August 2, 2022, 9:33am
Just look at them: all these new books, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and waiting for you to give them a good home. They promise to make excellent company.
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Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different
(Viking)
“A bildungsroman, a gorgeous queer love story, and a musing on labor and immigration. But you’ll fall most in love with its wickedly sharp narrator, who’s funny, passionate, and complicated.”
–The Cut
Michelle Tea, Knocking Myself Up
(Dey Street)
“While there is no shortage of information about pregnancy available to twenty-first century readers, Tea’s experience is a uniquely queer and feminist one that is rarely at the forefront of these discussions.”
–Library Journal
Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man
(Riverhead)
“Gorgeously crafted, morally authoritative, The Last White Man concludes on a note of hope, a door jarred open just enough to let transcendence pour through.”
–Oprah Daily
Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch
(Knopf)
“The brilliantly imaginative novel begins on an absurdist note before settling down to an offbeat, slightly skewed realism. Gunty is a wonderful writer, a master of the artful phrase.”
–Booklist
Lawrence Osborne, On Java Road
(Hogarth)
“Osborne is an ambitious novelist and this is more than just a story about courage in Hong Kong. Throughout, Adrian opines on America’s ongoing struggles and the implication is that what is happening in Hong Kong and what is happening in America and Britain are two sides of the same coin.”
–The Spectator
Suad Amiry, Mother of Strangers
(Pantheon)
“Stirring … achingly alive … Amiry’s eye-opening story will keep readers turning the pages.”
–Publishers Weekly
Marianne Wiggins, Properties of Thirst
(Simon & Schuster)
“Vibrant characters, multiple storylines, and a visceral sense of time and place coalesce in this engrossing novel … In lush language, Wiggins evokes a keen sense of history and its life altering effects.”
–Library Journal
Adam Langer, Cyclorama
(Bloomsbury)
“The novel handles Tyrus’s abuses of power in thrilling and unexpected ways, but even more captivating is how Langer uses the story of Anne Frank to magnify cultural, political, and personal conflicts.”
–Publishers Weekly
Clare Pollard, Delphi
(Avid Reader Press)
“Characters, settings and even whole scenes are drawn in quick, exquisite precision full of wit and pathos. Its intimacy reminded me of Sally Rooney and its subtle, sly humor of Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
Madeline Ostrander, At Home on an Unruly Planet
(Henry Holt)
“Interspersed among these stories are Ostrander’s pertinent, engaging essays that speak to the theme of home, including the loss of safety and the homesickness that many will likely face from being uprooted.”
–Kirkus
Bill Glose, All the Ruined Men
(St. Martin’s Press)
“A collection of painfully honest and consistently empathetic glimpses of modern American soldiers in war and peace.”
–Kirkus
Beverly Lowry, Deer Creek Drive
(Knopf)
“Lowry’s dry wit, honed sentences, and careful way of connecting the dots make her case: This is quite a story.”
–Kirkus
Emma Seckel, The Wild Hunt
(Tin House)
“Seckel’s descriptions evocatively conjure the roiling dread that permeates the island … underscoring the elegiac reflections on grief and the toll of war. This moody meditation delivers.”
–Publishers Weekly
Alan Heathcock, 40
(MCD)
“Heathcock’s first novel beautifully captures the seriousness of the questions, posed in sparkling prose. Dystopian fans will relish this compelling, lyrical tale.”
–Booklist
Claire Schwartz, Civil Service
(Graywolf)
“The poems in Schwartz’s arresting debut are loosely tied together to form an allegory about oppressive power structures and the harm wrought by even those on the lowest rung of a violent regime.”
–Publishers Weekly
Victor Ray, On Critical Race Theory
(Random House)
“Distinguished by its clarity of thought, purpose, and expression, this is a stirring defense of critical race theory as an ‘intellectual bulwark’ against attempts to undermine multiracial democracy.”
–Publishers Weekly
Kathryn Savage, Groundglass
(Coffee House Press)
“Savage creates a compelling meditation that flows beyond the typical stylings of memoir, journalism, and theory. An interrogative, existential crisis at the center of an ongoing ecological one.”
–Kirkus
E.B. Bartels, Good Grief
(Mariner)
“Using her own experiences as a framework, [Bartels] provides perspective, offers reassurance, and does her best to convince readers they’re not alone—no matter how they’re feeling about or dealing with the inevitable end of a pet’s life.”
–The Washington Independent Review of Books
Alora Young, Walking Gentry Home
(Hogarth)
“With lyrical precision, Young refracts Black history through her family’s experiences of racism and ‘deferred dreams.’”
–Kirkus
Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance
(Penguin Press)
“A gripping firsthand account of a teenager navigating homelessness and the foster care system. It should appeal to many and may be of particular interest to school counselors, foster parents, psychologists, social workers, and others who work with children in difficult situations.”
–Library Journal
Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger (ed.), Haunted Tales
(Pegasus Books)
“Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger offer another thought-provoking collection of 16 short horror and science fiction stories by both iconic and overlooked women writers.”
–Shelf Awareness