The wheel of this newest of years keeps turning, and that means that the end of January is just about here. It feels astonishing, at least to me, that so much time has passed already. But there can be comfort in little constants when the clock seems to be moving too fast, and one of those is that there will always be new books to look forward (well, until some apocalyptic event, but we’ll leave that bit of dismal speculating to the doomscrollers). For now, there’s a great deal to look forward to.

Below, you’ll find twenty-two exciting new novels, story and poetry collections, and nonfiction books to check out. You’ll find a zodiac-influenced graphic novel by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei; a striking subculture travelogue by Moshe Kasher; an anthology of writers’ thoughts on cats; an anthology of new and old Black voices in poetry curated by Kwame Alexander; many notable debut novels and stories from established authors; and much, much more.

As February approaches, I hope you’ll pick up one of these new books to start the next month off right.

*

Anne Michaels, Held
(Knopf)

“Anne Michaels’s compelling novel, Held, couldn’t be more timely: war and its damages, passed through generations over a century. Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity—its depths and shadows.”
–Margaret Atwood

Andrés N. Ordorica, How We Named the Stars
(Tin House)

“How We Named the Stars is a novel of first love and last rites. Ordorica captures perfectly the challenges of building a life out of experience, out of allowing ourselves to feel everything. A beautiful tale of friendship and the comfort found in stories of the past and in the arms of elders, living and dead.”
–Richard Mirabella

Leo Vardiashvili, Hard by a Great Forest
(Riverhead)

“[A] spectacular debut….The tense plot ups the ante from one narrow escape to the next, and Vardiashvili layers his seamless blend of genres (police thriller, fairy tale quest, coming-of-age story) with lush depictions of Georgia’s landscape, culture, and resilient people. This will leave readers breathless.”
–Publishers Weekly

Ai Weiwei, Elletra Stamboulis, Zodiac (trans. Gianluca Costantini)
(Ten Speed Graphic)

“The internationally renowned Chinese artist recalls a life of resistance and oppression. In this graphic treatment of his life, with illustrations by Italian artist Costantini, Ai blends manifesto and fairy tale for an audience made up of his young son….Finally allowed to leave the country, Ai continues to resist the Chinese regime, closing with the pointed observation, ‘Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist.’ A welcome introduction to the life and work of an exemplary artist.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Paul Magrs, Puss in Books: Our Best-Loved Writers on Their Best-Loved Cats
(HarperCollins)

“This is a glorious marriage of wonderful words and illustrations. Cat-lovers everywhere will be clamoring for it.”
–Milly Johnson

Moshe Kasher, Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes
(Random House)

“A] winning blend of humor and pathos….Kasher is an erudite and charismatic tour guide, providing well-researched introductions to each of his chosen subcultures before diving into his own experiences with them. This will resonate with readers who’ve felt alone in an overwhelming world.”
–Publishers Weekly

Diana Khoi Nguyen, Root Fractures: Poems
(Scribner)

“In Root Fractures, we come face-to-face with a dark gravitational pull, the great black hole of war. Through the Vietnamese American experience, Diana Khoi Nguyen languages a feeling many of us can relate to….Yet, she reminds us, there is a way out. As they ‘illuminate what once was broken,’ each of these poems glimmers and pulses along a pathway out—not for one person alone, but as enduring starlight, for generations to come.”
–Layli Long Soldier

Gregory Pardlo, Spectral Evidence: Poems
(Knopf)

“Infused with a scholar’s deep knowledge of literature, art, and history….[Spectral Evidence is] complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet’s own.”
–Library Journal

Kwame Alexander, This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets
(Little Brown)

“Poet Alexander’s…anthology gathers an astonishing abundance of voices, introducing new poets and also offering a rich gathering of celebrated and familiar voices….This amazing anthology may be the most important poetry collection of this decade. It is a book for poetry lovers, a book for the curious, a book of comfort, a book of prayer, a book of passion and a book of joy, a book of sorrow and a book of desire, but in the end, it is simply and wondrously a grand and glorious book.”
–Library Journal

Kiley Reid, Come and Get It
(Putnam’s)

“Reid returns after her smash hit Such a Fun Age with a sardonic and no-holds-barred comedy of manners….Reid is a keen observer­—every page sparkles with sharp analysis of her characters. This blistering send-up of academia is interlaced with piercing moral clarity.”
–Publishers Weekly

Bora Chung, Your Utopia: Stories
(Algonquin)

“Bora Chung’s stories glisten at the border of our weird world, and all our other weird worlds. A truly sublime book.”
–Samantha Hunt

Dolly Alderton, Good Material
(Knopf)

“Dolly Alderton[‘s] hit memoir Everything I Know About Love distilled lessons learned the messy way in her 20s about romance…and when she later published her debut novel, Ghosts, its plot felt tantalizingly autobiographical….Good Material is her second novel and it allows Alderton to reflect on heartbreak-as-muse while simultaneously propelling her into a more definitively fictional realm….There’s a distinctly Hornbyesque charm to her well-meaning characters and their relatable dramas….[S]olid.”
–The Guardian

Michelle Horton, Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds
(Grand Central Publishing)

“A searing read. The next frontier in preventing abuse against women is shining a spotlight on the cruelty and ignorance with which our courts treat victims of abuse, particularly those who defend themselves against violent men. Dear Sister is an important and painful story, beautifully told.”
–Leslie Morgan Steiner

Jonathan Blitzer, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
(Penguin Press)

“A New Yorker staff writer examines the tragedy of Central America against the backdrop of U.S. immigration policy….It’s a sorrowful yet urgent topic, and Blitzer navigates it with both journalistic rigor and compassion. A sobering, well-reported history in which no one emerges a winner.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Dominic Erdozain, One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy
(Crown Publishing Group)

“A corrective consideration of the right to bear arms. Erdozain delivers a formidable and timely argument: Contrary to the claims of contemporary gun rights advocates, the founders of the U.S. feared the prospect of armed individuals, and the Second Amendment was crafted to guarantee the existence of a supervised collective force rather than the rights of individual gun owners. A profound demolition of misguided gun-rights arguments and a compelling call to action.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Muriel Barberry, One Hour of Fervor
(Europa Editions)

“Barbery’s beautiful descriptions of nature and her infusion of Japanese folklore and wisdom give her story an elegant and meditative quality. With its many poetic observations on life, this is a perfect novel for book groups.”
–Booklist

Dan Jones, Wolves of Winter
(Viking)

“Dan Jones brings us his Essex Dogs in a new campaign—the siege of Calais in 1347—where their grim courage and innate violence are thrown against the high walls and deep moats of Calais. A convincing picture of hard men in a hard time, Dan Jones’s fiction rings with the authority of his scholarly history.”
–Philippa Gregory

Deborah Jowitt, Errand Into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham
(FSG)

“A] portrait of a modern dance icon. Veteran dance critic [Deborah] Jowitt offers an authoritative, sensitive biography….Prodigious research informs an insightful [work].”
–Kirkus Reviews

Ijeoma Oluo, Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—And How You Can, Too
(HarperOne)

“Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race, makes race central to an inspiring look at those fighting against the ‘deep, systemic issues.’ The author considers punishment and incarceration, gender justice and bodily autonomy, labor and business, disability, the environment, education, and the arts, highlighting men and women who are enacting creative solutions to achieve change….An urgent plea for individual and collective action.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Brandi Wells, The Cleaner
(Hanover Square Press)

“Welcome to the office building at night, an eerie and yet totally mundane ship helmed by one woman desperate for connection and valiantly, perhaps delusionally, striving for meaning in her work. Brandi Wells’ The Cleaner is laugh out loud funny, but its project of validating unseen labor is totally serious. This is a book that celebrates humanity, even while tearing down the corporate culture that denies it in the drollest and wittiest of ways.”
–Julia Fine

Mike Chen, A Quantum Love Story
(Mira Books)

“Combining the sweet redemption and understated romance of Groundhog Day with the multiple explosive resets of Edge of Tomorrow, this novel from Chen loops its way through a charming story about opposites attracting, the human ability to reset expectations and emotions against all the odds, and the power of one woman willing to make a big sacrifice for a small change that might just save the universe.”
–Library Journal

CJ Wray, The Excitements
(William Morrow)

“A joy from beginning to end. I loved the jovial adventures of two fearless female nonagenarian war veterans set alongside their intriguing and often thrilling wartime experiences. It’s utterly wonderful.”
–Annie Lyons

As the end of January creeps nearer and—depending where you are—the weeks of wintry weather may be keeping you in, you may be finding yourself in search of something bright, warm, and charming to peer at. A well-lit fireplace, perhaps, or the ineffable swirls of steam from a cup as hot water alchemizes into air. No matter your preferences, you’ll find it better with a book by your side, and what better than something brand-new, its contours unknown, its memories with you yet to be made. Below, you’ll find a whopping twenty-six new ones out today to consider.

There’s a poignant novel from acclaimed poet Kaveh Akbar, Calvino-esque literary fables from C.D. Rose, an expansive Jamaican-Canadian queer debut novel from Christina Cooke; a collection of poems by Keith Taylor that breathe life into the everyday; powerful reflections on the Holocaust, including a never-before-published firsthand account from survivor József Debreczeni and a critique of historical shortsightedness about the Holocaust’s atrocities in a provocative new book by Dan Stone; a new biography of the revolutionary writer Frantz Fanon; a blunt revelation of racism in the medical field; Crystal Hefner’s memoir of escaping from the shadow of Playboy; and much, much more.

No matter what you’re in the mood for, I hope you’ll find somewhere warm and cozy to curl up with one of these. It’ll be worth it.

*

Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!
(Knopf)

“Kaveh Akbar is a radiant soul, a poet so agile and largehearted it comes as no surprise that his first leap into fiction is elegant, dizzying, playful. Martyr! is the best novel you’ll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness for people longed for but forever unknown, the way art as eruption of life gazes back into death, and the ecstasy that sometimes arrives—like grace—when we find ourselves teetering on the knife-edge of despair.”
–Lauren Groff

Yvette Christiansë, Unconfessed
(Other Press)

“Christiansë’s novel isn’t just a stunningly intimate, heart-wrenching history of slave life in Africa. Her protagonist’s furious yearning for freedom (‘Wishes are sometimes just stories that have nowhere to go’) becomes a haunting meditation on love, loss and the stories we choose to tell in order to survive. Gorgeous and tragic, Unconfessed ultimately reveals a confession almost too terrible to bear and impossible to forget.”
–People

C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea
(Melville House)

“A book [of literary fables] that belongs on the same shelf as Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Nabokov’s Pale Fire, and several works by Zoran Zivkovic, Stanislaw Lem and David Markson.”
–The Washington Post

Adam Shatz, The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
(FSG)

“[A] perceptive biography….Elucidating the ideas and figures that animated Fanon’s thinking…the nuanced narrative skillfully illuminates how the disparate threads of Fanon’s life fit together….Shatz also provides discerning commentary on Fanon’s two masterworks….A striking appraisal of a towering thinker.”
–Publishers Weekly

Dan Stone, The Holocaust: An Unfinished Story
(Mariner)

“A holocaust history for our times, passionate as well as scholarly, and written with a sharp eye to the growing threat of the radical right in the present. Stone is not afraid to question the verities that have become attached to this most catastrophic epoch of modern history, and he challenges readers to confront its scope and enormity anew.”
–Jane Caplan

József Debreczeni, Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz (trans. Paul Olchváry)
(St. Martin’s Press)

“Devastating in the simplicity of its language, Debreczeni’s book is of immense eyewitness historical value and one of the greatest pieces of lost Holocaust literature from behind the newly descending Iron Curtain.”
–Stephen L. Ossad

Keith Taylor, All the Time You Want: Selected Poems 1977 – 2017
(Dzanc Books)

“Publication of Keith Taylor’s All the Time You Want is an important event. Everyone who has been listening for years to this essential poetic voice has reason to rejoice anew. Taylor’s arguments in favor of the ordinary communal life…introduce us to a deep and quiet understanding of how life works….And in his poems about the natural world, he has created a space one enters gladl….Reading this book is like opening a door outward into a realm whose refreshment we find we are badly in need of.”
–Richard Tillinghast

Alexander Sammartino, Last Acts
(Scribner)

“What a taut, energetic, tender, and wholly original debut novel Alexander Sammartino has written. He knows something deep about the dark heart of America that somehow doesn’t stop him from writing about it with genuine, goofy love. Somewhere, Denis Johnson and Saul Bellow are smiling because their lineage—that of honest, highwire, virtuosic writing that summons up the world with all its charms and hazards, has found a worthy heir.”
–George Saunders

Christina Cooke, Broughtupsy
(Catapult)

“After her younger brother dies of sickle cell anemia, Akúa returns home to her native Jamaica with his ashes in hopes of reconnecting with their estranged older sister, discovering both love and violence along the way. Christina Cooke’s Broughtupsy is a searing, touching, and often funny meditation on family fault lines drawn by migration, homophobia, cultural difference, and sibling order, from a talented new writer among us.”
–Emily Raboteau

Laurie Frankel, Family Family
(Holt)

“Frankel’s back! Without giving away too much of her dizzying plot, which is supercharged with cliffhanger chapter endings and parallel reveals, the novel is dedicated to the premise that not every adoption story is one of trauma—along the way we will enjoy many fine young characters (Kevin Wilson fans who haven’t yet tried Frankel should) and classic Frankelisms….Full of warmth, humor, and sound advice.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Lee Gutkind, The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting: How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-Do-Wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction
(Yale University Press)

“he Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting offers an insightful overview of the recent history of creative nonfiction and the struggles that early practitioners faced in legitimizing the genre. This is a must-read for all writers.”
–Jennifer Anderson

Jacqueline Alnes, The Fruit Cure: The Story of Extreme Wellness Turned Sour
(Melville House)

“Like an episode of Maintenance Phase meets the essay collection The Empathy Exams, The Fruit Cure brings both rigorous reporting and fearless self-examination to bear on questions far beyond health, athletics, wellness, and food. What Alnes is interested in here is nothing less than the mysterious relationship between our thinking minds and our physical selves and the essential joyful horror that is having a human body.”
–Emma Copley Eisenberg

Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In
(St. Martin’s Press)

“A perceptive personal meditation on the late 1990s and early 2000s pop culture that shaped her childhood….Kennedy provides memoir by way of cultural commentary, cleverly using her hybrid approach to highlight the ways in which trends and media popular during one’s formative years profoundly influence one’s identity. Told with wit and candor, this will strike a chord with Gen Yers.”
–Publishers Weekly

Balsam Karam, The Singularity
(Feminist Press)

“The Singularity by Balsam Karam is a novel about loss and longing–a mother who misses her child, children who miss their mother, and all of those who miss their country as they try to feel the new earth in their new land. A deeply moving work of fiction from a true voice of Scandinavia.”
–Shahrnush Parsipur,

Daisy Goodwin, Diva
(St. Martin’s Press)

“Daisy Goodwin’s richly imagined world makes Diva an irresistible page-turner. Blending high drama with an artist’s eye for detail, Goodwin breathes life into [Maria Callas,] one of the greatest and most tragic stars of the twentieth century. Whether you’re an opera aficionado or simply love an epic tale of love and ambition, Diva is a pure delight.”
–Amanda Foreman

Crystal Hefner, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself
(Grand Central Publishing)

“[Hefner’s] frank memoir scratches some of the glitter off Playboy’s notorious legacy of sexual freedom, luxury, and excess. An illuminating tell-all.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Zachary Pace, I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays about the Women Singers Who’ve Made Me Who I Am
(Two Dollar Radio)

“Zachary Pace’s I Sing to Use the Waiting is an exhilarating mix, part memoir, part examination of queer identity, part investigation into corporate heteronormativity and the internalized homophobia it produces in children and others who are still growing into who they are–and so much more, all of it approached via the lenses of the singers (and their lives) whom Pace encountered at pivotal moments in their own growing up….[A] beautifully provocative, smart, and tender book indeed.”
–Carl Phillips

Brian Klaas, Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters
(Scribner)

“Fluke is the intellectual equivalent of a slap across the face….Klaas’s beautifully written application of chaos theory to human experience won’t just shift your paradigm, it’ll detonate it.”
–Jonathan Gottschall

Benjamin Herold, Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs
(Penguin Press)

“Disillusioned breaks open the quiet racial injustice eating away at the heart of American suburbs. Shattering the myth of upward class mobility through meritocracy, Disillusioned shows us how white supremacy disenfranchises POCs even as they fulfill the requirements of the American suburban middle class dream—and how even…the intended beneficiaries of that dream…are starting to wonder if it’s a dream they can still afford to believe in. A necessary read for everyone in an American suburb today.”
–Michael Eric Dyson

Brian Allen Carter, Bad Foundations
(Clash Books)

“Bad Foundations by Brian Allen Carr is a raw and ferocious journey into the heart of the working class. It bleeds desperation and devours hope. Brian Carr is a blue-collar Raymond Carver, a Midwest Philip Roth who opens the pulsating wound that is the myth of the American Dream.”
–S. A. Cosby

Tanja Maljartschuk, Forgottenness (trans. Zenia Tompkins)
(Liveright)

“It’s no coincidence that time and memory are the big topic today, feeding off the anxieties of the world. [The Ukrainian writer] Tanja Maljartschuk’s novel is about the giant blue whale of time swallowing everything living on its way. What she is interested in is not even disappearance but tracelessness. Both personal and political, this book rages against time and oblivion as all true literature does.”
–Georgi Gospodinov

Antonia Hylton, Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum
(Legacy Lit)

“Antonia Hylton expertly weaves together a moving personal narrative, in-depth reporting, and illuminating archival research to produce a book that left me breathless. Madness is a haunting and revelatory examination of the way that America’s history of racism is deeply entangled in our mental health system. A profoundly important book that helps us make sense of an underexamined aspect of our country’s history.”
–Clint Smith

Uché Blackstock, Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
(Viking)

“Uché Blackstock has made something abundantly clear: If you want to understand a society, look at its hospitals. Dr. Blackstock, one of the most insightful and impactful public voices in medicine, shares her remarkable personal story and her profound insight regarding race, gender, and health inequality….However, this book is so much more than a compelling memoir….Armed with concrete steps for addressing inequality, readers will be inspired to become better stewards of our communities and society.”
–Imani Perry

Jenn M. Jackson, Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism
(Random House)

“In their enlightening new book, Black Women Taught Us, Jenn M. Jackson celebrates the iconic Black feminists who built a movement, and also shares their own personal story of growing and learning with these brilliant canonical thinkers. It is intimate and essential reading, a beautiful bridge connecting ancestral and contemporary Black women activists.”
–Deesha Philyaw

David Reynolds, Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him
(Basic Books)

“Who inspired Churchill as he rose to the pinnacle of power? And how did he himself seek to mold how history would view him? No one is better placed to address these deceptively simple questions than David Reynolds, and he succeeds splendidly in this magnificent book. A fresh and captivating study of the nature and crux of political leadership.”
–Fredrik Logevall

Simon Shuster, The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky
(William Morrow)

“Shuster’s book is a narrative tour de force that takes us deep behind the scenes of the Ukrainian president’s bunker during the tensest days of Russia’s war against Ukraine. An astonishingly intimate portrayal of the former comedian turned wartime leader battling to save his nation–and Europe–that nevertheless keeps a doggedly honest and critical balance. This is the Zelensky book we’ve been waiting for.”
–Catherine Belton

It’s the middle of January already, and, depending where you are, that can mean a lot of things: snowstorms (or yearning for snow if you’re in certain Northeast cities), a chill in otherwise balmy temperatures, thoughts of fleeing to somewhere with those balmy temperatures. No matter which of these describes you, they all go better with a book in hand, and I’ve got twenty-three new ones to recommend below.

You’ll find new Palestinian fiction from Susan Muaddi Darraj and a queer Jewish novel from Temim Fruchter; nonfiction about polyamory and intimacy after brain injuries; life and love lessons from Hannah Arendt; a look behind the curtain at all things Mean Girls; a history of witchcraft in thirteen witch trials; poetry from Caroline Harper New, Irma Peneda, and Liliane Giraudon; and much, much.

I hope you’ll curl up this January, wherever you may be, with one (or ideally many) of these exciting new options.

*

Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea
(Harpervia)

“[Behind You Is the Sea] fearlessly confronts stereotypes about Palestinian culture, weaving a remarkable portrait of life’s intricate moments….This is a story that challenges perceptions, offering a heartfelt glimpse into the interior lives of those who call this community home. A must read novel with unforgettable characters and an unwavering, fresh voice—I couldn’t put it down until the very last page! Darraj delivers an instant, necessary, and authentic classic to the cannon of Arab-American literature.”
–Etaf Rum

Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland
(FSG)

“In Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Adina (maybe an alien, maybe a troubled human, always both) takes the tired old world and describes it so perfectly that we see it as if for the first time. Sparkling and alive, funny and magnificently true, this book woke me up. It made me weep with appreciation for the hard, strange, small-but-huge lives we lead. It made me fall back in love with this universe.”
–Ramona Ausubel

Temim Fruchter, City of Laughter
(Grove Press)

“A wondrous intergenerational story of queerness and Jewish folklore….Fruchter draws on folk tales both real and imagined to create a tender and unforgettable portrait of Jewish culture, faith, and community. This dazzling and hopeful novel is not to be missed.”
–Publishers Weekly

Molly Roden Winter, More: A Memoir of Open Marriage
(Doubleday)

“An intimate portrait of a woman on an earnest search to reclaim her passion and her body from the quotidian obligations of her various roles. This story is a balm for those with unmet yearnings and a triumph for those who have made their own first steps toward getting more out of life.”
–Christie Tate

Lyndsey Stonebridge, We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience
(Hogarth Press)

“In this extraordinary book, Lyndsey Stonebridge details the life and thought of Hannah Arendt in ways that speak to our troublesome times. We get a sense of the expansiveness of Arendt’s thought—her vulnerabilities and her complexity—with stories and intimate details that reveal Stonebridge’s love of her. Beautifully written, this is biography at its best.”
–Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

Matthew R. Morris, Black Boys Like Me: Confrontations with Race, Identity, and Belonging
(Viking)

“Black Boys Like Me is a wonder. It manages to evoke the realness of growing up Black and male in Toronto while stoking a profound discussion of the ways in which we Black boys ‘perform’ our Blackness to navigate an often hostile society. It is by turns insightful, revealing, and funny, but its greatest strength is that it is always real—authentic, brave, and vulnerable….This is a book with powerful ramifications that go beyond race and masculinity and touch the humanity of all our becomings.”
–Antonio Michael Downing

Caroline Harper New, A History of Half-Birds: Poems
(Milkweed Editions)

“A History of Half-Birds, an inventive and impressively wide-ranging collection, has me considering…the connections between…poetry and science…[and] between history and myth, precision and ambiguity, the known and the unknown. In the Anthropocene, we may be tempted to ask what poetry can do for us when what we need are tools for survival. I’d argue that these poems are just that—expertly crafted, satisfying to hold and behold, and sharp enough to dissect what needs dissecting.”
–Maggie Smith

Irma Pineda, Nostalgia Doesn’t Flow Away Like Riverwater (trans. Wendy Call)
(Deep Vellum)

“Poetry is what cannot be silenced. Irma Pineda’s extraordinary collection—in resonant Isthmus Zapotec and Spanish, lucidly translated into precise English by Wendy Call—surveys the echoes of a universal journey across space, time, and language. We are in the hands of a consummate poet through whose vision an entire civilization comes alive. Her protagonists follow the path of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Neruda. An artistic triumph!”
–Ilan Stavans

Liliane Giraudon, Love Is Colder Than the Lake (trans. Sarah Riggs and Lindsay Turner)
(Nightboat Books)

“For half a century, Giraudon’s incisive brilliance has driven French poetry forward. Here, she investigates the work of art in an age of global deperdition. Banalities stumble into horror. Text, collage, and film bottom out into their constitutive unknowns. And ghosts including Fassbinder, Niedecker, and Maier compel us to look the Real in the eye. Riggs and Turner match Giraudon’s pace and polyphony and affirm that poetry is the mode of perception we need now.”
–Teresa Villa-Ignacio

Oscar Hijuelos, Beautiful Maria of My Soul (foreword by Lori Marie Carlson-Hijuelos)
(Grand Central Publishing)

“An affecting portrait of broken dreams and regret, hope and despair, rediscovery and renewal, Beautiful María ties up the loose ends of a love story that died with Nestor in The Mambo Kings, but is still very much alive in the heart and soul of his song, Beautiful María.”
––Bookpage

Amina Gautier, The Best That You Can Do: Stories
(Soft Skull)

“Amina Gautier’s The Best That You Can Do adds even more luster to her award-winning artistry. Sharp emotional focus offsets the blur afflicting people who ‘wisp into memory’ and jump from Puerto Rico to Bed Stuy to Lisbon to Chicago. The threat to Black lives staggers the souls of characters—and of readers. ‘Tears on Tap’ is a masterpiece, and the touching final stories blend with kaleidoscopic power, where intense love can rupture by the next page.”
–Katherine Vaz

Abbott Kahler, Where You End
(Holt)

“Where You End is haunting, suspenseful and beautifully written—a modern-day gothic that explores the peculiar bond between twin sisters and the twisted power of cults; the mysteries of memory and the ineluctable pull of the past. It unnerves and beguiles in ways reminiscent of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”—but it’s a true original.”
–Margaret Talbot

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (and Why We’re Still So Obsessed with It)
(Dey Street Books)

“Get in, loser. On Wednesdays, we read Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s So Fetch, which tells the story of the making of Mean Girls, one of the last great big-screen comedies, while offering so much more. Touching on everything from Y2K-era misogyny to meme culture to the long tail of Mean Girls‘ impact, Armstrong’s book is funny, clear-eyed, full of unexpected insights and superb reporting, and a must for any comedy fan.”
–Saul Austerlitz

Marion Gibson, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
(Scribner)

“These stories of witchcraft, true and vividly told, demonstrate the potent reality of belief in evil and how in any era or place fear can be weaponised and marginal people, mostly women, labelled as wicked and dangerous. Together they comprise not just a history of witchcraft but a cautionary tale of the uncomfortably human habits of paranoia and persecution.”
–Malcolm Gaskill

Annie Liontas, Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery
(Scribner)

“A riveting book about embodiment, pain, identity, and intimacy. Sex with a Brain Injury rings with the honesty, humor, and intelligence of all my favorite books and is among the best examples of ethical personal writing that I’ve ever encountered. Annie Liontas is a treasure and this book is a stunning achievement.”
–Melissa Febos

Monika Helfer, Library for the War-Wounded
(Bloomsbury)

“Beautifully rendered in English by Davidson, Helfer’s novel stirringly blurs the line between memoir and fiction, concluding with painful honesty, confiding her doubts about how well she knew her father. Fans of family sagas will appreciate Helfer’s multifaceted tribute to the father who inspired her love of reading.”
–Booklist

Tina Nguyen, The Maga Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (and How I Got Out)
(Atria / One Signal)

“Delightfully witty, self-deprecating, and deeply perceptive, Tina Nguyen provides an expertly guided tour through the dark corners of the young far right movement that has shaped much of the last decade of American politics. The MAGA Diaries is a necessary read for anyone hoping to understand the insanity that we’ve spent the last decade living through, the depravity of many of the characters who’ve thrust themselves upon our politics, and the…stakes of our coming presidential contest.”
–Wesley Lowery

Michele Norris, Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity
(Simon & Schuster)

“When ordinary people, talk, extraordinary truths are revealed. Michele Norris has an extraordinary gift – she is able to coax people into revealing their profound beliefs about race. This book is a safe space where difficult conversations become healing exchanges.”
–Tayari Jones

Kyle Chayka, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
(Doubleday)

“Necessary reading for anyone who has wondered just how, in expanding our world, the internet has ended up emptying our experience of it. Chayka’s wide-ranging anatomy of algorithmic curation—which, he argues, is increasingly the cultural substitute for human choice itself—makes a bracing case not only for creativity exercised beyond the confines of digital constriction, but also against the dehumanizing sameness algorithms have introduced into our societies and lives. Timely, erudite, important.”
–Ayad Akhtar

Manjula Martin, The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History
(Pantheon)

“The Last Fire Season is a gorgeous, soulfully written, intricately layered meditation on a region, a state, a body and a planet. Manjula Martin brings deep research, love, and attention to her exploration of northern California in polycrisis and weaves her findings with profound personal reflections on chronic pain and bodily harm. This is a work of memoir, ecology, physiology, political economy, horticulture, and history, and a profoundly moving work about humanity and home.”
–Lydia Kiesling

Rebecca Boyle, Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are
(Random House)

“An excellent exploration of how the moon has shaped life on Earth….[Rebecca] Boyle’s dexterous blend of science and cultural history is elevated by her spry prose. This illuminates.”
–Publishers Weekly

Benjamin Breen, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science
(Grand Central Publishing)

“Historian Breen…blends fleet-footed biography with an accessible analysis of mid-twentieth-century research into ‘psychedelic’ experiences as pioneered by anthropologist Margaret Mead, her husband and fellow anthropologist Gregory Bateson, and the Macy Foundation, a scientific group that became a CIA clearinghouse during the Cold War….Breen artfully weaves Mead’s biography with fascinating details….The result is a riveting exploration of a shadowy episode in twentieth-century history.”
–Publishers Weekly

Robert Cwiklik, Sheridan’s Secret Mission: How the South Won the War After the Civil War
(Harper)

“In Sheridan’s Secret Mission Robert Cwiklik describes in often chilling detail how the South may have lost the Civil War, but it won the next one, a guerrilla war to derail Reconstruction and hold blacks back another hundred years. It’s as enlightening as it is appalling.”
–John Strausbaugh

I’m still processing that it’s now 2024—I just almost wrote “2023” again!—and it can feel a little disorienting to enter a new year for the first few days, if not weeks. But there are reliable things to look forward to, like brand-new books coming out each week, and, after a slowdown in December, we’re back into the swing of things with a slew of exciting new fiction, memoirs, poetry collections, and critical nonfiction to consider.

Below, you’ll find a new collection of short stories from Jill McCorkle, Katherine Min’s much-buzzed posthumous novel The Fetishist, a hallucinatory new novel from Álvaro Enrigue memorably described by one reviewer as “an Aztec West Wing,” and many other intriguing fictions; poetry collections from Yalie Kamara and Mikeas Sánchez, the latter the first woman to publish a book of poems in Zoque and Spanish; new nonfiction tackling music for the deaf, climate change, fatness, the checkered history of the Surrealist movement, and more; and many other intriguing titles.

As 2024 creeps forward, its contours uncertain, I hope you’ll find some comfort in choosing one, or many, of the great new options below!

*

Stephen McCauley, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble
(Holt)

“Picture F. Scott Fitzgerald with tongue in cheek and you get the gift of Stephen McCauley’s You Only Call When You’re in Trouble. I loved these deliciously flawed characters and every thought that runs through their heads. As with all things Stephen McCauley, it has the highest of wit and the sharpest of social commentary plus tenderness and much love.”
–Elinor Lipman

Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes: And Other Stories
(Algonquin Books)

“Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder.”
–Alexander Chee

Katherine Min, The Fetishist
(Putnam’s)

“Darkly funny, strangely poignant and sometimes startlingly vicious, The Fetishist is a wonderful novel from an author we lost too soon, and a sweeping yet intimate statement on the impacts of racism and sexism on Asian American women….Captivating, hilariously twisted…simultaneously playful and powerful….This remarkably clever, wickedly incisive little book will keep you hanging on every word and leave you with questions you’ll ponder for days.”
–BookPage

Shoji Morimoto, Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A Memoir
(Hanover Square Press)

“Undeniable poignancy…a narrative that transcends cultural borders….An eccentric, charming book, showing how humans can connect in the strangest of circumstances.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Deborah G. Plant, Of Greed and Glory: In Pursuit of Freedom for All
(Amistad Press)

“If you want to understand the current issues surrounding race, social justice, and inequality, you have to read Deborah Plant’s book, Of Greed and Glory. Deborah understands that the issues surrounding race, unfolding before us now in America, are deeply rooted in the legacy of the African American past. She writes eloquently and beautifully about that past. Of Greed and Glory is a must-read book for socially conscious citizens.”
–Clyde W. Ford

Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia
(Crown Publishing Group)

“Unshrinking is an incisive polemic that brilliantly dissects fatphobia, the way it encroaches upon our lives, and how ultimately we can, if we are willing, do the challenging work of unlearning damaging ideas about fatness, health, and happiness.”
–Roxane Gay

Yalie Saweda Kamara, Besaydoo: Poems
(Milkweeed Editions)

“Yalie Saweda Kamara’s lucent poetry collection Besaydoo encircles matters of race, heritage, boundaries, and exchanging ‘worry for hope’….Eloquent, proud, and discerning, the poems of Besaydoo preserve the wary splendor of lived experience.”
–Foreword Reviews

Mikeas Sánchez, How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems (trans. Wendy Call and Shook)
(Milkweed Editions)

“In a fiercely personal yet authoritative voice…Mikeas Sánchez explores the worldview of the Zoque people of southern Mexico…How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems examines the intersection of Zoque struggles against colonialism and empire, and those of North African immigrants and refugees….Coming from the only woman to ever publish a book of poetry in Zoque and Spanish, this timely, powerful collection pairs the bilingual originals with an English translation for the first time.”
–Latin American Literature Today

Hisham Matar, My Friends
(Random House)

“My Friends is a breathtaking novel, every page a miracle and an affirmation. If there is a language of exile, My Friends is what it sounds like: exquisite and painful, compassionate and unflinching, and, above all, overwhelming in its boundless hope that within exile rests a path toward a different kind of return—one that leads us back to ourselves. Hisham Matar is one of our greatest writers. How lucky we are to be in his midst.”
–Maaza Mengiste

Shubnum Khan, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years
(Viking)

“Haunting and healing, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, with its shades of The House of Spirits and Rebecca, is one of the best books I’ve read this year…Khan’s gorgeous writing lays bare what it means to love, grieve, haunt and, ultimately, let go.”
–Sarah Addison

Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires (trans. Natasha Wimmer)
(Riverhead Books)

“Throughout the book, Enrigue (and in English his excellent translator, Natasha Wimmer) boldly uses modern language to recreate the past….Parts of the novel play like an Aztec West Wing, taking us deep into the political maneuverings of the royal court but blending its particularities with twenty-first-century psychology. It’s a rich approach that achieves a hallucinatory vividness.”
–The Guardians

Matt Hay, Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life
(St. Martin’s Press)

“After learning that his diagnosis with neurofibromatosis would eventually render him completely deaf, Hay leaned into his lifelong love of pop music and resolved to create a playlist of songs he never wants to forget….While Hay doesn’t sugarcoat his circumstances—he unsparingly recounts his lengthy recovery from multiple brain surgeries, for example—his optimism in the face of adversity is stirring. This moving memoir makes magic out of facing the music.”
–Publishers Weekly

Elizabeth Flock, The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice
(Harper)

“Three women pursue justice in this powerful account of what happens when institutions do not protect them. Journalist Flock (The Heart Is a Shifting Sea, 2018) brings the gripping stories of Brittany Smith, Angoori Dahariya, and Cicek Mustafa Zibo to life with vivid detail and in-depth research….Her compelling narrative will resonate with those who seek to live in a more feminist, egalitarian society.”
–Booklist

Mark Polizzoti, Why Surrealism Matters
(Yale University Press)

“Mark Polizzotti makes good on his title and reveals Surrealism as a source of ongoing inspiration and energy. He’s the perfect guide: clear-sighted about Surrealist misogyny and homophobia, but equally clear about its revolutionary potential. A work of commanding integrity.”
–Rosanna Warren

Aube Rey Lescure, River East, River West
(William Morrow)

“River East, River West is a beautifully expansive tale of new beginnings—and the pasts we can’t extricate ourselves from. From Qingdao to Shanghai, readers are invited into a richly layered world teeming with secrets, desires, and unexpected tenderness. Bright human insights shine through unforgettable characters fighting for their autonomy….In this exciting literary debut, Aube Rey Lescure deftly illuminates the difficult choices we make to save ourselves and each other.”
–Thao Thai

Linnea Axelsson, Aednan: An Epic (trans. Saskia Vogel)
(Knopf)

“Aednan is a soul-gripping and enthralling journey into what it feels like to be othered in your own land. Through powerful poetic prose, Axelsson offers us a profound invitation into understanding what it means to be deeply intertwined with nature. It takes raw talent to build deeply fleshed out worlds and deep characters with sparse poetry. Reading Adnan was an immerse privilege, one I indulged in with utmost reverence.”
–Lola Akinmade Åkerström

Jami Attenberg (editor), 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round
(S & S / Simon Element)

“This encouraging handbook by novelist Attenberg…offers brief essays aimed at motivating readers to get writing….The highlights of the volume are letters originally written for Attenberg’s Craft Talk newsletter from such writers as Roxane Gay, Min Jin Lee, Emma Straub, and Bryan Washington, who expound on their craft; Carmen Maria Machado, for instance, describes her process of recording voice notes of narrative ideas and later expanding them into stories.”
–Publishers Weekly

Benn Steil, The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century
(Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster)

“One of the strangest characteristics of Cold War historiography is the frequency with which Henry Wallace and hagiography have accompanied one another. ‘If only Wallace, and not Truman, had succeeded FDR, ‘ the argument runs, ‘the Cold War would never have happened.’ No Wallace biographer, until now, has made a serious effort to assess that claim….With The World That Wasn’t, Benn Steil has risen triumphantly to that challenge: his book is equally important for what it tells us about our past, and for what it may imply about our future.”
–John Lewis Gaddis

Kohei Saito, Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto (trans. Brian Bergstrom)
(Astra House)

“Slow Down has an almost magic ability to formulate complex thoughts in clear language, as well as to combine strict conceptual thinking with passionate personal engagement. Saito’s book is not just for anyone interested in ecology or in the problems of today’s global capitalism, it is simply indispensable for those of us who want to SURVIVE—in short, to all of us.”
–Slavoj Zizek

Maria Hummel, Goldenseal
(Counterpoint)

“Goldenseal is a savagely beautiful novel about the dangers and damages of passionate lifelong female friendship, intertwined with a brilliantly wrought elegy for the twentieth century. Hummel is a powerful writer. This book is extraordinary.”
–Kate Christensen

Cynthia Zarin, Inverno
(FSG)

“Zarin’s point, perhaps, is that life-changing love affairs mushroom out beyond the moments spent together. Full of gorgeous descriptions, fascinating characters, and impressive allusions to fairy tales, Robert Redford movies, Girl Scouts, Blondie, and more, Inverno is intellectual, acrobatic, and fascinating.”
–Booklist

A belated Happy New Year’s to all of you! To usher in 2024—and your likely resolutions to read more books this year than before, or, at least, to read a whole bunch of them—here are eighteen new books fresh off the presses.

Below, you’ll find fiction, poems, and nonfiction. There’s a sweeping debut from the Malaysian writer Vanessa Chan about colonialism and one woman’s unlikely—and consequential—choice to become a spy for Japanese invading forces during the Second World War; a new novel from Tara Isabelle Burton that plays with fairytale tropes to tell a tale of NYC, underworld cults, and more; a collection of poems from Katie Peterson hauntingly influenced by California’s landscapes and climate change; a reflection on humanity’s relationship with deer and, by extension, the natural world at large; provocative new book about Nietzsche and political divisions; a roving biography of T. E. Lawrence; an eye-opening exploration of A.I. and the workplace; and much, much more.

2023 was a lot, and I suspect 2024 will be the same, if not more—but how much better any year can be with a delightful new book in your hands.

*

Vanessa Chan, The Storm We Made
(Marysue Rucci Books)

“In Vanessa Chan’s spellbinding debut, one woman’s desire to change her destiny shapes the future of a colonized nation. Combining cinematic grandeur with nuanced storytelling, The Storm We Made offers the hidden history that only fiction can reveal: the everyday yearnings of people surviving a brutal occupation, children trying to make sense of the unspeakable, and the search for love. I’ll never forget this book.”
–Jessamine Chan

Tara Isabella Burton, Here in Avalon
(Simon & Schuster)

“Here in Avalon is a fascinating trip to a demimonde of Burton’s prodigious imagination. In its mysterious bacchanal, we find a unique story about the seductions of art and beauty, and the temptation to leave the stultifying mainstream behind.”
–Lydia Kiesling

Julie Myerson, Nonfiction
(Tin House)

“This glitteringly painful novel, so steady and clear in its analysis of addiction, creativity, and the factors that determine female and familial identity, is the book [Myerson] was intended to write, and she has elevated it into a template for the re-making of self by means of a transformative and radical honesty.”
–Rachel Cusk

Katie Peterson, Fog and Smoke: Poems
(FSG)

“Each line shines in the sun like stained glass. Fog and Smoke is a triumph of observation and intimacy that invigorates the reader to act for the natural world.”
–Booklist

Erika Howsare, The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors
(Catapult)

“Extraordinary and absorbing, The Age of Deer proves John Muir’s notion that when we pick out one thing in the universe we find it hitched to everything else. Howsare understands that we live in an age of numbness when ‘few of us are willing to really feel,’ and suggests, through the lives of deer and her experience with them, an elemental antidote.”
–David Gessner

Jill Burke, How to Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty & Female Creativity
(Pegasus Books)

“A lively and intriguing exploration of female life in the Renaissance, lifting the lid on anxieties and aspirations that will sound oddly familiar to any twenty-first-century reader. You’ll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way.”
–Maggie O’Farrell

Ranulph Fiennes, Lawrence of Arabia: My Journey in Search of T. E. Lawrence
(Pegasus Books)

“A biography of T.E. Lawrence, including accounts of his military and political work in supporting the Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire in WWI, runs parallel to Fiennes’ recollection of events in Oman and their relation to Lawrence’s experiences. Fiennes’ descriptions of the immense Arabian Desert and its weather are arresting and surprising, his account suspenseful.”
–Booklist

Tara Karr Roberts, Wild and Distant Seas
(Norton)

“A lyrical and beautiful work of historical fiction….Charming and atmospheric, Wild and Distant Seas celebrates the complexities of womanhood through the ages and poses questions about memory, family identity, one’s legacy, and the nature and power of free will. What stories do we inherit and how much can we alter the narrative of our lives and of those of our loved ones? And when is it time to let go? At its heart, this is a story of loss, redemption, tenacity, and hope.”
–Julie Gerstenblatt

Christy Lefteri, The Book of Fire
(Ballantine Books)

“Christy Lefteri’s beautiful new novel, The Book of Fire, is a compelling story of love, loss, and redemption in the face of unimaginable tragedy. As with The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy transports the reader to a once lush and now destroyed world, where a community—and a mother—must fight to regain what has been lost. Uniquely crafted and full of both stunning imagery and human emotion, The Book of Fire is a story that will long remain in the reader’s mind.”
–Kristin Hannah

Matthew Blake, Anna O
(Harper)

“Anna O sits at the pinnacle of psychological suspense! It’s a nonstop thrill ride through the darker sides of the human mind, filled with plot twists galore and populated by characters who are utterly real and undeniably appealing. This novel is written in the voice of a natural-born storyteller.”
–Jeffrey Deaver

Fiona Maddocks, Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile
(Pegasus Books)

“Classical music critic Maddocks details in this captivating biography the fascinating and traumatic life of Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. Maddocks provides an up-close portrait of an influential musician and the shifting cultural climate in which his legacy was shaped. Classical music lovers will be engrossed.”
–Publishers Weekly

Caroline Campell, The Power of Art: A Human History of Art: From Babylon to New York City
(Pegasus Books)

“Campbell, director of the National Gallery of Ireland, debuts with an enriching tour of 15 cities. Conjuring each of her settings in vivid detail, Campbell offers both a lively narrative and a corrective to the ‘genius’ model of art history. Readers will come away with fresh insights into how art gets made.”
–Publishers Weekly

Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America
(Columbia University Press)

“At a pivotal moment in American history, Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware have given Americans of all stripes a vital guide to the dangers pervading our politics and especially the risk of internecine violence. Few if any other scholars could approach this freighted topic with the historical perspective, disciplinary breadth, and methodological rigor as do Hoffman and Ware. Their writing, moreover, is brisk and stylish, all the better to reach the wide audience this urgently needed book deserves.”
–Steven Simon

Michele Mari, Verdigris (trans. Brian Robert Moore)
(And Other Stories)

“The charm that Mari exercises on his readers, from the most devoted to the most distracted, is incredible….More than anyone else, Michele Mari represents today a model of writer that seems on the point of disappearing—fully literary, lofty.”
–Esquire

Andrey Platonov, Chevengur (trans. Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler)
(New York Review of Books)

“A superb work of Soviet-era Russian literature in a welcome, well-annotated new translation.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Daniel Tutt, How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche
(Repeater Books)

“Written with clarity and force, sensitive to historical context and covering an extensive array of the Nietzsche literature, this book animates a new standard in reading Nietzsche.”
–Don Dombowsky

Hilke Schellman, The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now
(Hachette)

“In The Algorithm, Hilke Schellmann has done the impossible: she has rendered the baffling ‘Wild West’ of AI immensely readable and approachable. Schellmann gives us the dark and hidden history of tech innovation and the marketplace through the stories of those whose lives have been smashed by its glitches.”
–Eliza Griswold

Gary Taube, Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments
(Knopf)

“This is [Gary] Taubes’s fifth book about nutrition science, and I would argue that his meticulous, science-based work (he is a three-time winner of the National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Journalism award) makes him the Bryan Stevenson of nutrition, an early voice in the wilderness for an unorthodox view that is increasingly becoming accepted.”
–The Guardian

2o24 is approaching! It’s hard to believe that 2023 is over, but a new year means new possibilities (always), new resolutions (maybe), and new books (once again, always). But it also means a new chance to pick up some excellent reads from 2023 that you might have missed when they first came out, and below you’ll find nineteen exciting books that will be out in paperback in January.

There are novels by Colm Tóibín, Geraldine Brooks, Tome Crewe, Priya Guns’ queer ride-share-based retelling of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, and many other narratives from authors new and established. You’ll also find a plethora of fascinating nonfiction: a moving reflection on stuttering, a charming look at owls and illness, an inventive “annotated photo album” by Janet Malcolm, an expansive look at phone-free hanging out, an account of the experiences of Black Americans in the Second World War, and much, much more.

If you missed any of these before, now’s your chance to curl up somewhere cozy with a brand-new paperback, because what, really, can beat that? Here’s to ushering in the new year with a blend of old and new.

*

Colm Tóibín, A Guest at the Feast: Essays
(Scribner)

“These essays show the landscape of the author’s soul, mapping out events that have shaped him as a person and writer….Readers will savor every page of this book. Erudite essays from one of the world’s finest writers.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Geraldine Brooks, Horse
(Penguin Books)

“[A] marvelous novel. Brooks structures the book like a mystery….Through Jarret’s story, the author reveals the unique and indispensable role Black trainers and jockeys played in the pre-Civil War South….Equestrian or no, readers will appreciate Brooks’s invitation to linger awhile among beautiful and graceful horses, to see the devotion they engendered in her characters.”
–Shelf Awareness

Tom Crewe, The New Life
(Scribner)

“The spirit of Forster broods over Tom Crewe’s lyrical, piercing debut, The New Life, which lends a contemporary urgency to an exploration of same-sex intimacy and social opprobrium….The New Life is a fine-cut gem, its sentences buffed to a gleam, but with troubling implications for our own reactionary era.”
–The Washington Post

Miriam Darlington, The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls
(Tin House)

“A smooth mixture of memoir and nature writing….Lyrical and captivating…heartfelt, enchanting, and beautifully written.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Janet Malcolm, Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory
(Picador)

“[Still Pictures] may be the world’s most elegant annotated photo album….Each sentence, in true Malcolm form, turns out masterful….The collage artist puts fragments next to each other to make meaning, or spark energy, and this is what Malcolm does in Still Pictures.…She is writing about the difficulty we have evoking our former selves, the many ways in which they are strangers to us.”
–The Atlantic

Matthew F. Delmont, Half American: The Heroic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad
(Penguin Books)

“This vivid book shows how much of World War II looks different when viewed from the perspective of Black Americans—many of whom drew parallels between the fascist threat abroad and Jim Crow at home.”
–The New York Times Book Review

De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Decent People
(Bloomsbury)

“De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s powerful second novel Decent People is a gripping mystery but also something more. A thoughtful examination of small-town life becomes a story about America itself, looking directly at the legacies of racism and segregation, homophobia and secrecy, poverty and power.”
–Rumaan Alam

Priya Guns, Your Driver Is Waiting
(Vintage)

“A queer feminist retelling of the 1970’s film Taxi Driver, this one had me laughing loud enough to draw looks on the subway, and that takes some doing. It’s a crackling social commentary on the social justice movements of our time, the gig economy, performative wokeness and who gets to speak on behalf of the disadvantaged. It’s a fast-paced read that begs to be devoured.”
–Good Housekeeping

Grady Hendrix, How to Sell a Haunted House
(Berkley)

“Grady Hendrix’s horror novels are a gateway drug to the genre….By weaving violence, family trauma and humor, Hendrix creates a texture that engages the reader emotionally and viscerally…[a] gripping, wildly entertaining exploration of childhood horrors.”
–The New York Times

John Hendrickson, Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter
(Vintage)

“Life on Delay recasts stuttering and, in doing so, challenges long-standing attitudes toward disability….Hendrickson transforms the disorder…into an invitation to all of us to demonstrate genuine humanity….This full-hearted memoir grapples with shame, resentment and fear as Hendrickson answers with courage and compassion one of the most meaningful questions in life: ‘How do you accept an aspect of yourself that you’re taught at such an early age to hate?'”
–The Washington Post

Sheila Liming, Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time
(Melville House)

“Like me, you will thoroughly enjoy hanging out with this book. Jam-packed with eloquent and authentic testimony, it delivers many fresh insights on experiences that we might otherwise take for granted.”
–Andrew Ross

Matthew Connelly, The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals about America’s Top Secrets
(Vintage)

“Connelly has defined an existential crisis: the suppression of American history….The Declassification Engine makes the case that the culture of secrecy diminishes democracy. And it has now become a culture of destruction as well.”
–The New York Times Book Review

Kai Thomas, In the Upper Country
(Penguin Books)

“In the Upper Country is not only fiction alive with history; it is historic….In the Upper Country reminds me—yes—of Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes and Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. And practically every page turns up a sentence or a phrase that could have been penned by Toni Morrison or James Baldwin…a gift of lyric genius to enthrall all—and to educate Afro-Métis people about the love and courage that enabled their creation.”
–George Elliott Clarke

Heather Darwent, The Things We Do to Our Friends
(Bantam)

“[A] tantalizingly sinister debut thriller….Readers will be on the edge of their seats with this gripping story of codependency and obsession, and fans of Kate Lowe’s The Furies and J.T. Ellison’s Good Girls Lie will devour this—and eagerly await more from Darwent.”
–Shelf Awareness

Brendan Slocumb, Symphony of Secrets
(Vintage)

“A provocative follow to his much-lauded 2022 novel, The Violin Conspiracy, praised for its pitch-perfect dive into the world of classical music and the struggles faced by Black musicians who want to be included and respected for their talents….Slocumb writes an intriguing and vivid story about social injustice, cultural appropriation and ‘whitewashing’….[The] thoughtful pacing carries an important message about race and privilege and the lengths to which people in power will go to manipulate history.”
–The Star Tribune

Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho
(Liveright)

“Long-listed for the 2022 Booker Prize, this time-leaping novel connects a pantheon of queer literary titans—Sappho! Oscar Wilde! Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West!—with one muse. This book reads as if it’s skipping: full of movement, lightness, and whimsical defiance.”
–Bustle

Saket Soni, The Great Escape
(Algonquin)

“It’s paced like a thriller, written like a poem, and full of vivid characters who’d enliven any novel, but it’s the true story one of the largest modern-day trafficking incidents in recent history and how Saket Soni and his crew went after the powerful perpetrators. A story as important as it is riveting to read.”
–Rebecca Solnit

Jeff Hobbs, Children of the State: Stories of Survival and Hope in the Juvenile Justice System
(Scribner)

“In this original, heartfelt book, veteran journalist Jeff Hobbs brings us deep into the juvenile justice system, bearing witness to a broken system while capturing the everyday lives of unbroken teachers, counselors, and students locked behind its high walls. At turns touching and intimate, enraging and honest—this book, more than any other I know, forces us to see America’s youngest prisoners for what they truly are: just kids.”
–Matthew Desmond

Marta McDowell, All the Presidents’ Gardens: How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America
(Timber Press)

“History is often best learned from stories, and there are plenty of anecdotes here….The writing is conversational and inviting, as one might find when visiting a garden with someone who knows it well. Photographs, line drawings, paintings, maps, and other documents add to the interesting stories…a delightful and elucidating work.”
–Booklist

The end of the year is approaching, and that means that this will be my last round-up of new books until January. Although books make excellent presents, December often represents a bit of a drought for new books, so today’s list will be short.

But there are some exciting options all the same. You’ll find two new editions of classics by Octavia Butler, each with a new foreword from an acclaimed author, which may be perfect for someone who hasn’t yet read her Parables. The esteemed critic Julia Kristeva also has a new book out about Dostoyevsky, death, and sex; the migration scholar Hein de Haas has a timely study of human migration that argues against the many harmful, often xenophobic myths about migrants; and game theoretician Karl Sigmund has composed a book attempting to unite mathematics and philosophy.

The holidays can be times to turn the mind off (if you get the chance to), but they can also be lovely opportunities to spend time with complex subjects you may not otherwise have had the time to, so whether your interests skew more to Butler’s SFF, literary criticism, politics, or thought experiments, I hope you’ll find something fascinating below.

Whatever you do, may you all have a delightful December and even delightful-er New Year’s celebration, however you should choose to revel. I’ll see you all next year! It’s been a pleasure—thank you for reading, and more soon!

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Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (foreword by Levar Burton)
(Grand Central Publishing)

“Unnervingly prescient and wise. A worthy read for those intent on building a better world as this pandemic continues to lay bare how untenable, how depravedly unequal, the American way of life is and has always been.”
–Yaa Gyasi

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents (foreword by Akwaeke Emezi)
(Grand Central Publishing)

“The story of three generations of Olamina women….Most touching in the novel are the friction between generations, the kinds of faith each generation indulges in, and the new families that form when traditional ones are splintered.”
–The Los Angeles Times

Julia Kristeva, Dostoyevsky in the Face of Death: Or Language Haunted by Sex (trans. Armine Kotin Mortimer)
(Columbia University Press)

“Poetic, stunning, fascinating, and deeply insightful, Kristeva’s readings of Dostoyevsky are as much about us and our time as they are about him and his works. This book is a celebration of literature and language as an antidote to the extremes of nihilism and fundamentalism that still threaten us today.”
–Kelly Oliver

Karl Sigmund, The Waltz of Reason: The Entanglement of Mathematics and Philosophy
(Basic Books)

“A mind-bending jaunt…that makes clear in fascinating detail how math is more than a sum of its parts.”
–Publishers Weekly

Hein de Haas, How Migration Really Works: The Facts about the Most Divisive Issue in Politics

“De Haas’s primary insight is to look at migration as a global phenomenon—and not just from the perspective of countries in the west receiving migrants from elsewhere. Although media coverage often gives the impression that we are living in an unprecedented age of migration…this is not the case….De Haas suggests…it’s more useful to think of migration as a fact of life. The social and political questions it raises…are ones that concern us all.”
–The Guardian

We’re nearing the middle of December, a month in which the publishing industry, unlike our frenzied quests to find last-minute gifts, tends to slow down. As a result, though books make quite excellent presents, there aren’t always as many brand-new options to choose from at this time of the year, at least compared to previous months.

But fear not, Dear Readers: there’s still much to be excited about if you’re on the search for new tomes (and especially if you’re in the market for nonfiction). Below, you’ll find a small but wide-ranging list of new books out today (with the exception of Penning Poison, which will be out on the 14th, and a new edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s long poem Renascence, which will be available on the 15th).

There’s a comprehensive exploration of The Cure, a history of the anonymous letter, a mystery novel about Alexander Hamilton’s widow, a harrowing memoir about living with mental illnesses in America’s rigid medical system, a travelogue following in the literal footsteps of Caesar, and more. While this list is shorter than normal, I hope you’ll still find something exciting below to add to your lists or to wrap in paper for someone special (unless you mean to send them a pointed message by leaving them a copy of Penning Poison anonymously). Enjoy!

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Emily Cockayne, Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters
(Oxford University Press)

“Emily Cockayne, one of the leading social historians of our times, has written a truly original history of anonymous letter writing. With her unparalleled skills of exploration and empathy, she has provided a brilliant and beautifully written account of neglected phenomenon in all its social complexity.”
–Emma Griffin

Martin Solares, How to Draw a Novel
(Grove Press)

“The author’s mercurial focus flows in unexpected directions, mixing literary analysis, biographical tidbits…and punchy aphorisms…in kaleidoscopic fashion, and the line drawings amuse….It adds up to an audacious and unique consideration of the art of the novel.”
–Publishers Weekly

Simon Price, Curepedia: An A-Z of The Cure
(Dey Street Books)

“Everything you need to know about the goth-rock pioneers and pop hit-makers. Founded in the late 1970s, the Cure cannily blended gloom and psychedelia—and eventually developed a knack for overtly upbeat tunes like ‘Friday I’m in Love’ and ‘Just Like Heaven.’ British music journalist Price’s comprehensive guide to the band is earthbound, upbeat, well researched, and largely devoid of fanboy chatter….Handy for fans of the band and British rock history in general.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Mollie Ann Cox, The Lace Widow
(Crooked Lane Books)

“It’s a constant frustration to historians that women’s lives are comparatively absent from the record, but…Mollie Ann Cox has fitted a deft murder mystery into the few weeks following the death of Eliza Hamilton’s famous husband [Alexander]. Delicious historical detail and a heroine of tremendous verve. What a treat.”
–Catriona McPherson

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence
(Third Man Books)

“A person stands and looks at mountains, turns to look at a bay, lies down and screams, and gets up. This is nearly all that “happens” in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Renascence,’ the [long] poem that made her famous at just twenty years of age. But, over twenty stanzas, many more and much stranger events transpire…..[B]uilt into the poem itself is a canny investigation into the uncanny powers of poetry as medium and mediation.”
–Poetry Foundation

Patricia Meisol, A Heart Afire: Helen Brooke Taussig’s Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine
(MIT Press)

“An enormous work—and, indeed, achievement—covering a life that explores most of the twentieth century. This impressive piece of research is not just about one woman, but also about the health of a nation and global developments in science and medicine.”
–Claire Brock

Emmett Rensin, The Complications: On Going Insane in America
(HarperOne)

“A firsthand look at schizoaffective and bipolar disorder. In an absorbing debut memoir, journalist Rensin recounts in chilling detail his ‘superior and specific epistemological access to the lived experience of being mad’….[H]e describes…repeated hospitalizations and often frustrating encounters with ‘nearly two dozen therapists’; the multiple medications…that keep his symptoms in check; and, most emphatically, his ‘particular way of being in the world’….An intimate look at a tormented mind.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Mel Weitsman, Seeing One Thing Through: The Zen Life and Teachings of Sojun Mel Weitsman
(Counterpoint)

“Sojun’s is a voice of American Zen, inflected with a ferocious wisdom, unafraid to address our weaknesses, our foolishness, and always with gentleness. Intimate memories of Suzuki Roshi blend with the real everyday problems of today’s Zen practitioners and Zen Centers. His teachings of classic Zen stories are made relevant to our lives today.”
–Enkyo Pat O’Hara

John Keahey,  Following Caesar: From Rome to Constantinople, the Pathways That Planted the Seeds of Empire
(St. Martin’s Press)

“This delightful travelogue from historian Keahey (Seeking Sicily) chronicles his three-month journey to walk the very stones Julius Caesar did some 2,000 years ago….This winsome and deeply researched account will spellbind readers.”
–Publishers Weekly

James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943
(Atlantic Monthly Press)

“A captivating and dramatic account of the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943….Drawn from letters and diaries, Holland’s immersive narrative is told through the eye-level perspectives of dozens of subjects. Readers will be enthralled.”
–Publishers Weekly

Georgina Hickey, Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States
(University of Texas Press)

“In charting women’s efforts across the nation to secure inclusion in urban public space over the long twentieth century, Georgina Hickey reveals how fundamental gender segregation was—and remains—to ‘organizing and stratifying’ American society….[G]ender segregation…’justified harassment and violence against other women,’ particularly women of color, immigrant, queer, and working-class women. This is a major contribution to both urban history and women’s, gender and sexuality studies.”
–Tamar W. Carroll

The wheel of the year always keeps turning, and, no matter how unreasonably fast or glacially slow it seems to do so, it always, eventually, reaches December, that beginning of an end. But it’s also the beginning, looked at another way, of new beginnings, a symbol as much of a year gone by as one to come. And one of the beautiful constants you can rely on is that no matter how frustratingly time seems to move, there are always new books to hold onto along the way.

Today is no exception. Below, you’ll find a bevy of brilliant fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including eye-opening science-fiction from Gabrielle Korn, Samantha Harvey, and Debbie Urbanski; an awaited essay collection from the late Anthony Veasna So; formally inventive poems by Olatunde Osinaike in a collection selected by Camille Rankine; an irreverent and incisive history of travel from Shahnaz Habib; and much, much more. As the weather cools and 2024 begins to loom, I hope you’ll choose some of these exciting selections below to keep at your side.

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Gabrielle Korn, Yours for the Taking
(St. Martin’s Press)

“A tender, thrilling, thoughtful examination of queer survival. Gabrielle Korn’s storytelling is engrossing as she paints a damning, clever portrait of the effects of exclusionary politics. Her debut novel is both a penetrating reflection of the anxiety modern generations face and a lesbian love story for the end of the world.”
–Jill Gutowitz

Samantha Harvey, Orbital
(Grove Atlantic)

“Samantha Harvey is a beautiful stylist; in Orbital a group of astronauts look down on our fragile Earth. It’s a slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas of swirling weather patterns and rolling continents.”
–The Guardian

Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River
(Doubleday)

“Magnificent….Lawhon carries us into the heart of the French resistance [and] into the mind of a badass heroine with uncanny instincts who takes on the Nazis and men’s arrogant sexism with uncommon bravado….Even long after the last page is turned, this astonishing story of Wake’s accomplishments will hold readers in its grip.”
–Booklist

David Mamet, Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood
(Simon & Schuster)

“Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Mamet (Recessional) documents his four decades working ‘bit by bit, much like a Missionary among cannibals’ in Hollywood in this acerbic and entertaining series of anecdotes and sketches accentuated by his bitingly witty cartoons…. The in-depth commentary on the nuts and bolts of screenwriting are among the most insightful (and least cynical) parts of the book…. Cineastes will find this irresistible.”
–Publishers Weekly

Anthony Veasna So, Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes
(Ecco Press)

“Before his death in 2020 at twenty-eight, Cambodian American writer So was poised for greatness on a number of fronts: He was an irreverent writer about immigrant enclaves, queer life and the Bay Area’s nether reaches. [Songs on Endless Repeat]…demonstrate[s] he was also a stellar cultural critic in the making.”
–Los Angeles Times

Amber A’Lee Frost, Dirtbag: Essays
(St. Martin’s Press)

“Insightful, critical, but also loving, Frost writes in the best tradition of American satire and hard-boiled noirish realism. Dirtbag lays a literary and historical marker for posterity…giving us Leftist dreamers the collective hope that a different world was ours for the making. It provides important lessons about defeat and loss, while also offering us a strong antidote to the toxic culture wars that are always waged in times of political reaction and self-deception.”
–Catherine Liu

Olatunde Osinaike, Tender Headed
(Akashic Books)

“The push-and-pull of form in this debut from Osinaike is such an impressive balance, spanning from reverent prose pieces to something like the interesting construction of Etymology of Simp….Selected by Camille Rankine for the National Poetry Series, this collection simmers thoughtfully through considerations of Black masculinity and boyhood, introspective and precise in its critical eye—but always tender, always earnest.”
–The Millions

Robyn Davidson, Unfinished Woman: A Memoir
(Bloomsbury)

“Immersive and profound, Robyn Davidson’s Unfinished Woman is a portal to understanding a daughter’s grief. ‘We take our mothers into us; that is where they live,’ she writes. So much of her mother’s life may remain unknown, but through memoir, Davidson completes what she considers an impossible task: crafting a moving portrait of her mother. This book will stay with me.”
–Jeannie Vanasco

Louise Kennedy, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac
(Riverhead)

“Incisive stories [of] women at precipitous turning points in their lives….Each story reverberates with a sense of the far-reaching effect of choices made or imposed. It adds up to a remarkable and cohesive collection.”
–Publishers Weekly

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, All the Little Bird-Hearts
(Algonquin)

“A novel both delicate and strong, illuminating the disturbing and the extraordinary to be found in the every day. Sunday is a beguiling and beguiled narrator, and her story an examination of the disjunction between humans’ private and public selves. I loved it.”
–Maggie O’Farrell

Asha Lemmie, The Wildest Sun
(Dutton)

“The Wildest Sun is a gripping portrait of the artist as a young woman that lays bare the complexities of family trauma, fraught inheritance, and creative ambition. While chasing the famous father whom she views as a lodestar across oceans and time in the post-WWII years, the protagonist…must ultimately learn that she, too, shines….The Wildest Sun shows how even amid personal loss and political tumult, art can be a life companion, loyal to the end.”
–Tiya Miles

Shahnaz Habib, Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel
(Catapult)

“Shahnaz Habib has written a travel book like few others, weaving her strong opinions about tourism’s consumerism, environmental degradation and condescension into a memoir of her own travels. Alternately jolting and insightful, Airplane Mode raises many critical questions about how and why we travel.”
–Elizabeth Becker

Christian Wiman, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair
(FSG)

“Wiman weaves together poetry, essay, and memoir in this dazzling, multivocal examination of and refusal to accept existential despair….Wiman’s knowledge is vast, and his evocative imagery lingers in the mind….[Zero at the Bone is] a gorgeous ode to the power of poetry to grapple with life’s most anguished moments.”
–Publishers Weekly

Dylan Jones, Loaded: The Life (and Afterlife) of the Velvet Underground
(Grand Central Publishing)

“You might understandably think you already know this story, but in Loaded, the masterful Dylan Jones assembles a raucous symphony of voices to convince you that you don’t. Smart, funny, and insightful, this spellbinding oral history guides you through the evolving meanings of the music and the lives of the Velvet Underground from the Sixties to the present day. I found it riveting from start to finish.”
–Anthony DeCurtis

Melissa Rivero, Flores and Miss Paula
(Ecco Press)

“Deeply compassionate and tender, Melissa Rivero’s new novel paints a striking portrait of the mother-daughter bond with wisdom and empathy. In alternating chapters, we see an immigrant mother and millennial daughter unfold and evolve—with stunning depth. Melissa is a phenomenal talent who combines authenticity and a bold, fresh voice to deliver raw, unforgettable women/characters. Not to be missed!”
–Etaf Rum

Debbie Urbanski, After World
(Simon & Schuster)

“Urbanski’s debut imagines what the future of humanity and the planet might be….The reader will soon discover that Sen is not really our narrator but more the vehicle of the storytelling—this is a genius element of this book….Fans of sf, cli-fi, and apocalyptic novels will enjoy this fresh take on familiar genres.”
–Emily Whitmore

Christine Platt, Catherine Wigginton Greene, Rebecca, Not Becky
(Amistad Press)

“Platt and Wigginton Greene have gifted us with a story that is beautiful, honest, funny, and unapologetic. Exploring the complexities of motherhood, interracial friendships, and community, Rebecca, Not Becky pushes readers to examine their biases and lean into discomfort. Y’all this is the book we need to read if we want to grow and cultivate a deeper understanding that everyone can work towards racial justice and it’s best when we do it together!”
–Tiffany Jewell

Walter J. Scheirer, A History of Fake Things on the Internet
(Stanford University Press)

“The Internet is awash in disinformation and conspiracy theories, with AI-generated ‘deepfakes’ looming on the horizon. A History of Fake Things on the Internet explains how fakes of all kinds have been a central part of Internet history and culture from the beginning. It is essential reading for understanding how we got here and where we are headed.”
–Sean Lawson

Andrew Pettegree, The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading
(Basic Books)

“In modern warfare, books provide poignant witness statements as well as admonitory propaganda. They are weapons of war, composed by soldiers, studied by civilians, but also thrown into the fire. In his own impressive book, Andrew Pettegree shows how words could be blood-curdling and texts blood-spattered. Read on in order to turn the pages of war and peace.”
–Peter Fritzsche

Ryan Grimm, The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution
(Henry Holt)

“Political reporter Grim, D.C. bureau chief for the Intercept, examines the rise, challenges, and influence of…Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar, branded by the media as The Squad, and the two representatives who joined them in 2021, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush….Drawing on his own on-the-ground reporting, Grim creates a detailed account of seven tumultuous years. An insider’s often dismaying picture of national politics.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Peter Stamm, The Archive of Feelings (trans. Michael Hofmann)
(Other Press NY)

“Stamm writes with the seemingly effortless precision of an artist….[His] prose is remarkable, exerting a hypnotic draw that may catch readers unaware but will surprise them with its force.”
–Shelf Awareness

November is nearing its end, and, after a holiday weekend that may have been filled as much with leftovers as the kind of family drama that makes you wish for the power of invisibility, you may be coming into this week with a serious need to reset things. Fear not, Dear Readers: there are new books out today for just that reason. (Well, for other reasons, but that one’s pretty important.) Late November is often a time when there are fewer new books being published, but I’ve still got you covered with fifteen new titles to consider below, some cozy and cute, some dark, some revisionist histories of stories you may have thought you knew.

You’ll find a new novel from Sarah Blakley-Cartwright that has shades of Didion, but queerer, which is a winning combination in my eyes; a tale about a maid who is also a sleuth; a powerful graphic memoir from Karina Shor about grappling with addiction, trauma, and more; a true-crime study of the man who may have been America’s first mass murderer; new looks at Francis Ford Coppola and Elvis; and more. Whatever you’re in the mood for, I hope you’ll find something below to help you recharge or to add to your ever-embiggening stacks of to-be-read books.

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Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, Alice Sadie Celine
(Simon & Schuster)

“Like Didion but with more warmth and a queer sensibility, Alice Sadie Celine is packed with so much of what I love in a book: tight prose, smart, fully realized characters grappling with inappropriate love affairs, and bright California land and light. It’s extraordinarily lovely and I savored every word and didn’t want it to end.”
–Bethany Ball

Lauren Grodstein, We Must Not Think of Ourselves
(Algonquin Books)

“In We Must Not Think of Ourselves, Lauren Grodstein writes with such a blazing commitment to the truth of the Warsaw Ghetto that sometimes I had to stop reading and catch my breath. But in the midst of the brutality, she clears a path for the parallel stories of love and decency. Make no mistake: this is a heartbreaking portrait of a dark moment. But this novel shimmers with light.”
–Lauren Fox

Karina Shor, Silence, Full Stop: A Memoir
(Street Noise Books)

“This harrowing [graphic] tale of childhood displacement, sexual assault, adolescent drug abuse and depersonalization hurtles forward with eloquence. Not since Ralph Steadman’s illustrations for Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas have images evoked so vividly the subjective experience of drug use.”
–Jennifer Hayden

Sam Wasson, The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story
(Harper)

“Of all that has been written about Francis Ford Coppola, this book most accurately captures the film director’s chaotic life….Wasson has written a string of successful books about the entertainment business…but this one might be his best so far. Rich in detail, it’s full of surprises and revelations, and impeccably researched and documented. For fans of books about moviemaking in general, and Francis Ford Coppola in particular, this is required reading.”
–Booklist

Alan Sepinwall, Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Welcome to the O.C: The Oral History
(Mariner Books)

“Twenty years after the hit teen drama The O.C. first aired, its creators are taking us all for a romp down memory lane with an oral history of the series, featuring interviews with its stars, writers, directors, and more. It’s a fascinating peek behind the making of a megahit, and a delightful bit of nostalgia for those of us who remember life before streaming TV.”
–Town & Country

Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel
(Ballantine Books)

“Wise and winning and altogether wondrous…perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Knives Out, and tasteful whodunits of any vintage…a splendid novel to restore your faith in character-driven storytelling.”
–A. J. Finn

Delphine de Vigan, Kids Run the Show (trans. Alison Anderson)
(Europa Editions)

“The search for a kidnapped child reveals the truth behind her curated onscreen image….As the kidnapper’s demands become more bizarre and the list of suspects lengthens to include practically anyone watching [their YouTube] channel, both women must reckon with the ramifications of living in a world where the most banal details of family life can be packaged and monetized….An intelligent and affecting look at the void that lurks inside our social media fantasies of domestic bliss.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Jillian Cantor, The Fiction Writer
(Park Row)

“Jillian Cantor’s immersive and thought-provoking new novel, The Fiction Writer is no ordinary retelling of [Daphne du Maurier’s] Rebbeca. Instead, Cantor delivers a layered, inventive tale that uses the beloved classic to question who owns a story and who gets to tell it. I loved escaping into this atmospheric and suspenseful story. A must-read for readers and writers alike.”
–Amy Meyerson

Harry N. MacLean, Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America
(Counterpoint)

“Spellbinding. Starkweather is not only a chronicle of [Charles Starkweather]’s brief life and crimes, but also a skillful examination of the dark moment when a shocking murder spree in an unexpected place collided with a nascent national media—and changed America forever. Anyone today who seriously wonders how our crimescape became so freakish must read this book. It’s one of our most meticulously researched and important crime-history books in a long time.”
–Ron Franscell

Kliph Nesteroff, Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars
(Abrams Press)

“Outrageous is an enlightening and entertaining, detailed, and wide-ranging (and fun!) overview of the never-ending war between censorship and comic voices in showbiz going all the way back into the 1800s. Kliph Nesteroff is an expert unparalleled on the history of comedy, and this couldn’t be a more perfect book for our times. I loved it.”
–Bob Odenkirk

Michel Faber, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us
(Hanover Square Press)

“An extraordinary and compelling ‘journey into sound’….Michel Faber writes beautifully, non-condescendingly and provocatively about something as basic and fundamental to human existence as oxygen….[B]rilliant and a joy to read…He’s obviously listened and thought long and hard about the act and art of consuming sound/music….Listen is right up there with Richard Meltzer’s The Aesthetics of Rock and Geoffrey O’Brien’s Sonata for Jukebox at the top of my mental music shelf.”
–Gary Lucas

Greg McDonald, Marshall Terrill, Elvis and the Colonel: An Insider’s Look at the Most Legendary Partnership in Show Business
(St. Martin’s Press)

“In this addictive behind-the-scenes account, film and TV producer McDonald teams up with biographer Terrill (Steve McQueen) to dispel myths surrounding the relationship between Elvis Presley and his longtime business manager, Colonel Tom Parker….McDonald offers…the riveting tale of a man who used his ‘innate knack for creating a spectacle’ to bring his client’s once-in-a-lifetime talent to the masses….[T]his will more than satisfy fans hungry for insight into Elvis and those in his orbit.”
–Publishers Weekly

Jacqueline Taylor, Amaza Lee Meredith Imagines Herself Modern: Architecture and the Black American Middle Class
(MIT Press)

“Taylor chronicles the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith, a Black woman architect, artist, and educator who expanded our understanding of the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance. Using Meredith as a lens to study the role architecture played in early twentieth-century Black middle-class identity, Taylor shows that Meredith, like so many other Black cultural producers, wasn’t marginal to the modernist project but rather central to its definition.”
–The Millions

Mark Chiusano, The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Story of George Santos
(Atria/One Signal Publishers)

“Dogged reporting….As if channeling Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man, Chiusano suggests that America is a nation of wolves and sheep, where the wolves always win….In a well-researched book, Chiusano offers fair warning to anyone who might consider voting for his con man subject.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Laura Robson, Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work
(Verso)

“In this impassioned and important book, Laura Robson casts the modern system of international refugee relief—its origins, evolution, and current objectives—in a damning new light. A powerful, revelatory account of the strategies used by great powers to control and exploit refugees under the guise of humanitarian assistance.”
–Dane Kennedy