Mentioned in:
Most Anticipated: The Great Winter 2024 Preview
January
Pure Wit by Francesca Peacock [NF]
I first learned about the life and work of seventeenth-century writer and philosopher Margaret Cavendish in Regan Penaluna's stellar study of women thinkers, and I've been dying to read a biography of Cavendish ever since. And I'm in luck (all of us are) thanks to biographer Peacock. A proto-feminist, science-fiction pioneer, and divisive public figure, Cavendish is endlessly fascinating, and Peacock's debut gives her the rigorous, in-depth treatment that she deserves. âSophia M. Stewart
Nonfiction by Julie Myerson [F]
A blurb from Rachel Cusk is just about all it takes to get me excited about a book, so when I saw that Cusk called Myerson's latest novel "glitteringly painful," "steady and clear," and "the book [Myerson] was intended to write," I was sold. A tale of art, addiction, and the ties that bind mothers and daughters, Nonfiction promises to devastate. âSMS
Immediacy by Anna Kornbluh [NF]
Did the pandemic kill postmodernism? And what comes after the end of history? University of IllinoisâChicago professor Kornbluh dubs our contemporary style âimmediacy,â characterized by same-day delivery, bingeable multimedia, and real-time news updates that spin the economic flywheel ever faster. Kornbluh names this state of emergence and emergency, and suggests potential off-ramps in the direction of calm reflection, measured art-making, and, just maybe, collective wisdom. âNathalie op de Beeck
Slow Down by KĆhei SaitĆ, tr. Brian Bergstrom [NF]
In this internationally-bestselling treatise, Japanese philosopher SaitĆ argues against "sustainable growth" in favor of degrowthâthe slowing of economic activityâwhich he sees at the only way to address the twinned crises of inequality and climate change. SaitĆ's proposal is simple, salient, and adapts Marx for the modern day. âSMS
Relic by Ed Simon [NF]
From Millions alum Simon comes a slim study of the objects we imbue with religious (or quasi-religious) meaning, from the bone of a Catholic martyr to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick. Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series never misses, and Relic is one of the series' most unconventionalâand compellingâentries yet. âSMS
Filterworld by Kyle Chayka [NF]
The outline of reality has become increasingly blurry as the real world melds with the digital one, becoming what Chayka, staff writer at the New Yorker, calls âFilterworld,â a society built on a foundation of ever-evolving algorithms. In his book of the same name, Chayka calls out the all-powerful algorithm, which he argues is the driving force behind current and accelerating trends in art, consumption, and ethics. âDaniella Fishman
Portrait of a Body by Julie Delporte, tr. Helge Dascher and Karen Houle [NF]
A gripping narrative of coming to terms with her queer identity, Canadian cartoonist Delporte's latest graphic memoirâpraised by Eileen Myles and Fariha RĂłisĂnâsees Delporte learning to embrace herself in both physical and metaphysical ways. Dreamy colored pencil illustrations and gently flowing storytelling capture the beauty, trauma, and ultimate tranquility that comes with learning to exist on your own terms. âDF
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino [F]
In Bertinoâs latest novel, following 2020's Parakeet, the launch of Voyager 1 into space coincides with the birth of Adina Giorno, who, much like the solitary satellite, is in search of something she can't yet see. As a child, she senses that she is not of this world and struggles to make a life for herself amid the drudgery of human existence. Playing on Adina's alienness as both a metaphor and a reality, Bertino asks, âAre we really alone?â âDF
The Last Fire Season by Manjula Martin [NF]
Martin returns ablaze in her latest memoir, pitched as "H Is for Hawk meets Joan Didion in the Pyrocene." Following an anguishing chronic pain diagnosis, Martin attempts to reconnect with her beloved Northern California wilderness in order to escape not only her deteriorating health but a deteriorating world, which has ignited around her in the worst fire season California has ever seen. Devastating and ambivalent, The Last Fire Season tries to sift through the ashes of climate change. âDF
The Furies by Elizabeth Flock [NF]
Violence by womenâits role, its potential righteousnessâis the focus of Flock's latest. Following the real-life cases of a young rape survivor in Alabama, a predator-punishing gang leader in India, and an anti-ISIS militia fighter in Syria, Flock considers how women have used lethal force as a means to power, safety, and freedom amid misogynistic threats and oppression. Is violence ever the answer? Flock looks to three parallel lives for guidance. âSMS
Imagining the Method by Justin Owen Rawlins [NF]
University of Tulsa professor Rawlins demystifies that most celebrated (and controversial) acting school, challenging our contemporary conceptions of screen performance. I was sold the moment I saw Rawlins received the ultimate stamp of approval from Isaac Butler, author of the definitive account of method acting: "If you care about the evolution of twentieth-century screen performance, you should read this book." âSMS
We Are Free to Change the World by Lyndsey Stonebridge [NF]
Famed twentieth-century philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote passionately about power, freedom, and inequality against the backdrop of fascismâa project as relevant today as it ever was. Stonebridge, a professor of humanities and human rights, revisits the lessons of Arendt's writings and applies them to the twenty-first century, creating a dialogue between past, present, and future. âDF
Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea by C.D. Rose [F]
In these 19 short stories, Rose meditates on philosophy, photography, and literature. Blending erudition and entertainment, Rose's fables follow writers, teachers, and artists through various situationsâand in a standout story, imagines how St. Augustine would fare on Twitter. âDF
Black Women Taught Us by Jenn M. Jackson [NF]
Jackson's debut book foregrounds the work of Black feminist writers and leadersâfrom Ida B. Wells and Harriet Jacobs to Shirley Chisholm and bell hooksâthroughout American history, revealing the centuries-long role that Black women have played in imagining and fighting for a more just society. Imani Perry calls Jackson "a beautiful writer and excellent scholar." âSMS
The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James [F]
Pitched as Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez (yeesh!), The Bullet Swallower is the second novel (after Mona at Sea) from Elizabeth Gonzalez James, who also wrote the weird and wonderful essay/play Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. Infusing the spaghetti western with magical realism, the novel follows a Mexican bandito on a cosmic journey generations in the making. âSMS
Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino [F]
In Sammartino's debut novel, the owner of a gun store hatches a plan to resurrect his struggling business following his son's near-death experience. George Saunders, Mary Karr, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah have all heaped on praise, and Jenny Offill finds it "hard to believe Last Acts is a first novel." âSMS
I Sing to Use the Waiting by Zachary Pace [NF]
Pace fuses memoir and criticism (my favorite combination) to explore the emotional and cultural impacts of women singers across time, from Cat Power and Rihanna to Kim Gordon and Whitney Houston. A queer coming-of-age story that centers the power of music and the legacies of women artists. âSMS
Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn [F]
Blackburn, the author of the stellar story collections Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl, delivers a debut novel about storytelling and unreality, centering on a successful novelist who gets hold of her dead brother's phoneâand starts answering texts as him. Kristen Arnett calls this one "a bonafide knockout" that "rewired my brain." âSMS
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer [N]
New Yorker staff writer Blitzer traces the harrowing history of the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, foregrounding the stories of Central American migrants whose lives have been threatened and upended by political tumult. A nuanced, layered, and rigorously reported portrait that Patrick Radden Keefe hails as "extraordinary." âSMS
The Survivors of the Clotilda by Hannah Durkin [NF]
Durkin, a British historian, explores the lives of 103 Africans who were kidnapped and transported on the last slave ship to dock in the U.S., shortly before the Civil War began in 1861. Many of these captives were children, and thus lived their lives against a dramatic backdrop, from the Civil War all the way up to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. What these people experienced and how they prevailed should intrigue anybody interested in learning more about our nationâs darkest chapter. âClaire Kirch
Your Utopia by Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur [F]
Following her acclaimed sophomore novel The Cursed Bunny, Chung returns with more tales from the realm of the uncanny. Covering everything from unruly AI to the quest for immortality to the environmental destruction caused by capitalism, Chungâs story collection promises more of the mystifying, horror-filled goodness that has become her calling card. âDF
The Rebel's Clinic by Adam Shatz [NF]
Frantz Fanonâpolitical philosopher, psychiatrist, and author of the trailblazing Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earthâis one of the most important writers and thinkers of the postcolonial era, and his work continues to inform contemporary thinking on race, capitalism, and power. In this sprawling biography, Shatz affirms Fanon's place as a towering intellect and groundbreaking activist. âSMS
You Dreamed of Empires by Ălvaro Enrigue, tr. Natasha Wimmer [F]
Enrigue's latest novel, following Sudden Death, reimagines the fateful 1519 invasion of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) by Spanish conquistador HernĂĄn CortĂ©s. With exuberant style, and in a lively translation by Wimmer, Enrigue brings the Aztec capital and the emperor Moctezuma to vibrant lifeâand rewrites their destinies. âSMS
February
Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, tr. by Mima SimiÄ [F]
Croatian literature may lag behind its Russian, Hungarian, Polish, and Ukrainian counterpartsâroughly in that orderâas far as stateside recognition goes, but we all make mistakes. Just like couples do in love and under capitalism. âA war between kitchen and bedroom,â as the liner notes read, would have been enough to sell me, but that warâs combatants, âan unemployed Dante scholarâ and âa passable actress,â really sealed the deal. âJohn H. Maher
The Unforgivable by Cristina Campo, tr. Alex Andriesse [NF]
This new NYRB edition, introduced by Kathryn Davis, brings together all of the essays Campo published in her lifetime, plus a selection of additional essays and autofiction. The result is a robust introduction to a stylishâbut largely forgottenâItalian writer whose "creativity was a vocation in the truest sense," per Jhumpa Lahiri. âSMS
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti [NF]
Last year, I was enraptured by Heti's limited-run New York Times newsletter in which she alphabetized sentences from 10 years' worth of her diary entriesâand this year, we can finally enjoy the sublime results of that experiment in book form. This is my favorite work of Heti's, full stop. âSMS
Dinner on Monster Island by Tania De Rozario [NF]
Blending film criticism, social commentary, and personal narrative, De Rozario (most recently the author of the Lambda Literary Awardânominated And the Walls Came Crumbling Down) explores her experience growing up queer, brown, and fat in Singapore, from suffering through a "gay-exorcism" to finding solace in horror films like Carrie. âSMS
Wrong Norma by Anne Carson [NF]
Everyone shut upâAnne Carson is speaking! This glistening new collection of drawings and musings from Carson is her first original work since the 2016 poetry collection Float. In Carson's own words, the collection touches on such disparate topics (she stresses they are "not linked") as Joseph Conrad, Roget's Thesaurus, snow, GuantĂĄnamo, and "my Dad." âDF
Self-Portraits: Stories by Osamu Dazai, tr. Ralph McCarthy [F]
Japanese writer Dazai had quite the moment in 2023, and that moment looks likely to continue into the new year. Self-Portraits is a collection of short autofiction in the signature melancholic cadence which so many Anglophone readers have come to love. Meditating on themes of hypocrisy, irony, nihilismâall with a touch of self-deprecating humorâDazaiâs work will either pull you out of a deep depression or crack your rose-colored glasses; there is no in-between. âDF
Imagination by Ruha Benjamin [NF]
Visionary imagination is essential for justice and a sustainable future, argues Benjamin, a Princeton professor of African American studies and founder of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab. In her treatise, she reminds readers of the human capacity for creativity, and she believes failures of imagination that lead to inequity can be remedied. In place of quasi-utopian gambles that widen wealth gaps and prop up the surveillance state, Benjamin recommends dreaming collective and anti-racist social arrangements into beingâa message to galvanize readers of adrienne marie brown and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. âSMS
Literary Theory for Robots by Dennis Yi Tenen [NF]
Artificial intelligence and machine-generated writing are nothing new, and perhaps nothing to fear, argues Tenen, a Columbia English professor and former software engineer. Traveling through time and across the world, Tenen reveals the labor and collaboration behind AI, complicating the knee-jerk (and, frankly, well-founded!) reactions many of us have to programs like ChatGPT. âSMS
A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh [F]
Alexander Graham Bell is best known as the inventor of the telephone, but what he considered his life's work was the education of deaf childrenâspecifically, the harmful practice of oralism, or the suppression of sign language. Marsh's wonderful debut novel unearths this little-known history and follows a deaf pupil of Bell's as she questions his teachings and reclaims her voice. âSMS
Get the Picture by Bianca Bosker [NF]
Journalist Bosker, who took readers behind the scenes with oenophiles in her 2017 Cork Dork, turns to avid artists, collectors, and curators for this sensory deep dive. Bosker relies on experiential reporting, and her quest to understand the human passion for visual art finds her apprenticing with creators, schmoozing with galleristas, and minding canonical pieces as a museum guard. âNodB
Columbo by Amelie Hastie [NF]
Columbo experienced something of a renaissance during the pandemic, with a new generation falling for the rugged, irresistible charms of Peter Falk. Hastie revisits the series, a staple of 70s-era TV, with refreshing rigor and appreciation, tackling questions of stardom, authorship, and the role of television in the process. âSMS
Acts of Forgiveness by Maura Cheeks [F]
Cheeks's debut novel sounds amazing and so au courant. A woman is elected U.S. president and promises Black Americans that they will receive reparations if they can prove they are descended from slaves. Youâd think people would jump on achieving some social justice in the form of cold cash, right? Not Willie Revelâs family, whoâd rather she not delve into the family history. This promises to be a provocative read on how the past really isnât past, no matter how much you run from it. âCK
The Sentence by Matthew Baker [F]
I minored in Spanish linguistics in college and, as a result, came to love that most useless and rewarding of syntactic exercises, diagramming sentences. So I'm very excited to read Baker's The Sentence, a graphic novel set in an alternate America and comprising single, 6,732-word sentence, diagrammed in full. Syntax wonks, assemble! âSMS
Neighbors by Diane Oliver [F]
Before her untimely death in 1966 at the age of 22, Oliver wrote stories of race and racism in Jim Crow America characterized by what Dawnie Walton calls "audacity, wit, and wisdom beyond her years." Only four of the 14 stories in Neighbors were published in Oliver's lifetime, and Jamel Brinkley calls the publication of her posthumous debut collection "an important event in African American and American letters." âSMS
The Weird Sister Collection by Marisa Crawford [NF]
Essayist, poet, and All Our Pretty Songs podcaster Crawford founded the Weird Sister blog in 2014, covering books and pop culture from contemporary young feministsâ and queer perspectives. The now-defunct blog offered literary reviews, Q&As with indie authors, and think pieces on film and music. For this collection, whose foreword comes from Michelle Tea, Crawford gathers favorite pieces from contributors, plus original work with a Weird Sister edge. âNodB
Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh [NF]
As research for his Ibis trilogy, Ghosh mapped the opium trade around the world and across centuries. This global and personal history revisits the British Empireâs dependence on Indian opium as a trade good, and how the cultivation of and profits from opium shaped todayâs global economy. In his nonfiction The Great Derangement, Ghosh employs personal anecdotes to make sense of larger-scale developments, and Smoke and Ashes promises to connect his own family and identity to todayâs corporate, institutional, and environmental realities. âNodB
Private Equity by Carrie Sun [NF]
In her debut memoir, Sun recounts her time on Wall Street, where she worked as an assistant to a billionaire hedge-fund founder and was forced to rethink everything she thought she knew about work, money, sacrifice, and living a meaningful life. This one sounds like a great read for fans of Anna Wiener's Uncanny Valley (e.g. me). âSMS
I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall [F]
When Khaki Oliver receives a letter from her estranged former best friend, she isnât ready for the onslaught of memories that soon cause her to unravel. A Black Bildungsroman about friendship, fandom, and sanity, I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both is an unflinching look at "what it means to be young in a hard, and nonetheless beautiful, world," per Vauhini Vara. âLiv Albright
Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit by Aisha Sabatini Sloan [NF]
I know from personal experience that anything published by Graywolf Press is going to open my eyes and make me look at the world in a completely different way, so I have high expectations for Sloanâs essays. In this clever collection, a Black creative reflects upon race, art, and pedagogy, and how they relate to oneâs life in this crazy country of ours during the time period between the 2016 election and the onset of the pandemic. âCK
Language City by Ross Perlin [NF]
Perlin travels throughout the most linguistically diverse city on the planetâNew Yorkâto chronicle the sounds and speakers of six endangered languages before they die out. A linguist and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, Perlin argues for the importance of little-known languages and celebrates the panoply of languages that exists in New York City. âSMS
Monkey Grip by Helen Garner [F]
A tale as old as time and/or patriarchal sociocultural constructs: a debut novel by a woman is published and the critics don't appreciate itâuntil later, at least. This proto-autofictional 1977 novel is now considered a classic of Australian "grunge lit," but at the time, it divided critics, probably because it had depictions of drug addiction and sex in it. But Lauren Groff liked it enough to write a foreword, so perhaps the second time really is the charm. âJHM
Ours by Phillip B. Williams [F]
A conjuror wreaks magical havoc across plantations in antebellum Arkansas and sets up a Brigadoon for the enslaved people she frees before finding that even a mystic haven isn't truly safe from the horrors of the world. What a concept! And a flexible one to boot: if this isn't adapted as a TV series, it would work just as well as an RPG. âJHM
Violent Faculties by Charlotte Elsby [F]
A philosophy professor influenced by the Marquis de Sade designs a series of experiments to prove its relevance as a discipline, specifically with regard to life and death, a.k.a. Philip Zimbardo (Chopped and Screwed Remix): The Novel. If you ever trusted a philosophy professor with your inner self beforeâand you probably shouldn't have?âyou probably won't after reading this. âJHM
American Abductions by Mauro Javier CĂĄrdenas [F]
Plagued by data harvesting, constant surveillance, mass deportation, and incarceration, the society at the heart of CĂĄrdenas's new novel is less speculative dystopia than realist reflection. Channeling Philp K. Dick and Samuel Delaney, CĂĄrdenas imagines a society where Latin Americans are systematically expunged. Following the lives of two Columbian-American sisters, one who was deported and one who stayed in the U.S., American Abduction tells a new kind of immigrant story, suffused with mysticism and philosophical rigor. âDF
Closures: Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom by Grace Lavery [NF]
I took Lavery's class on heterosexuality and sitcoms as an undergrad, and I'm thrilled to see the course's teachings collected in book form. Lavery argues that since its inception the sitcom has depicted heterosexuality as constantly on the verge of collapse, only to be reconstituted at the end of each half-hour episode. A fascinating argument about the cultural project of straightness. âSMS
Whiskey Tender by Deborah Taffa [NF]
Almost a decade in the making, this memoir from Taffa details generations of Southwest Native history and the legacies of assimilationist efforts. Taffaâa citizen of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe, and director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Artsâwas born on the California Yuma reservation and grew up in Navajo territory in New Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s. She reflects on tribal identity and attitudes toward off-reservation education she learned from her parentsâ and grandparentsâ fraught formative experiences. âNodB
Normal Women by Philippa Gregory [NF]
This is exciting news for Anglophiles and history nerds like me: Philippa Gregory is moving from historical fiction (my guilty pleasure) about royal women and aristocrats in medieval and early modern England to focus on the lives of common women during that same time period, as gleaned from the scraps of information on them she has unearthed in various archives. I love history âfrom the bottom upâ that puts women at the center, and Gregory is a compelling storyteller, so my expectations are high. âCK
Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin, tr. Max Lawton [F]
Upon its publication in 1999, Sorokin's sci-fi satire Blue Lard sparked protests across Russia. One aspect of it particularly rankled: the torrid, sexual affair it depicts between Stalin and Khruschev. All to say, the novel is bizarre, biting, and utterly irreverent. Translated into English for the first time by Lawton, Sorokin's masterwork is a must-read for anyone with an iconoclastic streak. âSMS
Piglet by Lottie Hazell [F]
Hazell's debut novel follows the eponymous Piglet, a successful cookbook editor identified only by her unfortunate childhood nickname, as she rethinks questions of ambition and appetite following her fiancĂ©'s betrayal. Per Marlowe Granados, Hazell writes the kind of "prose Nora Ephron would be proud of." âSMS
Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley [NF]
Crosley enlivens the grief memoir genre with the signature sense of humor that helped put her on the literary map. In Grief Is for People, she eulogizes the quirks and complexities of her friendship with Russell Perreault, former publicity director at Vintage Books, who died by suicide in 2019. Dani Shapiro hails Crosleyâs memoirâher first full-length book of nonfictionâas âboth a provocation and a balm to the soul.â âLA
The Freaks Came Out to Write by Tricia Romano [NF]
The freaks came out to write, and you better believe the freaks will come out in droves to read! In this history of the legendary alt-weekly the Village Voice, Romano (a former writer for the Voice) interviews some 200 members the paperâs most esteemed staff and subjects. A sweeping chronicle of the most exciting era in New York City journalism promises to galvanize burgeoning writers in the deflating age of digital media. âDF
Burn Book by Kara Swisher [NF]
Swisher has been reporting on the tech industry for 30 years, tracing its explosive growth from the dawn of the internet to the advent of AI. She's interviewed every tech titan alive and has chronicled their foibles and failures in excruciating detail. Her new book combines memoir and reportage to tell a comprehensive history of a troubled industry and its shortsighted leaders. âSMS
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange [F]
Orange returns with a poignant multi-generational tale that follows the Bear Shield-Red Feather family as they struggle to combat racist violence. Picking up where Orange's hit debut novel, There There, left off, Wandering Stars explores memory, inheritance, and identity through the lens of Native American life and history. Per Louise Erdrich, âNo one knows how to express tenderness and yearning like Tommy Orange." âLA
March
The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan [F]
Callahan's debut novel follows a young artist as she faces sudden hearing loss, forcing to reevaluate her orientation to her senses, her art, and the world around her. Amina Cain, Moyra Davey, and Kate Zambreno are all fans (also a dream blunt rotation), with the latter recommending this one be "read alongside the novels of W.G. Sebald, Rachel Cusk, and Maria Gainza." âSMS
The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft [F]
When a group of translators arrive at the home of renowned novelist Irena Rey, they expect to get to work translating her latest bookâinstead, they get caught up in an all-consuming mystery. Irena vanishes shortly after the translators arrive, and as they search for clues to the author's disappearance, the group is swept up by isolation-fueled psychosis and obsession. A âmischievous and intellectually provocativeâ debut novel, per Megha Majumdar. âLA
Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, tr. Heather Cleary [F]
This isnât your typical meet-cute. When two womenâone grieving, the other a vampire, both of them alienated and yearning for moreâcross paths in a Buenos Aires cemetery, romance blooms. Channelling Carmen Maria Machado and Anne Rice, Yuszczuk reimagines the vampire novel, with a distinctly Latin American feminist Gothic twist. âLA
The Great Divide by Cristina HenrĂquez [F]
I'm a sucker for meticulously researched and well-written historical fiction, and this oneâa sweeping story about the interconnected lives of the unsung people who lived and labored at the site of the Panama Canalâfits the bill. I heard HenrĂquez speak about this novel and her writing processes at a booksellers conference, and, like the 300 booksellers present, was impressed by her presentation and fascinated at the idea of such a sweeping tale set against a backdrop so larger-than-life and dramatic as the construction of the Panama Canal. âCK
Bite Your Friends by Fernanda Eberstadt [NF]
Melding memoir and history, Eberstadt's Bite Your Friends looks at the lives of saints, philosophers, and artistsâincluding the author and her motherâwhose abberant bodies became sites of subversion and rebellion. From Diogenes to Pussy Riot, Eberstadt asks what it means to put our bodies on the line, and how our bodies can liberate us. âSMS
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez [F]
When Raquel Toro, an art history student, stumbles on the story of Anita de Monte, a once prominent artist from the '80s whose mysterious death cut short her meteoric rise, her world is turned upside down. Gonzalez's sophomore novel (after her hit debut Olga Dies Dreaming) toggles between the perspectives of Raquel and Anita (who is based on the late Ana Mendieta) to explore questions of power, justice, race, beauty, and art. Robert Jones, Jr. calls this one "rollicking, melodic, tender, and trueâand oh so very wise." âLA
My Heavenly Favorite by Lucas Rijneveld, tr. Michele Hutchison [F]
Rijneveld, author of the International Booker Prize-winning novel The Discomfort of Evening, returns with a new take on the Lolita story, transpiring between a veterinarian and a farmer's daughter on the verge of adolescence. "This book unsettled me even as it made me laugh and gasp," gushes Brandon Taylor. "I'm in awe."
Radiant by Brad Gooch [NF]
Lauded biographer Gooch propels us through Keith Haringâs early days as an anonymous sidewalk chalk artist to his ascent as a vigilante muralist, pop-art savant, AIDS activist, and pop-culture icon. Fans of Haring's will not want to miss this definitive account of the artist's life, which Pulitzer-winner biographer Stacy Schiff calls "a keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come." âDF
The Riddles of the Sphinx by Anna Shechtman [NF]
Sometimes you encounter a book that seems to have been written specifically for you; this was the feeling I had when I first saw the deal announcement for Shechtman's debut book back in January 2022. A feminist history of the crossword puzzle? Are you kidding me? I'm as passionate a cruciverbalist as I am a feminist, so you can imagine how ravenously I read this book. The Riddles of the Sphinx is one of the best books of 2024, hands down, and I can't wait for everyone elseâpuzzlers and laymen alikeâto fall in love with it too. âSMS
The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov, tr. Boris Drayluk [F]
Kurkov is one of Ukraine's most celebrated novelists, and his latest book is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of WWI-era Kyiv. I'll admit what particularly excites me about The Silver Bone, though, is that it is translated by Dralyuk, who's one of the best literary translators working today (not to mention a superb writer, editor, and poet). In Drayluk's hands, Kurkov's signature humor and sparkling style come alive. âSMS
Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls [NF]
This multigenerational graphic memoir follows Hull, alongside her mother and grandmother, both of whom hail from China, across time and space as the delicate line between nature and nurture is strained by the forces of trauma, duty, and mental illness. Manjula Martin calls Feeding Ghosts âone of the best stories Iâve read about the tension between family, history, and self.â âDF
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken [F]
Haunting prose and a pithy crow guide readers through Marcken's novel of life after death. In a realm between reality and eternity, the undead traverse westward through their end-of-life highlight reel, dissecting memories, feelings, and devotions while slowly coming to terms with what it means to have lived once all that remains is love. Alexandra Kleeman admits that she "was absolute putty in this book's hands." âDF
Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi [F]
When I visited Prague, a year after the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the Czech capital struck me as a magical place, where anything is possible, and Oyeyemi captures the essence of Prague in Parasol Against the Axe, the story of a woman who attends her estranged friend's bachelorette weekend in the city. A tale in which reality constantly shifts for the characters and there is a thin line between the factual and the imagined in their relationships, this is definitely my kind of a read. âCK
Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine CapĂł Crucet [F]
Crucet's latest novel centers on a failed Pitbull impersonator who embarks on a quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montanaâa quest that leads him to cross paths with Lolita, a captive orca at the Miami Seaquariam. Winking at both Scarface and Moby-Dick, Say Hello to My Little Friend is "a masterclass in pace and precision," per Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. âSMS
But the Girl by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu [F]
Girl, a Malaysian-Australian who leaves home for the U.K. to study Sylvia Plath and write a postcolonial novel, finds herself unable to shake homeâor to figure out what a "postcolonial novel" even is. Blurbs are untrustworthy, but anything blurbed by Brandon Taylor is almost certainly worth checking out. âJHM
Wrong Is Not My Name by Erica N. Cardwell [NF]
Cardwell blends memoir, criticism, and theory to place her own KĂŒnstlerroman in conversation with the work of Black visual artists like Lorna Simpson, Lorraine O'Grady, and Kara Walker. In interconnected essays, Cardwell celebrates the brilliant Black women who use art and storytelling to claim their place in the world. âSMS
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham [F]
A theater critic at the New Yorker, Cunningham is one of my favorite writers working today, so I was thrilled to learn of his debut novel, which cheekily steals its title from the Dickens classic. Following a young Black man as he works on a historic presidential campaign, Great Expectations tackles questions of politics, race, religion, and family with Cunningham's characteristic poise and insight. âSMS
The Future of Songwriting by Kristin Hersh [NF]
In this slim volume, Throwing Muses frontwoman and singer-songwriter Hersh considers the future of her craft. Talking to friends and colleagues, visiting museums and acupuncturists, Hersh threads together eclectic perspectives on how songs get made and how the music industry can (and should) change. âSMS
You Get What You Pay For by Morgan Parker [NF]
Parker, a brilliant poet and author of the stellar There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce, debuts as an essayist with this candid, keen-eyed collection about life as a Black woman in America. Casting her gaze both inward and onto popular culture, Parker sees everything and holds back nothing. âSMS
Mother Doll by Katya Apekina [F]
Following up her debut novel, The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish, Apekina's Mother Doll follows Zhenia, an expectant mother adrift in Los Angeles whose world is rocked by a strange call from a psychic medium with a message from Zhenia's Russian Revolutionary great-grandmother. Elif Batuman calls this one "a rare achivement." âSMS
Solidarity by Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix [NF]
What does "solidarity" mean in a stratified society and fractured world? Organizers and activists Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor look at the history of the conceptâfrom its origins in Ancient Rome to its invocation during the Black Live Matter movementâto envision a future in which calls for solidarity can produce tangible political change. âSMS
The Manicurist's Daughter by Susan Lieu [NF]
After her mother, a refugee of the Vietnam war and the owner of two nail salons, dies from a botched cosmetic surgery, Lieu goes looking for answers about her mother's mysterious life and untimely death. Springing from her hit one-woman show 140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother, Lieu's debut memoir explores immigration, beauty, and the American Dream. âSMS
Through the Night Like a Snake ed. Sarah Coolidge [F]
There's no horror quite like Latin American horror, as any revering reader of Cristina Rivera Garzaâis there any other kind?âcould tell you. Two Lines Press consistently puts out some of the best literature in translation that one can come by in the U.S., and this story collection looks like another banger. âJHM
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel [F]
Bullwinkel's debut collection, Belly Up, was a canful of the uncanny. Her debut novel, on the other hand, sounds gritty and grounded, following the stories of eight teenage girls boxing in a tournament in Reno. Boxing stories often manage to punch above their weight (sorry) in pretty much any medium, even if you're not versed enough in the sport to know how hackneyed and clichĂ©d that previous clause's idiomatic usage was. âJHM
Choose This Now by Nicole Haroutunian [F]
Haroutunian's novel-in-stories, part of Noemi Press's Prose Series, follows a pair of inseparable friends over the years as they embark on careers, make art, fall in and out of love, and become mothers. Lydia Kiesling calls this one "a sparkling, intimate look at women's lives" that makes "for a lovely reading experience." âSMS
Death by Laughter by Maggie Hennefeld [NF]
Hennefeld's scholarly study explores the forgotten history and politics of women's "hysterical laughter," drawing on silent films, affect theory, feminist film theory, and more. Hennefeld, a professor of cultural studies and comparative literature, offers a unique take on women's pleasure and repressionâand how the advent of cinema allowed women to laugh as never before. âSMS
James by Percival Everett [F]
In James, the once-secondary character of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn narrates his version of life on the Mississippi. Jim, who escapes enslavement only to end up in adventures with white runaway Huck, gives his account of well-known events from Mark Twainâs 1880s novel (and departs from the record to say what happened next). Everett makes readers hyperaware of code-switchingâhis 2001 novel Erasure was about a Black novelist whose career skyrockets when he doubles down on cynical stereotypes of Blacknessâand Jim, in James, will have readers talking about written vernacular, self-awareness, and autonomy. âNodB
A Chance Meeting by Rachel Cohen [NF]
Chronicling 36 fateful encounters among 30 writers and artistsâfrom Henry James to Gertrude Stein, Mark Twain to Zora Neal HurstonâCohen paints a vast and sparkling portrait of a century's worth of American culture. First published in 2004, and reissued by NYRB, A Chance Meeting captures the spark of artistic serendipity, and the revived edition features a new afterword by the author. âSMS
Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler [NF]
Butler has had an outsized impact on how we think and talk about gender and sexuality ever since the 1990 publication of Gender Trouble, which theorized the way gender is performed and constructed. Butler's latest is a polemic that takes on the advent of "anti-gender ideology movements," arguing that "gender" has become a bogeyman for authoritarian regimes. âSMS
Green Frog by Gina Chung [F]
Chung, author of the acclaimed debut novel Sea Change, returns with a story collection about daughters and ghosts, divorcees and demons, praying mantises and the titular verdant amphibians. Morgan Talty calls these 15 stories "remarkable." âSMS
No Judgment by Lauren Oyler [NF]
Oyler is one of our sharpest and most fearless cultural critics, and No Judgement is her first essay collection, following up her debut novel Fake Accounts. Opining on gossip and anxiety, autofiction and vulnerability, and much, much more, Oyler's caustic wit and penetrating voice shine through every essay. âSMS
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko [F]
Following up her National Book Awardânominated debut novel The Leavers, Ko's latest follows three lifelong friends from the 1990s to the 2040s. A meditation on the meaning of a "meaningful life" and how to adapt to an increasingly inhospitable world, Memory Piece has earned praise from Jacqueline Woodson and C Pam Zhang, who calls the novel "bright with defiance, intelligence, and stubborn love." âSMS
On Giving Up by Adam Phillips [NF]
Psychoanalyst Phillipsâwhose previous subjects include getting better, wanting to change, and missing outâtakes a swing at what feels like a particularly timely impulse: giving up. Questioning our notions of sacrifice and agency, Phillips asks when giving up might be beneficial to us, and which parts of our lives might actually be worth giving up. âSMS
There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib [NF]
Abdurraqib returns (how lucky are we!) with a reflection on his lifelong love of basketball and how it's shaped him. While reconsidering his childhood, his relationship with his father, and the meaning of "making it," Abdurraqib delivers what Shea Serrano calls "the sharpest, most insightful, most poignant writing of his career." âSMS
The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones [F]
The final installment of Jones's trilogy picks up four years after Don't Fear the Reaper. Jade Daniels is back from prison, and upon her release, she encounters serial killer-worshipping cults, the devastating effects of gentrification, andâworst of allâthe curse of the Lake Witch. Horror maestro Brian Keene calls Jones's grand finale "an easy contender for Best of the Year." âLA
Worry by Alexandra Tanner [F]
This deadpan debut novel from Tanner follows two sisters on the cusp of adulthood as they struggle to figure out what the hell to do with their lives. Heads butt, tempers flare, and existential dread creeps in as their paths diverge amid the backdrop of Brooklyn in 2019. Limning the absurdity of our internet-addled, dread-filled moment, Tanner establishes herself as a formidable novelist, with Kiley Reid calling Worry "the best thing I've read in a very long time." âDF
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A Year in Reading: AyĆe Papatya Bucak
I am vulnerable to the word
once.
ââOnce long ago,â Rogni said, âan old woman in a flowered housedress sat on a kitchen chair steeping tea in a cracked brown teapot. She was the Nurse-of-Becoming; she was getting ready to imagine two sisters. Only she made three mistakes.'â So begins Kathryn Davisâs Labrador. The curtain parts. The world disappears.
One of my favorite things to read this year has been Sabrina Orah Markâs series Happily, on fairy tales and motherhood, online at The Paris Review. âMy sonâs first grade teacher pulls me aside to tell me sheâs concerned about Noah and the Ghost People,â the first essay begins. The curtain parts. The world divides. The ghost people appear by my side.
âIn the house opposite, in the dark night of the garden, the governesses are playing cards. ElĂ©onore who seems so straitlaced is laughing like a madwoman,â writes Anne Serre (and translator Mark Hutchinson), in The Governesses, another of my favorites. One that the New Directions catalog copy refers to as a âsemi-deranged erotic fairy tale,â by the way. The curtains part. A light comes on the dark.
âMouths open to the sun, they sleep,â begins Valeria Luiselliâs novel Lost Children Archive, yet another favorite. The curtain parts. The dream begins. Current events become story.
Each year I tell my creative writing classes they must attempt to write literature, and literature does not let readers escape the world, it forces them to engage with the world. Your writing can be in any genre, I tell them, but its goal must be engagement, not escape. There are lots of enjoyable books that serve as an escape, I say. But thatâs not what weâre writing.
I am not so sure anymore though.
Donât I use literature as an escape?
Once I asked a student what he
thought made a good book.
âA book that changes how you
think?â he said.
âThen what makes a great book?â
I asked.
âA book that changes how you
act?â he said.
Do books ever change how I act?
I wonder.
I tell my students that writing
should give the reader an experience.
That implies books could change
how we act. Experiences change how we act. Donât they? Shouldnât they?
In the spring, I was supposed to review Kathryn Davisâs novel The Silk Road. I volunteered to do it. I love the strange worlds of Kathryn Davisâs creations, and a novel that shifted between the Philadelphia suburbs of my motherâs ancestors and the silk road journeys of my fatherâs ancestors seemed custom-built for me. But I read it and I faltered. I didnât understand it. I wasnât sure if I liked it. So I read it again, and I liked it more, but understood it less. Possibly I became obsessed with it and the strange siblings that drift across its pages in some kind of maybe physical, maybe metaphysical journey after one of them has died. Possibly I read it three times. Still I couldnât review it.
I suggested to the editor that I write an essay on Davisâs work as a whole instead. They agreed. So I reread Duplex, my favorite (schoolteacher dates sorcerer in suburban town studied by robots) and Hell, my second favorite (braided narrative of households across time and space, but much stranger than that makes it sound). I read Versailles (an often humorous Marie Antoinette retelling), The Walking Tour (two couples take a tour of Wales, not everybody comes home) and finally Labrador (awkward sister gets taken to Arctic by eccentric grandfather who is eaten by polar bear while graceful sister stays home and gets pregnant).
It was one of my favorite and strangest periods of reading. Dream upon dream. Not daydreams, which are carefully constructed fantasies, but night dreams, made up of recognizable parts assembled in peculiar configurations. I went into each novel and came back out again unable to recount exactly where Iâd been. (The Silk Road aptly begins: âWe were in the labyrinth.â) Maybe this doesnât sound like a positive recommendation; but what I am trying to say is I lived inside of Kathryn Davisâs writing for awhile, and if you are the kind of person who wants to see the world with greater wonder, who is always looking for foreign lands in the backs of wardrobes, who understands death to be close all of the time but also probably not within the realm of imaginingâthese books are for you. They are an escape, though one from which you return with a greater capacity for seeing and appreciating the wondrous world.
But still I didnât write the
essay.
Maybe this had less to do with
the difficulties of writing and more to do with the difficulties of life.
My father died this year. Now I have another father, of memory and story and imagination, an autofictional father existing in another dimension. Now I tell stories about him that he will never hear. On his death certificate, the funeral home listed him as female. They also handed his box of remains to my mother inside of a sparkly green gift bag. Upon receiving this gift, my mother and I did not react, nor look at each other, until we stepped outside of the building and burst into laughter. âItâs okay, Iâll reuse it,â my mother said. We laughed even harder. But my father, who appreciated jokes, perhaps would not have appreciated this one.
âWill you weep when I die?â he
used to ask me, as if there was any doubt.
Once once once. I had a father.
Escape engage. Escape engage.
The story of mourning.
In Turkish there is a storytelling tense, not past, not present, not future. The tense for repeating things you heard secondhand but did not have direct experience of. The once-upon-a-time tense. In that tense I still have a father.
When my father died he had both
Alzheimerâs and a rare form of mouth cancer. Because of the Alzheimerâs he
sometimes forgot he had cancer. My mother would have to tell him again. And again.
If she could have, my mother
would have let him forget. But my father would moan, or scream, or really
scream, that his mouth hurt, why wasnât she taking him to the dentist, why
wasnât she helping him. Even after weeks of chemo, he could still forget.
Wouldnât it be nice if
forgetting was an escape? But all it did was make his pain inexplicable.
Because I am both Turkish and not, every year I read as many Turkish writers as I can. This year I had much appreciation for: AyĆegĂŒl SavaĆâs lyric novel Walking on the Ceiling; jailed politician Selahattin DemirtaĆâs sometimes charming, sometimes brutal story collection Dawn; Ece Temelkuranâs dire but believable warning that engagement without activism becomes the mere âexpression and exchange of emotional responsesâ How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship; Can DĂŒndarâs surprisingly humorous and even joyful We Are Arrested: A Journalistâs Notes From a Turkish Prison; and journalist Ahmet Altanâs more somber I Will Never See the World Again (translated by Yasemin Congar), also written in jail and smuggled out via his lawyers.
But the book that stopped me in my tracks was More by Hakan GĂŒnday (translated by Zeynep Beler). You canât find a summary or review of the novel that doesnât include words like harrowing, disturbing, and unsettling. The narrator is a teenager engaged in the family businessâsmuggling refugees for money with zero concern for the refugeesâ safety or survival. It is no surprise that this novel has not had the popularity of its much sunnier bookend, Mohsin Hamidâs Exit West. Where Hamid uses fantasy to create hope, GĂŒnday uses it to create horror. The title comes from the refugeesâ cries for âmoreâ food as the narrator scrapes excrement off the floor of the concrete bunker they are buried in during the smuggling process. The novel, which to be clear, I admired tremendously, reads very much like a nightmareâappropriately so given the real life circumstances it is trying to place the reader inside of. But even it, was also, for me, an escape. What have I done for the Syrian refugees other than imagine their nightmare? Doesnât educating myself about the horrors of the world make me feel proud! But what does it do for those who suffer them?
I guess I believe reading
generates empathy. I feel pretty sure it can offer readers life experiences
they would not otherwise have. But does it change how we act?
Engage escape engage
escape.
When I read Ahmet Altan, I am outraged at his imprisonment. When I read the news of his release, I feel joy. When I read the news of his re-arrest, I feel outrage again. But feelings arenât engagement, are they?
Are they?
For me, the action that reading triggers is writing. And here is my bigger fear: that writing isnât engagement either.
I donât doubt the value of
literature, of representation, of the framing of narratives, of making our pain
explicable, but writing isnât enough. How could it be? And yet, at times, I
have treated it as if it is. Even now, even now as I type this and imagine you
reading it, I am hoping that you, not I, will be moved to act, to right the
world, rightâŠnow.
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