20 new books to celebrate today.
Okay, maybe I say this every Tuesday, but I really, really mean it today: we’ve got a good book bounty this week, folks.
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K-Ming Chang, Gods of Want
(One World)
“Relationships between women—familial, beloved, strange, imagined—dominate queer Taiwanese American Chang’s explosive and bizarre first story collection … Chang glides effortlessly between the shocking and quotidian, demanding attention, deserving applause.”
–Booklist
Zain Khalid, Brother Alive
(Grove Press)
“One the most exciting debuts in recent years … Khalid’s vision can be bleak, even cynical, but it’s also remarkably cogent and underscored with a profound tenderness … Blisteringly intelligent, bursting with profound feeling, and host to some of the most complex, necessary characters in recent memory.”
–Library Journal
Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch
(Knopf)
“Feminist motifs are amplified through role reversals and literary parallels … Aycayia makes them—and us—newly aware of historical injustice, capturing it in a flash of her tail.”
–Times Literary Supplement
Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds
(Doubleday)
“What adds even more substance to this personal story is that the book radiates out into such issues as the collision between the Old World and the New, pitting Indigenous spirituality against institutionalized religion, and their differing approaches to medicine … Beautifully written and layered, an empowering act of recovery and self-discovery.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
Teddy Wayne, The Great Man Theory
(Bloomsbury)
“This novel attempts an exquisite balancing act between the farcical and the devastatingly sad and between the political polarities its protagonist sets out to address.”
–Kirkus
Nicole Chung and Matt Ortile (eds.), Body Language
(Catapult)
“These lyrical and incisive essays cover a wide range of topics related to the human body, including birth, death, race, gender, size, disability, and fertility … Marked by the diversity of its contributor’s perspectives and the vibrancy of their prose, this anthology shines.”
–Publishers Weekly
Nada Alic, Bad Thoughts
(Vintage)
“As the characters wrestle with what’s missing from their lives, the author finds mordant hilarity. The more Alic leans into the weirdness, the more addictive this becomes.”
–Publishers Weekly
Carmen Rita Wong, Why Didn’t You Tell Me?
(Crown)
“Snappy writing, unusual empathy, and an unexpectedly satisfying resolution send this memoir to the front of the pack.”
–Kirkus
David Musgrave, Lambda
(Europa)
“…science-fiction readers who favor the bizarre will likely be confused and charmed in equal parts. An odd novel that shouldn’t work but somehow does.”
–Kirkus
Francesca Manfredi, tr. Ekin Oklap, The Empire of Dirt
(W. W. Norton)
“Manfredi delivers Valentina’s narrative, as translated by Oklap, in a straightforward and unapologetic tone consistent with the bravado and insecurities of adolescence.”
–Kirkus
Charles Baxter, Wonderlands
(Graywolf Press)
“A veteran author of the craft extolls the many rewards of literature … Cozy, writerly advice and analysis delivered in a restrained, welcoming manner.”
–Kirkus
Erika L. Sánchez, Crying in the Bathroom
(Viking)
“Sánchez uses amusing anecdotes to chronicle the chronic pain she endured … An engrossing, accessible, heart-opening recollection of a fascinating life.”
–Booklist
Randall Kenan, The Fire This Time
(Melville House)
“Kenan’s latest, alternating memoir and commentary, is an intelligent homage to James Baldwin’s celebrated 1963 The Fire Next Time, and an important book in its own right.”
–Publishers Weekly
Alec Wilkinson, A Divine Language
(FSG)
“Inspiring reading for anyone seeking to overcome intellectual defeat in any realm.”
–Kirkus
Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea
(Flatiron)
“Julie Armfield’s debut novel is sharp, atmospheric, dryly funny, sad, distinctive. If it doesn’t appear on numerous prize lists, I’ll eat my hat.”
–Irish Times
Claude Simon, tr. Richard Howard, The Flanders Road
(NYRB)
“The ferocious drive of the prose, the images of love and war tossed up like spray out of the struggling rush and turmoil of words, is stupendous.”
–Kirkus
CJ Hauser, The Crane Wife
(Doubleday)
“Hauser builds her life’s inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that’s rich like a complicated dessert — not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites.”
–The New York Times Book Review
Rebecca Miller, Total
(FSG)
“In Miller’s alluring collection, protagonists search for connection and pleasure in strange, sometimes destructive ways … These stories are full of surprises.”
–Publishers Weekly
Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, Salmon Wars
(Henry Holt)
“By exposing many of the unsavory elements of salmon farming, the authors hope to better educate consumers and encourage more responsible practices … A compelling investigation.”
–Kirkus
Safia Elhillo, Girls That Never Die
(One World)
“Girls That Never Die is an incredibly moving, and well-structured collection of poetry about being a Muslim girl, about shame, about the silent hurts women carry, about the pressures of cultural expectations, about dangerous silences. The writing here is incisive and intimate and eloquent.”
–Roxane Gay
