12 new books to get from your local indies this week.
Dear reader, the only thing we really recommend reading today is the ballot. If you have not voted, we strongly recommend that you do! If you have already done your civic duty, why not reward yourself with a trip to your neighborhood bookstore? As all readers of this site undoubtedly know: independent bookstores need a second wave of your support now. Here are 12 new titles hitting shelves at a local indie near you!
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Nicole Krauss, To Be a Man
(Harper)
“…for fans and newcomers alike, To Be a Man offers the pleasure of being in the company of Krauss’ surprising, challenging mind, tugged along by an imagination that’s ever curious about the limits and possibilities of fiction, of time, and of love.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
Megan Hunter, The Harpy
(Grove Press)
“Hunter writes about the intricacies of motherhood with striking nuance … This surreal, eviscerating work of fiction lays bare the drudgery of suburban marriage and delves into institutionalised gender roles.”
–The Irish Times
N. Scott Momaday, Earth Keeper
(Harper)
“…this poetic love letter to the Earth blurs and crosses lines between genres, times and places, allowing us to see the bridging of our own physical existence with the realm beyond the tangible.”
–The Star Tribune
Julián Herbert, tr. Christina MacSweeney, Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino
(Graywolf Press)
“Reunited with award-winning translator Christina MacSweeney, Herbert presents 10 stories ready to disturb, quite possibly even disgust. That said, even for the most reluctant readers, the surprisingly immersive humor and slyly playful wit make resistance futile.”
–Shelf Awareness
Shirley Hazzard, Collected Stories
(FSG)
“Shirley Hazzard is a perfectionist’s writer. Her books, composed of dense, layered sentences, are like the sort of difficult, delicate cakes no one bothers to make anymore. They’re slender yet solid, consummate, as fascinated and affected by the mysteries of experience as they are self-assured.”
–Harper’s
John Connolly, The Dirty South
(Atria)
“A beautifully measured novel that is equal parts gripping mystery and an unsentimental meditation on grief, The Dirty South is very probably the best crime novel you will read this year.”
–The Irish Times
Yi Lei, tr. Tracy K. Smith, My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree
(Graywolf Press)
“These poems in English are a tour de force … In our own moment of urgency, this collection is, as Smith says, essential.”
–RHINO
Mauro Javier Cárdenas, Aphasia
(FSG)
“[A] once-reluctant father tries to balance family with an awareness of lost possibilities while his sister’s life unravels … Original, richly felt, deftly written. Highly recommended.”
–Kirkus
Mauro Javier Cárdenas, Music for the Dead and Resurrected
(FSG)
“In English, cast in rapid-fire free verse lyrics and sequences, her poems seem to channel her country’s complicated and highly pressurized history into a voice that is simultaneously strange, intimate, lonesome, hilarious, surreal and all too real.”
–NPR
Steven Turner, The Science of James Smithson
(Smithsonian Books)
“[A] quirky, oddly touching book that allows us to step, for a few moments, inside the world of a practicing Enlightenment scientist, to sit beside him as he fans the flames of a candle with his little blowpipe, waiting for that small mineral in front of him to melt and yield its secrets.”
–The Wall Street Journal
Tom Shone, The Nolan Variations
(Knopf)
“This is an erudite book, written primarily for serious film fans, but Shone’s prose is easygoing and mostly nontechnical, and the text has plenty to say to readers of all levels of interest.”
–Booklist
Priya Basil, Be My Guest
(Knopf)
“Priya Basil offers a rich meditation on the nature of hospitality, inviting readers to question the relationship between host and guest and to examine the philosophical contradictions at play.”
–The Times Literary Supplement
