrella from Grandma.

For a while, she feels better… But is one umbrella enough? Tallulah worries about rain thundering down, and washing her away. She decides that she needs complete protection. So she gets another TOTALLY BIG umbrella and under her umbrella house, Tallulah feels safe.

But … is Tallulah missing out on all the fun happening around her? How can she manage her fears and still BE in the world?Perfect for any young reader who may be feeling insecure – the book will inspire confidence and show them the value in branching out of the familiar.

About the Author:

Sarah Crossan grew up in Dublin and London. Her books for children and teenagers have won many prizes including the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal, the CBI Book of the Year, the YA Book Prize, and the CLiPPA Poetry Award. Her first novel for adults, Here Is the Beehive, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for Popular Fiction Book of the Year in the AN Post Irish Book Awards Sarah’s novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She currently lives and works in East Sussex.

Publisher: Walker Books Ltd

Date Published: 10/09/2026

Paperback,  40 pgs.

ISBN: 9781529512021

Róisín and Red meet as teenagers in their small Irish hometown in 1982. Brilliant, sharp-tongued and born to slip through the cracks, Red’s reputation for trouble precedes him – but Róisín finds herself swept up in his storm, and soon their connection deepens.

When a brush with the law pushes Red into a corner, he escapes their town to start a new life in England. As the years pass, they remain tethered to one another, a fragile thread holding their once fierce friendship together. When Róisín arrives in London, the promise of freedom, of reinvention, and of finding her dear friend calls.

But searching for Red leads Róisín to a truth darker than she could have imagined: when you go looking for someone you may uncover parts of yourself along the way that you’d rather stayed buried. And Red – bright, beautiful Red – might not want to be found at all. Stations is a devastating story of love and friendship, and a tender portrait of the choices we blithely make when we are young, unaware that the consequences will reverberate throughout our lives.

About the Author:

LOUISE KENNEDY grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac, which won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses has been translated into over twenty languages. A Sunday Times bestseller, it won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year for Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards and the McKitterick Prize. It was also shortlisted for several awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. In 2025, Trespasses was made into a limited TV series by Channel 4. Before starting her writing career, Kennedy spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.

Publisher:  Bloomsbury Publishing

Date Published: 24 Sep 2026

Hardback,  304 pgs.

ISBN: 9781526664327

X + Y = K is the final, astonishing work by the late Ciaran Carson – an electrifying fusion of memoir, ghost story, and speculative fiction that pushes his lifelong preoccupations with memory, time, and perception into audacious new territory. Moving between Belfast and London, the novel traces the fractured consciousness of Kilpatrick, a man haunted by migraine visions, childhood trauma, and the spectral machinery of history. As séances, scientific experiments, and art-historical meditations bleed into one another, the boundaries between worlds grow porous: tables levitate, cities shimmer like palimpsests, and the dead return in flickers of light. Carson’s trademark blend of forensic detail and lyrical expansiveness animates a narrative where parallel realities overlap, where surveillance and spiritualism mirror each other, and where every object – painting, watch, typewriter – carries its hidden aura.

A profound meditation on vulnerability, doubleness, and the stories we invent to survive, X + Y = K is Carson’s final, radiant act of imagination. 

About the Author:

Ciaran Carson (1948 – 2019) was a Belfast-born poet, prose writer, translator and traditional musician. He worked for the Arts Council of Northern Irlenad before becoming Professor of Poetry and founding director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. His fourteen poetry collections won major awards, as did his translations of The Inferno and The Táin.

Publisher:  The Lilliput Press Ltd

Date Published: 17/09/2026

Paperback,  256 pgs.

ISBN: 9781807620059