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3 Greatest Books to Read This Weekend (Sep 5-6)

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September is here, and every dedicated book-lover knows what that means: it’s time for peak reading season. With major releases on the horizon and the ideal level of coziness setting in the air, what better way to celebrate fall than with some great reads? And if you’re looking for a new book this weekend, you’ve certainly got a lot to choose from.

Between beloved classics and new bestsellers, there’s a wealth of great books out there in the world, but to make things a little easier, we’ve narrowed down a selection of must-reads that have been rocking the charts and sweeping accolades recently. Without further ado, here are three great books that we think you should read this weekend.

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1

‘The Disappearers: A Novel’ (2026)

The Disappearers by Marlon James

Image via Riverhead Books

Written by acclaimed Jamaican author Marlon James (creator of the Channel 4/HBO series Get Millie Black), The Disappearers is a novel set in 1980s Kingston, Jamaica. The story revolves around a gay theatre troupe preparing for a production of John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, who experience a homophobic attack and adopt different strategies to navigate its aftermath. The novel is James’ first new book set in Jamaica after his Booker Prize-winning 2015 work A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Like James’ acclaimed previous work, The Disappearers is an intense story that shows great dedication to realism in both its characterizations and its depiction of violence. The novel made it onto the longlist for the 2026 Booker Prize and has been highly acclaimed by critics. Informed partly by the author’s own experiences and stories he heard in his youth, the book paints a fascinating picture of queer life in Jamaica and the complex intersections of race and sexuality.

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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

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🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

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01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





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02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





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03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





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04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





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05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





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06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





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07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.





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08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.





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09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.





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10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?





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The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

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Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

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Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

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Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

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No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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2

‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’ (2026)

This Me Me a Recoking by Hayden Panettiere
Image via Grand Central Publishing

The world at large was shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of actress and singer Hayden Panettiere last month. Despite her popularity and accolades, Panettiere’s death certainly reminded a lot of people that they knew so very little about the star beyond her work in iconic classics like Remember the Titans, Nashville, and Heroes, and if you’re one of those people, then you need to have this book on your reading list.

Published in May 2026, just months before Panettiere’s death, This Is Me: A Reckoning is a candid, intimate memoir in which the star recounts her lifelong relationship with the world of entertainment. The book shares the highs and lows of Panettiere’s life, including her struggles with loss, postpartum depression, addiction and recovery, domestic abuse, and more. Yet, despite the pain and hardships it outlines, the book is ultimately inspiring, which also makes it all the more heartbreaking.

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3

‘Theo of Golden’ (2023)

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
Image via Atria Books

The third book and first novel by American author Allen Levi, Theo of Golden started life as a self-published book before being picked up by Simon & Schuster for a traditional release in 2026. The story follows the titular stranger, who arrives in the small city of Golden and visits the local coffee house, where he finds 92 portraits of the people of the city. Buying them one at a time, he sets out to reunite the portraits with their subjects, with each exchange leading to a new connection.

Despite the fact that none of the marketing materials for Theo of Golden mention this, it is a narrative rooted in Christian values. This can come as a surprise to some readers who may be expecting a quirky slice-of-life story, but the book is most accurately described as an allegorically and morally charged Christ-narrative, with its protagonist often interpreted by reviewers as a stand-in for God. While that does mean that the book may not be as appealing to all audiences, it’s a heartfelt work with an emphasis on kindness and grace, which we could all use a lot more of, regardless of our religious persuasions.


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Release Date

2024 – 2024-00-00

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Network

HBO Max

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  • Tamara Lawrance

    Millie-Jean Black

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