December
Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones, House of Day, House of Night
Riverhead, December 2
There’s nothing by Olga Tokarczuk that I won’t read, but this new book is high on my TBR pile. In a remote Polish village, a woman encounters the area’s few inhabitants—the drunk who shares a body with a bird, another who has nightmares from a newly discovered planet, the Germans who have recently called the land their own. I can’t wait for this “constellation novel.” –EF
Matt Greene, The Definitions
Henry Holt, December 2
A novel about identity and oppression, set in a dystopian rehab center after a strange plague strips people of themselves. The Center at the heart of the book helps people rediscover and rebuild their names and identities through rigid hierarchies and old DVDs with characters named “Maria, Chandler, Chino, Gunther”—a little too similar to how I’ve also rebuilt my personality post-pandemic. Greene’s first novel Ostrich had a lot of humor, and I’m looking forward to more of his wit amongst the darker threads in this forthcoming book. –JF
Elizabeth McCracken, A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction
Ecco, December 2
McCracken is a brilliant writer and, as I’ve heard from many who have worked with her, a brilliant teacher as well. In this craft book, we all get the benefit of her years of teaching—How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? McCracken notes that “Writing is a long game… What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or self-forgiveness: every life needs both.” For readers who want a lesson in craft or to learn about the life of a working artist, this book will be essential. –EF
Lauren Rothery, Television
Ecco, December 2
Blame it on having read The City and the Pillar too recently, but lately I’ve been enjoying fiction featuring aging film stars making odd choices and not quite knowing why. A protagonist with shallow self-knowledge setting forth to take a blowtorch to their life is one of the more fun literary rides a reader can go on. If nothing else, the marketing copy for this debut promises a “profoundly modern style”, and I’m curious to learn what, exactly, that entails. –CK
John Darnielle, This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days
MCD, December 2
If Bob Dylan can win a Nobel Prize than we can call John Darnielle one of the best short story writers of the last 30 years. The man behind The Mountain Goats, Darnielle’s songs are perfect narrative jewels that navigate all the longing, absurdity, desire, regret, anger, joy, and wonder of this life, refracted through a very particular Gen X sensibility. But you can now read them for yourself, on the page (with commentary from the man himself). –JD
Fátima Vélez, tr. Hannah Kauders, Galapagos
Astra House, December 2
A group of artists all dying of AIDS set off on a strange sea voyage, headed for the Galapagos. It sounds like a macabre riff on the The Decameron at sea, promising “a journey of decomposition” and wonders both textual and spiritual. Certainly sounds like nothing else I’ve ever encountered, and for that I’m excited. –DB
Davey Davis, Casanova 20: Or, Hot World
Catapult, December 2
Davey Davis’s previous novel, X, has proven to be uncannily prescient in its descriptions of a totalitarian American government forcing out undesirables through a mixture of forced deportations and encouraging self-deportations. Going off of their predictive powers, it would be unwise—and, based on the neo-noir pleasures of X, depriving yourself of a lot of fun—to miss out on this one. –CK
John Berryman, ed. Shane McCrae, Only Sing: 152 Uncollected Dream Songs
FSG, December 9
Dream Songs has been out in the world for 61 years: 61 years of entrancing, captivating, disturbing, affecting poem-songs. John Berryman released that first batch, then another batch, and now here comes 152 never before published poems, released upon the world like a cloud of white doves. New poems to memorize, to ingest, to hold, to float upon. Life, friends, is boring except for when we have a new collection of John Berryman to carry us through. –JH
Adam Morgan, A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls
Atria/One Signal Publishers, December 9
A book covering the historical precedent for detractors labeling any publication of sexual or queer-related content “obscene” is going to be extraordinarily relevant in 2025, and that’s probably the more sensible reason to be excited for A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls. What can’t be overstated, however, is the implication that Ulysses is a form of forbidden chick lit. Looking forward to this book forever changing the reputation of Ulysses to that effect, and elevating the story of one of its earliest proponents. –CK, as recommended in our first-half of 2025 list
