Julian Barnes, Jeanette Winterson, Jennette McCurdy, and more: 24 new books out today!

Three big J-names have new books this week, each one more coveted and anticipated than the last. Julian Barnes is releasing his 28th (!) book, a mix of memoir and fiction about mortality, memory, and love. Jeanette Winterson’s new work is a mix of memoir, philosophy, and literary criticism and Jennette McCurdy follows up her rousing success of a memoir with her first novel. And below you will find many, many more: dive in, and have a great week.

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Julian Barnes, Departure(s)
(Knopf)

“This is a rewarding and profound exploration of the human condition from a deeply captivating writer.”
–Booklist

Jennettte McCurdy, Half His Age
(Ballantine)

“A deeply felt and humorous tale about the dangers of youth and desire—this novel is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unputdownable.”
–Aria Aber

Jeanette Winterson, One Aladdin Two Lamps
(Grove)

“A dizzying whirligig of memoir, history, philosophy, politics and self-help … Thrillingly direct.”
–The Guardian

Nina McConigley, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder
(Pantheon)

“A fierce and marvelous book with an utterly unique, brightly burning lifeforce.”
–Maggie Shipstead

Elizabeth Vartkessian, The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice
(Bloomsbury)

“Vartkessian offers a new, courageous vision for a society with less violence and more mercy, through an honest reckoning with how we fail the least among us.”
–Maurice Chammah

Nina Sankovitch, Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America’s Most Radical Revolutionary
(Simon and Schuster)

“Nina Sankovitch’s extraordinary book considers the mysteries of faith as well as the burdens of being all-too-human.”
–Jennifer Finney Boylan

Melissa Faliveno, Hemlock
(Little Brown)

“I devoured this eerie, sexy parable of addiction and becoming. A delight from beginning to end.”
–Melissa Febos

Chuck Klosterman, Football
(Penguin Press)

“A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.”
–Kirkus

Gabriel Tallent, Crux
(Riverhead)

“One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman. It’s also exciting and tension-filled. Sharply written and full of controlled emotion.”
–Stephen King

Nicolas Niarchos, The Elements of Power
(Penguin Press)

“An eye-opening and sobering investigation that challenges us to consider the suffering embedded in our everyday devices.”
–Kirkus

Larissa Pham, Discipline
(Random House)

“Art bleeds into life in Larissa Pham’s exhilarating, exquisite book, full of an eerie intelligence and startling compassion … A pitch-perfect novel.”
–Ayşegül Savaş

Elliot Williams, Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York’s Explosive ’80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
(Penguin Press)

“A deeply researched, richly detailed portrait of how a racially divided city came to excuse potentially deadly white-on-Black violence.”
–Columbia Magazine

Oksana Vasyakina, trans. by Elina Alter, Steppe
(Catapult)

“An elegiac tribute to a fatally flawed bond.”
–Kirkus

Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
(Crown)

“A cogent argument for putting long-overdue dollars on the table to compensate for injuries past and present.”
–Kirkus

Rachel Eliza Griffiths, The Flower Bearers
(Random House)

“A memoir of duality, of intoxicating love and excruciating loss.”
–Geraldine Brooks

Simon Armitage, New Cemetery: Poems
(Knopf)

“An exceptionally skilled poet.”
–The Observer

Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, trans. by Gene Png, Two Women Living Together
(Ecco)

“A winning testament to the power of friendship.”
–Publishers Weekly

Patrice Nganang, Scale Boy: An African Childhood
(FSG)

“This elegant portrayal of finding grace and beauty amid upheaval will captivate readers.”
–Publishers Weekly

Liadan Ní Chuinn, Every One Still Here: Stories
(FSG)

“Ní Chuinn’s prose is austere and precise … This is heart-stopping writing.”
–The Observer

Beronda L. Montgomery, When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy
(Holt)

“A poignant and singular retelling of Black American history.”
–Publishers Weekly

Jane Ziegelman, Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World
(St. Martin’s Press)

“Both an elegy and a celebration, a testament to the power of remembrance and the resilience of a people who refused to be forgotten.
–Benyamin Cohen

Danny Funt, Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling
(Gallery Books)

“Funt masterfully chronicles the meteoric rise in gambling and societal acceptance of a predatory business in a book that will simultaneously inform and alarm readers.”
–Booklist

Angela Tomaski, The Infamous Gilberts
(Scribner)

“Exquisite. A first novel to treasure and inspire. Vivid, poignant, hilarious, and tragic.”
–Barbara Trapido

Afshin Matin-Asgari, Axis of Empire: A History of Iran-US Relations
(Verso)

“A lucid and compelling history that challenges received wisdom and illuminates the complex entanglements of imperial power and resistance.”
–Eskandar Sadeghi