We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around). Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments!

Want to know about the books you might have missed? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then sign up to be a member today.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: I loved The Mothers, Bennett’s bestselling first novel, so I can’t wait for her second, about identical twin sisters who run away from their small Southern town at age 16. Ten years later, one of the sisters is passing as white, and not even her white husband knows the truth. The book moves back and forth in time, from the 1950s to the 1990s, and, according to the jacket copy, “considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations.” (Edan)

Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino: The week of her wedding, a woman known only as The Bride is visited by the spirit of her dead grandmother, who appears in the form of a parakeet. Her grandmother tells her: Don’t get married. Seek out your brother. As the novel follows The Bride in the increasingly hectic few days between this encounter and her wedding, Bertino tells a complex story about family, responsibility and the need to become our best selves. (Thom)

A Burning by Megha Majumdar: The hotly anticipated debut novel from the editor of Catapult, A Burning takes place in contemporary India and follows three characters from different circumstances as they are thrown together after a bombing. Colum McCann says “This is a novel of now: a beautifully constructed literary thriller from a rare and powerful new voice.” (Lydia)

The Lightness by Emily Temple: The first novel from LitHub senior editor Temple, The Lightness is “psychologically wise and totally wise-assed, all while being both cynical and spiritual,” according to one Mary Karr. After Olivia runs away to a place known as the Levitation Center, she joins the camp’s summer program for troubled teens and falls into a close-knit group of girls determined to learn to levitate. Of course, it’s not that easy, could even be dangerous, but Olivia’s search for true lightness pushes her towards the edge of what’s possible in this novel that blends religious belief, fairy tales and physics. (Kaulie)

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan: The debut novel from Irish writer Dolan follows Ava, a 22-year-old millennial ex-pat, who finds herself in a love triangle with Julian, a 28-year-old English banker, and Edith, a local Hong-Kong lawyer. Exciting Times keenly explores power, class, race, gender, and sexuality with equal parts humor and initmacy—as well as a wonderful addition to the spate of novels about messy young women figuring it out. About the novel, two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel writes, “Droll, shrewd and unafraid—a winning debut.” (Carolyn)

Empty by Susan Burton: This American Life editor Burton’s debut memoir chronicles—with candour, vulnerablity, and strength—the nearly thirty years she spent oscillaing between anorexia and binge-eating disorder. Author Lori Gottleib says, “Empty is a tour de force of both vulnerability and strength, a memoir so unflinching and brave that it forces us to peer into our own dark places with newfound honesty and compassion.” (Carolyn)

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Set in 1950s Mexico, Moreno-Garcia’s gothic novel follows Noemí, a red lipstick-wearing socialite, as she sets out to save her cousin Catalina from High Place, a remote mountain villa that turns out to be a house of horrors. Kirkus writes: “Moreno-Garcia weaves elements of Mexican folklore with themes of decay, sacrifice, and rebirth, casting a dark spell all the way to the visceral and heart-pounding finale.” (Carolyn)

Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan: When Elisabeth, a successful journalist and new mother, moves with her family from Brooklyn to upstate New York, she bonds with her babysitter Sam, a senior at the local women’s college. Exploring class, domesticity, motherhood and privilege, Kirkus’s starred review says “this perceptive novel about a complex friendship between two women resonates as broadly as it does deeply.” (Carolyn)

Self Care by Leigh Stein:  In Stein’s biting, satirical novel, best friends Maren Gelb and Devin Avery are the ultimate #girlbosses. Cofounders of Richual, a women’s lifestyle and wellness startup in the vein of Goop, the young women sell a vision of the world best seen through millennial pink-colored glasses—as they and their company do things that are the exact opposite of aspirational. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly writes: “Stein’s sharp writing separates her from the pack in this exquisite, Machiavellian morality tale about the ethics of looking out for oneself.” (Carolyn)

Broken People by Sam Lansky: Following his memoir The Gilded Razor, Lansky’s debut novel follows a character named Sam—a 28-year-old Los Angeles transplant from New York—who has just published a memoir about his addiction struggles. After learning about a shaman who performs “open-soul surgery” on broken people, Sam and friend travel to Portland to be healed—and to heal themselves. Author Steven Rowley calls the novel “An epic journey of self-forgiveness that confronts us with the ways in which we’re all broken, then, with the assured hand of a most talented writer, conjures the healing magic within.”. (Carolyn)

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory: Prolific rom-com writer Guillory returns with her newest novel following Olivia Monroe, a lawyer who moved to Los Angeles to start her own firm, and Max Powell, the handsome stranger she meets and flirts with at a bar. Only Max isn’t just anybody—he’s an accomplished junior senator who lives his life under a bright and intense spotlight. Their relationship, which begins through covert courting and secret dates, becomes more complicated when they go public and face a media firestorm. (Carolyn)

An Ocean Without a Shore by Scott Spencer: In his newest novel, Spencer returns to the characters from his last novel, River Under the Road. Focusing on Kip Woods—a side character from River—and his years-old, unrequited-longing for his best friend Thaddeus Kaufman, a once-successful writer whose career and life has fallen into desrepair. Kip struggles with the ways his personal compass has always pointed in the direction of Thaddeus—sometimes, surprisingly often, at the detriment of his own happiness and well-being. Joshua Ferris calls Spencer a “fierce observer with the soul of a romantic, he knows what matters most: that our folly, put on display, should wreck, ravish, engulf us.” (Carolyn)

A More Perfect Reunion by Calvin Baker: In his newest book, novelist and Hurston-Wright Award finalist Baker argues for
integration, which he views as the single best way to to create a society no longer predecated upon and defined by race. Exploring a wide breadth of U.S. history, politics, and culture, Baker offers insight into how we came to our current moment—and what we need to do going forward to form a more perfect union. “Required reading for any American serious about dismantling systemic racism,” says Kirkus’s starred review. (Carolyn)

The House on Fripp Island by Rebecca Kauffman: Set in the 1990s, Kauffman’s latest novel follows two families—drawn together by the mothers’ friendship; torn apart by their class differences—on a life-changing, world-shattering vacation. Tensions rise. Secrets are revealed. Violence erupts. And their lives are forever cleaved into Before Fripp and After Fripp. Julie Buntin says, “Kauffman’s latest is a rare and gripping combination of gloriously observed prose and three hundred pages of pure suspense.” (Carolyn)

Between Everything and Nothing by Joe Meno: Meno’s newest book explores the true story of Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal—two Ghanaian asylum seekers—as they separately navigate the  brutalities of the broken U.S. immigration system. “Though harrowing,” writes Sigrid Nunez, “the story…is also deeply inspiring, revealing how two powerless but fiercely courageous asylum seekers, battered by years of injustice and cruelty, held fast to their religious faith, their dignity, and their love and hope for humanity.” (Carolyn)

Swan Song by Lisa Alther: In the wake of the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her decades-long partner, Dr. Jessie Drake flees from her life and accepts a job from a former flame aboard the Amphitrite, a British liner, as the ship’s doctor. While the cruise quickly falls into chaos—including, but not limited to affairs among passengers and a hijacking by pirates—Jessie, who is mired in grief, finds herself looking for answers in Kat’s journals. (Carolyn)

Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri: Washington Post columnist and humorist Petri’s essay collection—which includes both new and previously published pieces—explores the horrors of our current political climate with sarcasm, wit, humor, and rage. Publishers Weekly’s starred review says, “Acidic and spot-on, Petri’s work captures the surreal quality of Trump’s tenure as perhaps no other book has.” (Carolyn)

Sad Janet by Lucie Britsch: Britsch’s darkly funny debut follows Janet, a deeply sad and anxious woman who works at a dog shelter, can’t stand her boyfriend, and finds herself surrounded by people who are trying to get her to change. When a new pill designed to make Christmas more manageable hits the market, Janet must decide whether or not to take it—and if she wants to leave her “manageable melancholia” behind. About the novel, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney writes: “Lucie Britsch has crafted a biting, pitch-perfect novel about one woman’s desire to stay true to herself in a world that rewards facile happiness.” (Carolyn)

Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu: From the author of The Windfall comes the story of Tina Das, a young woman living in New York, who decides to attend her cousin’s lavish, week-long wedding in Delhi. Running from her recent breakup, a stagnant career, and an uncertain future in America, Tina hopes to unwind and relax during the wedding, only to find herself mired in more drama than she knows what to do with. Terry McMillan calls Destination Wedding “a witty and romantic novel perfect for all readers.” (Carolyn)

Sleepovers by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips: Winner of the 2019 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, Phillips’s first collection explores the rich tapestry of a small, rural town in North Carolina and the people who live there. A starred review in Publishers Weekly calls it a “blunt, life-affirming debut collection” that “stands out in the field of current Southern fiction.” (Carolyn)

We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around). Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments!

Want to know about the books you might have missed? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then sign up to be a member today.

Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin: Schweblin’s Little Eyes is her second novel to be translated into English (her first was the frenzied Fever Dream). In Spanish, the novel’s title is Kentukis, which is also the name for the cutesy device, described as a “creepier Furby,” that acts as a portal between lives of the owner and the person who has purchased essentially a voyeur’s right to its camera feed. Embedded within this novel of international interconnectivity are questions of the exhibitionism and voyeurism tied up in our use of technology. Expect echoes of the Wachowskis’ Sense8, except told with what has been characterized as Schweblin’s “neurotic unease.” (Anne)

Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride: A woman walks into a hotel room. Then another, and another. Hotels in Austin, Avignon, Auckland, others, and each room reflects back something of herself. Sometimes she meets a man, sometimes she fights with her memories, and sometimes she thinks about what it would mean to go home. An avid McBride fan ever since A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, I eagerly await the arrival of what’s sure to be a darkly brilliant work. (Kaulie)

Drifts by Kate Zambreno: Drifts is Zambreno’s first novel since Green Girl, and is first in a series that continues to explore and reify her obsessions with artistic ambition and the possibilities and failures of literature. Her narrator spends long days alone, corresponding with writers and taking photos of residents and strays in her neighborhood alike—with nods to the likes of Rilke, Dürer, and Chantal Ackerman, among others. “Zambreno’s books have a way of getting under your skin,” writes Paris Review staffer Rhian Sasseen, as does “her willingness to write ugly, to approach the banal and the cliché as just another tool and subvert it into works of rage and oftentimes real beauty.” (Anne)

The Narcissism of Small Differences by Michael Zadoorian: Set in his native Detroit in the grim year of 2009, Zadoorian’s new novel, The Narcissism of Small Differences, is a comedy of the compromises Joe Keen, a failed fiction writer, and Ana Urbanek, an advertising copy writer, have made over the course of their long relationship. Their compromises come in many flavors—financial, moral, professional—and as these two creative types near their dreaded 40s, they’re forced to confront the people they have become because of those compromises. Like Zadoorian’s earlier novels—The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit, The Leisure Seeker and Beautiful Music—this new novel brims with wit, passion and soul. (Bill)

The Book of V.​ by ​Anna Solomon: This novel intertwines the lives of three women across centuries: Lily, a mother in Brooklyn in 2016 who is grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires; Vivian, a political wife in Watergate-era Washington, D.C., who refuses to obey her ambitious husband; and Esther, an independent young woman in ancient Persia who is offered up as a sacrifice to please the king. Solomon, the author of Leaving Lucy Pear and The Little Bride, explores how things have both changed and stayed the same. Mary Beth Keane says it’s “searingly inventive, humane, and honest.” (Claire)

Death of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee: The capstone of Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy, this latest novel returns to the life of the boy David, the protagonist of the first two books in the series. But this time it’s David—in perhaps the story’s sole clear analogy to the life of Christ—dying too young. And was his life, stripped of every cursory marker of identity, worth anything? Is everything, as the sages have told us, meaningless? Coetzee, via David, leaves us with better template by which to ask—if never answer—these questions. (Il’ja)

All Adults Here​ by ​Emma Straub​: I keep hearing online chatter that this is Straub’s best novel yet. When Astrid Strick witnesses an accident, a suppressed memory causes her to question the legacy of her parenting to her now-grown children. Elizabeth Strout says it’s, “totally engaging and smart book about the absolutely marvelous messiness of what makes up family.” Ann Patchett says it’s “brimming with kindness, forgiveness, humor.” Straub is a New York Times-bestselling author and co-owner of the vibrant Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic. (Claire)

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns: Burns’s memoir, Cinderland, powerfully evoked the post-industrial ruins, both physical and psychic, of her childhood home in Mercury, Penn. In Shiner, she returns with a book similarly rooted in geography, the story of 15-year-old Wren Bird, who lives in isolation on a West Virginia mountain with her mother and father, an itinerant preacher and snake-handler. When tragedy strikes at one of her father’s sermons, Wren is forced to discover the truth about her family and imagine a life outside of her cloistered West Virginia existence. The Millions’ own Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State, calls Shiner “a lush, gripping novel that explores love, grief, rage, and regeneration in a small Appalachian community,” and says, “I won’t forget the haunting mood, place, and characters that Burns brings to life.” (Adam P.)

Sorry for Your Trouble by Richard Ford: Pulitzer-Prize winner Ford’s latest is a short story collection that explores themes of love and loss, taking readers to his native Mississippi, as well as New Orleans and Canada. The volume includes a novella, The Run of Yourself, which depicts a New Orleans widower learning to cope without his Irish wife. (Hannah)

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet: This new novel from the Pulitzer Prize finalist takes place at a family vacation, where 12 children break off from their parents’ revelries and find themselves in apocalyptic circumstances. Karen Russell calls Millet “A writer without limits.” (Lydia)

All My Mother’s Lovers by Ilana Masad: Critic and fiction writer Masad’s debut novel follows 27-year-old Maggie Krause, whose mother has just died in a car crash. On her return home, Maggie finds five sealed envelopes from her mother, each addressed to a man Maggie doesn’t know. Maggie sets out on a road trip to discover the truth about her mother’s hidden life, and her own difficulties with intimacy. Described by Kristen Arnett as a “queer tour de force.” (Jacqueline)

Quotients by Tracy O’Neill: National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree O’Neill’s (The Hopeful) sophomore effort follows a young couple attempting to make a seemingly conventional home together—but this story turns into a heady brew of fractured identities, aliases, big data, and what it means to live in this age of terrorism and global surveillance. Fiona Maazel (A Little More Human) describes it as “a love story rendered in galloping prose that takes you all over the map.” Looking forward to this timely and intriguing work. (Marie Myung-Ok Lee)

Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Chris Beha: Beha’s novel begins in 2009, with two prophets: a street preacher who promises an apocalyptic “Great Unveiling” and Sam Waxworth, a religious skeptic and software engineer whose “political projection system” predicted every result of the 2008 election. Now a writer, Waxworth has been assigned a piece on Frank Doyle, a legendary, infamous commentator of baseball and politics. The assignment turns out to be more than Waxworth expected, widening and revealing his own faults. Beha’s earlier work has been rightfully compared to the work of Graham Greene, and in this new novel Beha does what only Greene and a handful of other novelists have been able to accomplish: make God, belief, and doubt the stuff of serious fiction—even down to the probing dialogue of his characters. (Nick R.)

Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma: Francis-Sharma’s prose shines in this epic and propulsive historical novel that is set in Trinidad and the American West, and follows the life of Rosa Rendón, who is talented, bright, and fierce. Laila Lalami writes that the novel “recreates the hybrid history of Native and African peoples during the era of American exploration and expansion,” and Peter Ho Davies says that it “adds (or better say restores) another strand to our national narrative. We’re all the richer for Book of the Little Axe.” (Zoë)

Latitudes of Longing by Shubangi Shwarup: Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2020, this novel brings together characters as disparate as a geologist and a yeti. Nilanjana S. Roy writes, “Astonishing and completely original, Shubhangi Swarup’s magical novel will change the way you see people—and landscapes, forests, the oceans, snow deserts. She stirs your curiosity about the earth, takes you from sadness and heartbreak to rich, unexpected surprises, and finds hope in the cracks of broken lives.” (Lydia)

Stray by Stephanie Danler: In her debut memoir, Danler, the bestselling author of Sweetbitter (her debut novel), explores the trauma of growing up with (and eventually fleeing) her addiction-riddled, dysfunctional family—and the ways she faced her painful past in order to move into her future. Author Lisa Taddeo calls the memoir many things including “hot,” “dark,” “quiet,” “tender,” and, ultimately, “a compulsive, neck-breaking masterpiece.” (Carolyn)

Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollet: In his debut memoir, Jollet, frontman of the indie rock band Airborne Toxic Event, writes about his childhood growing up in the Church of Synanon, a commune turned dangerous cult; living with his broken and dysfunctional family post-escape; and the ways music saved him—from them and himself. Adrienne Brodeur says, “Jollett’s story serves as a potent reminder that while we cannot change the hand we’re dealt, our freedom lies in what we choose to do with those cards.” (Carolyn)

Officer Clemmons by François S. Clemmons: Clemmons’s debut memoir recounts his incredible life, which included growing up gay and Black in 1950s Alabama and Ohio; being the first African American actor to have a reoccurring role on children’s television (as Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood); and his creative and spiritual pursuits after leaving the show. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called the “uplifting memoir” a “thoroughly delightful, inspiring story will speak particularly to artists in marginalized communities.” (Carolyn)

The Anthill by Julianne Pachico: In a follow-up to 2017’s debut, The Lucky Ones, Pachico’s sophomore novel follows Lina, a 28-year-old academic, who returns to Medellin, Colombia, after 20 years away. Once there, she reunites with her childhood best friend, Mattías, who is now running a refuge for poor children called The Anthill. Then things begin to take a strange, sinister, and supernatural turn. Author Sharlene Teo says: “It’s a novel that laughs through a mouthful of blood, which scares and touches, dazzles and compels.” (Carolyn)

Things You Would Know if You Grew Up Around Here by Nancy Wayson Dinan: Set in 2015 in a flood-ravaged central Texas, Dinan’s debut novel follows Boyd Montgomery, an 18-year-old woman who is searching for her missing friend. The devastating weather has not only made the well-known landscape unrecognizable, it’s also opened up the world to the surreal and mystical. Kirkus calls the novel “By turns magical, harshly realistic, poetic, aggravating, and enthralling.” (Carolyn)

Red Dress in Black and White by Elliot Ackerman: Full of political intrigue, extramarital affairs, and unfulfilled ambition, Ackerman’s latest novel takes place over the course of one day as Catherine, an American living in Istanbul, attempts to leave Turkey with her sons—and without her husband, Murat, an influential and connected Turkish real estate developer. (Carolyn)

Here We Are by Benjamin Taylor: With Phillip Roth’s blessing and the promise not to publish it until after his death, Taylor’s newest memoir offers an intimate portrait of Roth, one of our finest writers and his best friend. Lisa Halliday, whose debut novel, Asymmetry, features a fictionalized Roth, calls the memoir “A poignant and frequently poetic tribute to a friendship abundant with laughter, erudition, generosity, devotion, and grace.” (Carolyn)

We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around). Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments!

Want to know about the books you might have missed? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then sign up to be a member today.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich: Celebrated novelist Erdrich, author of Love Medicine, The Plague of Doves, and The Round House, returns to the Chippewa Turtle Mountain Reservation in The Night Watchman. One of the most powerful voices in contemporary Native-American literature, Erdrich provides a fictionalization of her own uncle’s story, when he journeyed from North Dakota to Washington D..C in 1953 to testify on a congressional hearing about the Termination Act, which would once again abrogate the United States’ treaties with a Native-American nation. The Night Watchmen, as with all of Erdrich’s writing, reminds us that Native-American culture is not hidden in history books and museums, but an identity that is current, or as she writes in The Plague of Doves, “History works itself out in the living.” (Ed S.)

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel: The Millions’ own Mandel is back with The Glass Hotel, the long-awaited sequel to her much-beloved first novel, Station Eleven, a National Book Award finalist. Where Station Eleven explored a post-apocalyptic landscape ravaged by a super-plague, The Glass Hotel explores what Mandel calls “the kingdom of money”— locales as disparate as a South Carolina prison and a container ship in international waters—and the messily intertwined lives of half-siblings Vincent and Paul. In a starred review of The Glass Hotel, Publishers Weekly says, “This ingenious, enthralling novel probes the tenuous yet unbreakable bonds between people and the lasting effects of momentary carelessness.” (Adam P.)

Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction by Nick Ripatrazone: The Millions’ own Ripatrazone has proven himself over the past decade to be one of our most adept critics at explicating the faith of poetry and the poetics of faith. Now in Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction, Ripatrazone asks in what sense Roman Catholicism informs the writings of some of our most crucial writers, from Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy to more surprising authors like Toni Morrison (who converted) and Cormac McCarthy. For Ripatrazone, there is a fruitful tension between those who joined the Church, those who left it, and those who stayed. “Writers long for God,” Ripatrazone argues, “and their longing creates a beautiful and melancholy story.” (Ed S.)

Lakewood by Megan Giddings: After Lena Johnson’s grandmother dies and her family falls on hard times, she drops out of college and applies to participate in a secretive research project. The pay is good, there’s health insurance, but something’s off. Lena, a black millennial, joins a pool of subjects who are all black, Indian, or Latinx; all the researchers are white. Experimental eye drops change brown eyes blue, subjects are given mysterious medication, and it soon becomes clear that Lena’s participation may require more sacrifices than she’s willing to make. Giddings’s debut novel, Lakewood takes a long and horrified look at the costs levied on people of color in the name of science. (Kaulie)

It’s Not All Downhill from Here by Terry McMillan: As its uplifting title implies, McMillan’s new novel is about women of a certain age refusing to see the late stage of life as a dreary slide toward death. At the center of a reunited group of high school classmates is 68-year-old Loretha Curry, head of a beauty-supply empire, whose world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss. “It’s about living in the here and now,” 68-year-old McMillan tells O magazine, “even being willing to fall in love and live happily ever after in these late chapters of our lives.” Like McMillan’s earlier hits, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale, this novel looks destined for the bestseller lists. (Bill)

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell: At 15, Vanessa Wye enters into an affair with Jacob Strane, her 42-year-old English teacher. Seventeen years later, Vanessa must reckon with their relationship when Jacob is accused of sexually abusing another student. Author Janet Fitch says: “It’s breathtakingly suspenseful, like downing a flaming drink without blowing it out.” Compulsive, complicated, and timely, Russell’s debut explores ideas of memory, trauma, abuse, and complicity. (Carolyn)

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn: The author was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island and this is the novel that will help many of us realize we need to read more fiction from Hawai’i. In 1995, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls over the side of a cruise ship, but is rescued by a shark—a divine favor. When fortunes turn, his family is forced to confront their bonds, the meaning of heritage, and the cost of survival. Marlon James calls it, “a ferocious debut.” (Claire)

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby: A collection of essays on life, love, and work by the piercingly funny and trenchant writer, to follow the bestselling We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. The new collection documents bad dates with new friends, weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with “tv executives slash amateur astrologers,” while being a “cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person,” “with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees,” who still hides past due bills under her pillow. Read Irby’s latest piece on settling down, for The Cut. (Lydia)

August by Callan Wink: The author’s debut novel follows his 2016 short story collection, Dog, Run, Moon—a set so good that I hoped Wink could distract himself from fly-fishing long enough to range further and give us a novel. And now he has: this testament to the obstacles encountered by a Michigan boy battling his way toward manhood. Told with all the economy, clarity of character, and lively prose that mark Wink’s short stories, this is writing that would tell just as well around the campfire as it does on the page. (Il’ja)

Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang: In what Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has described as an “immaculate debut novel” and “a wholly engaging joy to read,” Chang follows a 24-year-old Asian-American woman as she leaves a prestigious tech reporting job in Silicon Valley to move with her boyfriend to upstate New York. The move, precipitated by her boyfriend’s entrance into graduate school, is more of an excuse than a reason. The narrator has been searching for a way out. But once there, she finds herself captivated by stories of Asian Americans in history, and forced to think more deeply than she ever has about her role in an interracial relationship. In this tender, funny, coming-of-adulthood story, Chang asks what it means to live in a society that does not notice or understand you. (Jacqueline)

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin: In a starred review, Kirkus called the latest novel from science fiction luminary Jemisin “fierce, poetic, uncompromising.” Set in Jemisin’s hometown of New York City, this work of speculative fiction features five New Yorkers who must come together to defend their city against the Enemy, which Jemisin described, in an interview with EW, as “a dangerous otherworldly tourist…trying to supernaturally gentrify the city to death.” Toilet stalls attack, backyard pools become portals, and FDR traffic “becomes a literal, tentacled killer.” So, your standard work of social realism. I can’t wait for this one. (Jacqueline)

Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita: Yamashita blends Jane Austen’s characters with stories of Japanese Americans in this dynamic collection. In merging these characters, she reconsiders canonical works, questions cultural inheritance, and experiments with genre and form. Julie Otsuka says “whether she is riffing on Jane Austen, channeling Jorge Luis Borges, or meditating on Marie Kondo, Yamashita is a brilliant and often subversive storyteller in superb command of her craft.” (Zoë)

Writers & Lovers by Lily King: Following up on the success of her novel Euphoria, King’s latest follows a Casey Peabody, a 31-year-old waitress who is mourning the sudden loss of her mother and her most recent relationship. While she aches to live the creative life she’s always dreamed of, she spends her days writing her novel, working a dead-end job, and having not one—but two—affairs. Author Madeline Miller calls the novel “captivating, potent, incisive, and wise” and “a moving story of grief, and recovering from grief, and of a young woman finding her courage for life.” (Carolyn)

First, Catch by Thom Eagle: Winner of the Debut Food Book at the Fortnum and Mason’s Awards, Eagle’s collection is less a step-by-step cookbook than meandering musings on the emotional, philosophical, and physical journey of creating a large spring lunch. In his preface, he writes that he wanted this book “to demonstrate to my own satisfaction that there is so much more to food than just the cooking of it.” Publishers Weekly’s starred review says, “This wonderfully indulgent, pleasurable compilation of culinary meditations will thrill food lovers.” (Carolyn)

The Companions by Katie M. Flynn: After a pandemic wipes out huge portions of the population, the quarantined are kept company by Companions, which are factory-created humanoids that the dead upload their consciousness into.  When Lilac, one of the first Companions, realizes she can defy her programming, she sets off in search of the person who murdered her as a teenager—and begins to meet the richly-drawn characters of Flynn’s slightly-futuristic world. Told through eight different points of view over two decades, Flynn’s speculative debut novel poses questions about memory, identity, and humanity. (Carolyn)

Spirit Run by Noé Álvarez: Born to Mexican immigrant parents in Yakima, Álvarez finds himself working at a fruit warehouse while dreaming of escaping Washington. In his debut memoir, he chronicles his journey to freedom via the Peace and Dignity Journeys, which are epic, 6,000-mile marathons across North America organized by Native American activists. A starred review in Publishers Weekly called the “spellbinding” novel a “literary tour de force beautifully combines outdoor adventure with a sharp take on immigration.” (Carolyn)

Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe: Jarboe’s 16-story collection—which contains everything from novellas to two-page stories bordering on prose poems—mixes fabulism, sci-fi, and surrealism. Their debut is a literary bricolage exploring queerness, body horror, alienation, and belonging. “Throughout, Jarboe melds tenderness, humor, and righteous anger into insightful tales of characters navigating the margins of society,” says Publishers Weekly’s starred review. (Carolyn)

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai: Celebrated Vietnamese poet and author Quế Mai’s first novel translated into English is a multigenerational epic about the Tran family. Set in 20th-century Vietnam, the novel explores how one family navigates war, loss, and trauma, but also how they remain buoyed by hope and each other. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called the “lyrical, sweeping debut” a “brilliant, unsparing love letter to Vietnam will move readers.” (Carolyn)

The Exhibition of Persephone Q by Jessi Jezewska Stevens: In the weeks after 9/11, freelancer Percy discovers she is pregnant and also discovers she cannot tell anyone about it, including her husband. Amid the changes, internally and externally, Percy receives a package containing a catalog for a photography show. Even more strangely, the woman in the photos looks like Percy—or does she? What comes next is an exploration of self, identity, and reality in the digital age. Catherine Lacey writes, “With a voice both riveting and wisely bizarre, Jessi Jezewska Stevens tells a timeless story of the battle to stop the present from turning into the past.”(Carolyn)

Marguerite by Marina Kemp: In Kemp’s debut, young nurse Marguerite Demers moves to a small farm in the South of France to care for Jérôme Lanvier—a cruel and once-powerful man who is now on his deathbed. Swirling gossip, jealousy, and secrets threaten to destroy the small town and its inhabitants including Marguerite. The novel has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, which raved, “Stellar…Expect Kemp to make a big splash.” (Carolyn)

The Body Politic by Brian Platzer: Platzer’s sophomore novel (following Bed-Stuy Is Burning) follows four New Yorkers dealing with infidelity, loss, chronic illness, and betrayal in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Brought together in the unstable years after 9/11, the four friends find themselves—and their lives—in free fall again. Jenny Offill calls the novel, “A cleverly constructed and emotionally compelling novel about the common disappointments and surprising consolations of middle age.” (Carolyn)

Temporary by Hilary Leichter: Leichter’s absurdist debut follows a nameless woman with 23 temporary jobs (including working for a murderer and working on a pirate ship), 18 casual boyfriends, and a ghost who lends her life advice as she searches for “the steadiness,” or a permanent position. (And aren’t we all?) Publishers Weekly’s starred review says the “cutting, hilarious critique of the American dream will appeal to fans of Italo Calvino.” (Carolyn)

Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit: The prolific cultural critic and author of Men Explain Things to Me returns with a memoir of her development as an artist as a young woman in San Francisco in the 1980s and the violence against women that undergirds American life. In a starred review, Kirkus calls the book “Absorbing…A perceptive, radiant portrait of a writer of indelible consequence.” (Lydia)

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel: THE FINAL VOLUME IS UPON US. Mantel dazzled readers with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and now she completes her stunningly good account of the life of Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry VIII. One of the literary events of the young millennium. (Lydia)

Bonus Links from Our Archive:
— A Year in Reading: Louise Erdrich
— A Year in Reading: Emily St. John Mandel
— A Year in Reading: Nick Ripatrazone
— A Year in Reading: Terry McMillan
— Writers to Watch: Spring 2020
— Character Assassin: An Interview with Hilary Mantel