Ordinary Human Failings

Megan Nolan

When a 10-year-old child is suspected of a violent crime, her family must face the truth about their past in this haunting, propulsive, psychologically keen story about class, trauma, and family secrets from “huge literary talent” (Karl Ove Knausgaard).

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Little, Brown, & Co.
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Greta & Valdin

Rebecca K. Reilly

For fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People, an irresistible and bighearted international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the dramas big and small of their entangled, unconventional family, all while flailing their way to love.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
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Fourteen Days

The Authors Guild

Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice—from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Harper
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Redwood Court

DeLana R.A. Dameron

A breathtaking debut about one unforgettable Southern Black family, seen through the eyes of its youngest daughter as she comes of age in the 1990s. With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: The Dial Press
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The Blueprint

Rae Giana Rashad

In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States—a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.

Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman’s occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who’d been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows.  

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Harper
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Cahokia Jazz

Francis Spufford

From “one of the most original minds in contemporary literature” (Nick Hornby) the bestselling and award-winning author of Golden Hill delivers a noirish detective novel set in the 1920s that reimagines how American history would be different if, instead of being decimated, indigenous populations had thrived..  

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Scribner
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I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both

Mariah Stovall

Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise meets Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity in a Black woman’s coming-of-age story, chronicling a life-changing friendship, the interplay between music fandom and identity, and the slipperiness of sanity.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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A Fire So Wild

Mariah Stovall

With the emotional echoes of Little Fires Everywhere and the lush atmosphere of Disappearing Earth, a riveting debut novel in which a wildfire creeps toward Berkeley, California, igniting tensions as characters from all walks of life confront the injustices lying beneath the city’s surface.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Harper
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Mrs. Gulliver

Valerie Martin

From the prize-winning and beloved author Valerie Martin (Mary Reilly, Property, Italian Fever) comes a surprisingly inventive tale of female subversion and agency in a patriarchal world, with two brilliantly crafted protagonists to root for.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Doubleday
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Ours

Phillip B. Williams

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours. Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Viking
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After Annie

Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us are at the center of this novel about the power of love to transcend loss and triumph over adversity, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Random House
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In Ascension

Martin MacInnes

An astonishing novel about a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Grove Press/Black Cat
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Piglet

Lottie Hazell

Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking. But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. 

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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Wandering Stars

Tommy Orange

The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Knopf
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The Women

Kristin Hannah

From master storyteller Kristin Hannah comes the story of a turbulent, transformative era in America: the 1960s. The Women is that rarest of novels—at once an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics, of a generation both fueled by dreams and lost on the battlefield. the Wind.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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The Fox Wife

Yangsze Choo

From master storyteller Kristin Hannah comes the story of a turbulent, transformative era in America: the 1960s. The Women is that rarest of novels—at once an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics, of a generation both fueled by dreams and lost on the battlefield.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
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A Wild & Heavenly Place

Robin Oliveira

Hailey MacIntyre seems conjured from the depths of Samuel Fiddes’s loneliness. Caring for his young sister in the tenements of Glasgow, Scotland, Samuel has known only hunger, while Hailey has never known want. Yet, their connection is undeniable. Through secret meetings and stolen moments, their improbable love grows. But then the City of Glasgow Bank fails, and Hailey’s bankrupt father impulsively moves their family across the globe to Seattle, a city rumored to have coal in its hills and easy money for anyone willing to work for it. From the New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Mary Sutter comes a sweeping story of star-crossed lovers and the birth of Seattle.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
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The Phoenix Crown

Kate Quinn & Janie Chang

In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace. His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: William Morrow
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The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson

Ellen Baker

Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make. Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Mariner Books
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The American Daughters

Emily Howes

A gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates—from the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow.

Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family’s rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite—and with help from these strong women—Ady learns how to put herself first. So begins her journey toward liberation and imagining a new future. The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph that reminds us what is possible when a community bands together to fight for their freedom.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: One World
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The Painter’s Daughters

Emily Howes

A “beautifully written” (Hilary Mantel) story of love, madness, sisterly devotion, and control, about the two beloved daughters of renowned 1700s English painter Thomas Gainsborough, who struggle to live up to the perfect image the world so admired in their portraits.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Sisters of Belfast

Melanie Maure

In the spirit of Heather Morris, Kate Quinn, and Pam Jenoff, an enthralling and deeply moving story that begins during World War II, about orphaned twin sisters in Ireland whose lives diverge for decades, until fate—and faith—reunite them in the twilight of their lives.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
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Bride

Ali Hazelwood

A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.

Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Berkley
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The Last Days of Lilah Goodluck

Kylie Scott

Red White and Royal Blue meets The Last Holiday in this delightfully quirky novel from the New York Times bestselling author of End of Story, about a woman who unexpectedly finds “fall in love with a prince” at the top of her bucket list.

Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Graydon House
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A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

Tia Williams

Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.

Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
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Till There Was You

Lindsay Hameroff

Culinary student Lexi Berman, 24, has one goal: to make her late mother proud by becoming an executive chef in a Michelin-star restaurant. And she isn’t going to let anything–or anyone–get in the way. But when she meets Jake Taylor, a dive bar musician who charms her with show tunes, she makes a rare exception to her no-dating rule. After a steamy weekend together, Jake leaves for L.A. to record his demo, and Lexi never expects to see him again. And she definitely doesn’t expect him to become an overnight celebrity, with a breakout single that’s almost certainly about her famous blueberry pancake recipe.

Publication Date: February 20
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
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Ready or Not

Cara Bastone

A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this heartfelt, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance of found family and unexpected love. Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand. The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life.

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Dial Press
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At First Spite

Olivia Dade

Bestselling author Olivia Dade welcomes you to Harlot’s Bay in this delightfully sexy rom-com about a woman who buys the town’s famous Spite House, only to realize the infuriating man she can’t stand lives right next door—and their unwilling proximity might spark something neither can ignore.

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Avon
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The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder

C.L. Miller

In this irresistible and thrilling debut novel, a former antique hunter investigates a suspicious death at an isolated English manor, embroiling her back in the dangerous world of tracking stolen artifacts.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Atria Books
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Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

Jenny Hollander

Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve―events known to the public as “Scarlet Christmas”―though Charlie knows she was much more than that. Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life.  But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie’s former classmates threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything―not even the people she once loved most―get in her way.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Minotaur Books
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Nightwatching

Tracy Sierra

Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs. In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
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The Resort

Sara Ochs

For readers of Rachel Hawkins and We Were Never Here comes a searing vacation thriller set on a remote island in Thailand following two mysterious women, a charismatic group of expats, and the one murder poised to bring their paradise crashing down.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
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Smoke Kings

Jahmal Mayfield

In the vein of Get Out and Razorblade Tears, a feast of noir fiction and probing social commentary that asks us to consider what would happen if reparations were finally charged and exacted.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Melville House
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Original Sins

Erin Young

In a brilliant and addictive thriller for fans of Tana French and Liz Moore, FBI rookie Riley Fisher must navigate a brutal serial killer as well as a kidnapping plot against the governor

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Flatiron Books
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My Name Was Eden

Eleanor Barker-White

In this edge-of-your-seat psychological debut, a mother’s experience with Vanishing Twin Syndrome triggers disturbing changes in her teenage daughter, perfect for fans of The Push and The Undoing.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: William Morrow
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A Step Past Darkness

Vera Kurian

There’s something sinister under the surface of the idyllic, suburban town of Wesley Falls, and it’s not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives. When they realize that they can’t trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works – almost. Twenty years later, Jia calls them all back to Wesley Falls—Maddy has been murdered, and they are the only ones who can uncover why. But to end things, they have to return to the mine one last time.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Park Row
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Projections

Katherine Arden

S. E. Porter, critically-acclaimed YA author of Vassa in the Night, bursts onto the adult fantasy scene with her adult novel that is sure to appeal to fans of Jeff VanderMeer and China Mieville. As a young woman seeks vengeance on the obsessed sorcerer who murdered her because he could not have her, her murderer sends projections of himself out into the world to seek out and seduce women who will return the love she denied―or suffer mortal consequence. A lush, gothic journey across worlds full of strange characters and even stranger magic. Sarah Porter’s adult debut explores misogyny and the soul-corrupting power of unrequited love through an enchanted lens of violence and revenge.

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Tor Books
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What Feasts at Night

T. Kingfisher

Retired soldier, Alex Easton, returns in a horrifying new adventure in this follow-up to T. Kingfisher’s bestselling gothic novella, What Moves the Dead.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of Gallacia. In theory, one can find relaxation in even the Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. 

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
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Island Witch

Amanda Jayatissa

Set in 19th century Sri Lanka and inspired by local folklore, the daughter of a traditional demon-priest—relentlessly bullied by peers and accused of witchcraft herself—tries to solve the mysterious attacks that have been terrorizing her coastal village.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Berkley
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The Tainted Cup

Katherine Arden

A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett.

Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Del Rey
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The Book of Love

Katherine Arden

In the long-awaited debut novel from bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle. Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are. With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. 

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Random House
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The Book of Doors

Gareth Brown

A debut novel full of magic, adventure, and romance, The Book of Doors opens up a thrilling world of contemporary fantasy for readers of The Midnight Library, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Night Circus, and any modern story that mixes the wonder of the unknown with just a tinge of darkness.

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: William Morrow
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The Warm Hands of Ghost

Katherine Arden

During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale.

Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Del Rey
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River Mumma

Zalika Reid-Benta

Issa Rae’s Insecure with a magical realist spin: River Mumma is an exhilarating contemporary fantasy novel about a young Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a mythical quest through the streets of Toronto.

Publication Date: February 20
Publisher: Erewhon Books
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The Other Valley

Scott Alexander Howard

For fans of David Mitchell, Ruth Ozeki, and Kazuo Ishiguro, an elegant and exhilarating literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future, and a young girl who spots two elderly visitors from across the border: the grieving parents of the boy she loves.

Publication Date: February 27
Publisher: Atria Books
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Bugsy & Other Stories

Rafael Frumkin

From the author of Confidence and The Comedown comes a wildly imaginative story collection about queerness, neurodivergence, sexuality, and self-discovery. Frumkin’s latest book is a deliciously entertaining collection of five genre-defying stories that range from downright hilarious to brilliantly unhinged. Taken together, they celebrate a wide variety of human experiences.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Neighbors & Other Stories

Diane Oliver

A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari Jones.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Grove Press
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Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger & Harm

Emmeline Clein

A personal and cultural look at the dark underbelly of Western beauty standards and the lethal culture of disordered eating they’ve wrought. In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she’s known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, Clein challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent. From her first encounters with icons of the thin ideal to her years ricocheting between hunger and bingeing, from the pro-anorexia blog that unexpectedly saved someone’s life to the residential treatment centers that make so many people sicker, from a wrenching elegy for those who didn’t survive to a manifesto for sisterhood, solidarity, and recovery, Clein uncovers girlhood’s appetites and injuries to reveal the economic, cultural, and political history of an epidemic.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Knopf
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My Side of the River

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez reveals her experience as the U.S. born daughter of immigrants and what happened when, at fifteen, her parents were forced back to Mexico in this captivating and tender memoir.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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Private Equity

Carrie Sun

When we meet Carrie Sun, she can’t shake the feeling that she’s wasting her life. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Carrie excelled in school, graduated early from MIT, and climbed the corporate ladder, all in pursuit of the American dream. But at twenty-nine, she’s left her analyst job, dropped out of an MBA program, and is trapped in an unhappy engagement. So when she gets the rare opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world, she knows she can’t say no. Fourteen interviews later, she’s in. A gripping memoir of one woman’s self-discovery inside a top Wall Street firm, and an urgent indictment of privilege, extreme wealth, and work culture.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Penguin Press
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Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, & Family Recipes

Chantha Nguon

A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot’s genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother’s kitchen. 

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Algonquin Books
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Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story

Leslie Jamison

In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her life: her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents’ complicated bond. In examining what it means for a woman to be many things at once—a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover—Jamison places the magical and the mundane side by side in surprising ways. The result is a work of nonfiction like no other, an almost impossibly deep reckoning with the muchness of life and art, and a book that grieves the departure of one love even as it celebrates the arrival of another.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Little Brown & Co
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This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage & Started My Life

Lyz Lenz

A deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot—from journalist and proud divorcée Lyz Lenz.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Crown
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Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

Rob Henderson

In this raw coming-of-age memoir, in the vein of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, The Other Wes Moore, and Someone Has Led This Child to Believe, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the concept of “luxury beliefs”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Gallery Books
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Grief Is for People

Sloane Crosley

Disarmingly witty and poignant, Sloane Crosley’s memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of her closest friend. How do we live without the ones we love? Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a book about loss that is profuse with life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: MCD
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Whiskey Tender

Deborah Jackson Taffa

Reminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: Harper
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The Stolen Wealth of Slavery: A Case for Reparations

David Montero

This groundbreaking book tracks the massive wealth amassed from slavery from pre-Civil War to today, showing how our modern economy was built on the backs of enslaved Black people—and lays out a clear argument for reparations that shows exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is owed.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Legacy Lit
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Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out

Shannon Reed

In this whip-smart, laugh-out-loud-funny collection, Reed shares surprising stories from her life as a reader and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students. From the varied novels she cherishes (Gone Girl, Their Eyes Were Watching God) to the ones she didn’t (Tess of the d’Urbervilles), Reed takes us on a rollicking tour through the comforting world of literature, celebrating the books we love, the readers who love them, and the ways in which literature can transform us for the better.

Publication date: February 6
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
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A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders & Belonging

Lauren Markham

When and how did migration become a crime? Why does ancient Greece remain so important to the West’s idea of itself? How does nostalgia fuel the exclusion and demonization of migrants today? In 2021, Lauren Markham went to Greece, in search of her own Greek heritage and to cover the aftermath of a fire that burned down the largest refugee camp in Europe. Almost no one had wanted the camp—not activists, not the country’s growing neo-fascist movement, not even the government. But almost immediately, on scant evidence, six young Afghan refugees were arrested for the crime.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Riverhead
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The Hammer: Power, Inequality, & the Struggle for the Soul of Labor

Hamilton Nolan

A timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labor movement and its critical place in our society and politics, from acclaimed labor reporter Hamilton Nolan. A labor journalist for more than a decade, Nolan helped  unionize his own industry. The Hammer is a urgent on-the-ground excavation of the past, present, and future of the American labor movement.

Publication date: February 13
Publisher: Hachette Books
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LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority

Marie Arana

LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana’s life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise 20 percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage. Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do. LatinoLand unabashedly celebrates Latino resilience and character and shows us why we must understand the fastest-growing minority in America.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Otter Country: An Unexpected Adventure in the Natural World

Miriam Darlington

Mysterious, graceful, and ever-clever, otters have captivated our imaginations, despite the fact that few people have encountered one in the wild. In Otter Country, celebrated nature writer Miriam Darlington captures the fascination she’s had for these playful animals since childhood, and chronicles her immersive journey into their watery world. Full of wonder, hope, and an abiding love for the natural world, Otter Country: An Unexpected Adventure in the Natural World is a beautiful and captivating work of nature writing, pursuing one of nature’s most endearing and endlessly fascinating creatures.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Tin House Books
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Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

Charles Duhigg

From the bestselling author of The Power of Habit, a fascinating exploration of what makes conversations work—and how we can all learn to be supercommunicators at work and in life. Supercommunicators know the importance of recognizing—and then matching—each kind of conversation, and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that color so much of what we say and how we listen. Our experiences, our values, our emotional lives—and how we see ourselves, and others—shape every discussion, from who will pick up the kids to how we want to be treated at work. In this book, you will learn why some people are able to make themselves heard, and to hear others, so clearly.

Publication date: February 20
Publisher: Random House
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Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History

Philippa Gregory

The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history and “should be included in every history lesson”.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: HarperOne
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Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood

Gretchen Sisson

A powerful decade-long study of adoption in the age of Roe, revealing the grief of the American mothers for whom the choice to parent was never real. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a path of constrained choice for those for whom abortion is inaccessible, or for whom parenthood is untenable. The stories of relinquishing mothers are stories about our country’s refusal to care for families at the most basic level, and to instead embrace an individual, private solution to a large-scale, social problem.

Publication date: February 27
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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