Quentin Tarantino is back on the shelf. While the director keeps fans guessing about his final film, his second novel, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, is locked for December 8, 2026 from Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, and preorders are open in hardcover, ebook and digital audiobook. If you loved the paperback-pulp energy of his first book, this is the one to reserve now.
The novel brings back the coolest character in the Tarantino universe. Cliff Booth, the stuntman Brad Pitt played to an Academy Award in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, steps out of Rick Dalton's shadow and into a book of his own.
What The Adventures of Cliff Booth is about
The publisher sets the scene in three words: Hollywood, 1977. The Swinging Sixties are long gone, but Cliff keeps going. War hero, stuntman, bartender, cinema projectionist, and now a man who offers the occasional "clandestine services" to friends who need a problem to disappear. HarperCollins bills it as a new novel featuring one of Tarantino's most iconic creations, and the painted cover sets the mood with a glowing Beverly Cinema marquee, a ladder and a dune buggy parked out front.
Like his first novel, this is also a movie novelization, written in Tarantino's own voice. That matters. His Once Upon a Time in Hollywood book was not a beat-for-beat retelling of the film. It wandered into backstories, side plots and movie talk the screen version never touched, which is exactly why fans kept it on the nightstand.
The movie comes first
The book lands right after the film it is tied to. The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth is directed by David Fincher from an original screenplay by Tarantino, with Pitt back as Cliff. Netflix has set it for an exclusive two-week run in IMAX theaters starting November 25, 2026, before it starts streaming on Netflix on December 23. The cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Peter Weller.
That gives you a neat order of operations: see it big in IMAX over Thanksgiving week, pick up the novel on December 8 for the extra layers, then rewatch at home for the holidays.
Release date and editions
- On sale: December 8, 2026 (United States and United Kingdom)
- Publisher: Harper in the United States, Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the United Kingdom
- Formats: hardcover, ebook and digital audiobook
- Hardcover ISBN: 9780063591059
Catch up on Tarantino the author
New to the books? Start with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his 2021 debut work of fiction and a number one New York Times bestseller set in the movie colony of 1969. Then grab Cinema Speculation, his first nonfiction book, a loose and very personal ride through the American films of the seventies that shaped him. Read together, they are basically the prequel to Cliff's 1977 Hollywood.
Shop the Tarantino books
- The Adventures of Cliff Booth by Quentin Tarantino, hardcover preorder
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel, paperback
- Cinema Speculation, hardcover
- Cinema Speculation, paperback
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Our call
This one is Surfacing. A new Tarantino novel tied to a Fincher film is about as good as movie-lover reading gets this year, and December 8 lands right in gift season. Preorder the hardcover now and it shows up while the IMAX run is still fresh.
