Sinéad O’Connor! Sin City! A “Jewish Jane Austen!” 21 new books out today.
The wheel of the year continues its slow, strange turn, a turning at once painfully glacial and precipitously swift. At the moment, the wheel has landed upon a morass of MAGA conspiracies, lurid revelations about the President’s relationship with an infamous predator, war and destruction abroad, and more—a chaotic mix that feels all too normal, all too Arendtian in its banality of evil.
But so it goes, as Vonnegut puts it. And amidst this all, there is still cause for celebration: wonderful new books to consider. I come bearing twenty-one new ones in fiction and nonfiction for your reading pleasure—and we all need some of that these days.
In fiction, you’ll find scintillating debuts from Katie Yee, Tehila Hakimi, J.B. Hwang, Kate Broad, and others, as well as new work from acclaimed up-and-comers and established authors alike: Michael Clune, Eloghosa Osunde, Esther Chehebar (who one reviewer calls a Jewish Austen), and more. And in nonfiction, there’s a new ode to Sinéad O’Connor’s music; a “dark” memoir of Las Vegas that one reviewer claims is a worthy (and soberer) successor Hunter S. Thompson; a look at an oft-overlooked resource, shade, in the era of global warming; and more.
I hope these bring comfort, clarity, and curiosity to dig deeper. Keep safe, Dear Reader, and add these to your to-be-read piles.
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Katie Yee, Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar
(Simon & Schuster/Summit Books)
“A stand-out and must read debut. This is a poignant exploration of a woman’s unraveling, when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected confession. Katie Yee weaves a tale of complex emotions and subtle betrayals, with a keen eye for the intricacies of human relationships and the quiet, often overlooked moments of life. Every paragraph is perfect.”
–Weike Wang
Eloghosa Osunde, Necessary Fiction
(Riverhead)
“[A] kaleidoscopic view of queer Nigerian life in this vibrant tale of a diverse group of friends and relatives and their internal struggles….Osunde shines in their voice-driven narration, smoothly integrating Nigerian Pidgin into the novel’s crystalline prose….there’s much to love in this bighearted novel.”
–Publishers Weekly
Tehila Hakimi, Hunting in America
(Penguin Books)
“In this astonishing debut novel, Tehila Hakimi weaves a darkly seductive tale of alienation and desire and asks hard questions about the sacrifices made and challenges faced by women in a male dominated workplace, revealing the violence inherent in our daily lives. Hakimi’s protagonist straddles the thin line between reality and fantasy, between cultures and languages, between hunting and being hunted. Utterly gripping and chilling.”
–Ayelet Tsabari
John Gregory Dunne, Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season
(McNally Editions)
“The best book about Sin City ever written. Yes, better even than Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas….Dunne has Thompson beat. His grotesqueries aren’t drug-induced, they’re very real. His is the genuine Vegas….What happened to John Gregory Dunne in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas, and he was all the better for it. So will you be after reading this phenomenal book.”
–Esquire
Aiden Arata, You Have a New Memory: Essays
(Grand Central Publishing)
“With You Have a New Memory Aiden Arata conjures a compelling, nearly impossible voice—a wise and melancholy detachment merged with deeply vulnerable, emotional truth. I hadn’t known how badly I needed such a guide through the times we’re surviving. In the lineage of Joan Didion, both searching and knowing, philosophical and frivolous, Arata’s insistence on finding meaning in our online and IRL experience is engrossing and inspiring.”
–Michelle Tea
Amara Moira, So What If I’m a Puta: Diaries of Transness, Sex Work, Desire
(Feminist Press)
“An unflinching, erudite essay collection that delivers a no-holds-barred look into sex work as a form of expression and a path to discovery.”
–Foreword Reviews
Michael Clune, Pan
(Penguin Press)
“This strange anti-love child of Arthur Machen, Philip K. Dick, and William S. Burroughs infected my brain with odd humor, paranoia, and existential dread. Bursting with truly breathtaking prose, Pan is an ontological coming of age story for, well, the ages.”
–Paul Tremblay
J. B. Hwang, Mendell Station
(Bloomsbury)
“Like all the best novels, J. B. Hwang’s Mendell Station succeeds on many levels: An elegy to a beloved friend, it is also an account of what it feels like to lose one kind of faith (and gain another) and a trenchant and humane portrait of San Francisco as seen from the point of view of its postal workers. An intimate, generous, and funny debut from a writer we can expect to hear more from.”
–David Leavitt
Linn Ullmann, Girl, 1983 (trans. Martin Aitken)
(Norton)
“Girl, 1983 unearths one young woman’s exhilaration, confusion, and darkness on the cusp of adulthood, drawn inexorably to glamour, only to discover its raw agonies. Linn Ullmann is a master of calm devastation; this is a haunting book.”
–Claire Messud
Sonya Huber, Martha Bayne, Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O’Connor Means to Us
(Atria/One Signal)
“A vivid and multifaceted ode to a trailblazing musician.”
–Publishers Weekly
Henry Wiencek, Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship that Built the Gilded Age
(FSG)
“[D]exterously chronicles the fruitful thirty-year friendship of architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who designed grand buildings and public art and ignored sexual taboos, leading to lurid tragedy. White’s Madison Square Garden, topped in 1891 with a Saint-Gaudens sculpture, was the tallest building in a modernizing Manhattan. In 1906, the venue became an infamous crime scene when the architect was murdered….A brisk, absorbing portrait of troubled artistic allies whose work embodied an era.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Sam Bloch, Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource
(Random House)
“Shade is my favorite kind of book: a history of something seemingly niche that secretly explains the entire world. Sam Bloch connects the decisions made by people hundreds and thousands of years ago to our present planetary crisis of heat and does so in a way that’s both informative and super entertaining. I never thought I’d enjoy learning so much about shade.”
–P. E. Moskowitz
Ivonne Lamazares, The Tilting House
(Counterpoint)
“[A] lyrical, haunting exploration of exile and belonging, memory and betrayal, and the inescapable pull of family and legacy. Against the backdrop of a Cuba still reckoning with the upheaval of revolution, Ivonne Lamazares crafts a story of love and loss….With exquisite prose and unflinching insight, The Tilting House introduces a cast of exiles and dreamers, survivors and schemers, artists and agitators, all bound by the weight of the past and the search for home in a world forever shaped by destiny.”
–Alex Espinoza
Kate Broad, Greenwich
(St. Martin’s Press)
“No one is innocent in Greenwich, Kate Broad’s haunting novel about obsession, loyalty, and responsibility. When a naïve young woman witnesses the unspeakable, she must confront not only the tragedy but also her own complicity. A daring exploration of desire’s messy demands, Greenwich illustrates how the choices we make shape who we become. A stunning debut.”
–Jillian Medoff
Esther Chehebar, Sisters of Fortune
(Random House)
“Esther Chehebar is a Jewish Jane Austen exploring the universal themes of sisterhood, advantageous marriage, and community dynamics. Through the prism of her hilariously detailed look into Sephardic life, we get a joyful peek into the pod, seeing what makes this world so wildly different but also so very much the same at heart.”
–Jill Kargman
Chris Sweeney, The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
(Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
“[A] remarkable journey….Sweeney shines an incredible spotlight on a true female pioneer who rose through the ranks of the male-dominated Smithsonian to create an entirely novel field of scientific research that proved utterly consequential. From decoding airplane bird strikes to solving murders, Laybourne’s unparalleled knowledge of feathers is a dazzling story that needed to be told, and Sweeney has captured her legacy in this truly captivating narrative.”
–Loren Grush
Melody Glenn, Mother of Methadone: A Doctor’s Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis
(Beacon Press)
“In this captivating, deeply researched book, Dr. Glenn delivers a gripping dual narrative that unfolds like an adventure story, all the while offering profoundly useful insights about addiction treatment. Mother of Methadone is an important chronicle of how stigma, inertia, and ignorance hamper our mental health system—a vital read for understanding both the history and the future of addiction care at a pivotal moment for our nation’s health.”
–Carl Erik Fisher
Benjamin Balthaser, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left
(Verso)
“Once, not very long ago, many Jews believed that our distinctive historical experiences and cultural traditions presented us both the opportunity and the obligation to practice a universal solidarity—a solidarity whose content was socialist, anti-colonialist, and anti-racist. Balthaser recovers this memory for us as it flashes in a moment of danger.”
–Gabriel Winant
Nicky Gonzalez, Mayra
(Random House)
“A ghost from her past brings a woman to a peculiar, isolated Everglades mansion—and to the brink of delirium—in this ominous and compulsively readable gothic debut….A brilliantly rendered fever dream from which readers won’t want to wake…this mesmerizing and luscious trip is perfect for fans of Rachel Harrison and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”
–Library Journal
Amy Silverberg, First Time, Long Time
(Grand Central Publishing)
“It’s bold to create a fictional persona with a strong resemblance to the provocateur and radio host Howard Stern. It’s even bolder to imagine a love-triangle between an aspiring novelist, the Stern-esque radio host, and his twenty-something daughter. Amy Silverberg has the wit, insight, and gumption to pull it off.”
–W Magazine
Wendy Guerra, Everyone Leaves
(Harpervia)
“[A] classic story…that delivers real news from Cuba in a lyrical way.”
–NPR
