Read Between the Spines

January 2026 Most Anticipated New Book Releases

Contemporary & Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Romance | Thrillers & Mysteries | Horror & Gothic Fiction | Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism | Short Stories & Essays | Biography & Memoir | Nonfiction

Contemporary & Literary Fiction

Watching Over Her

Jean-Baptiste Andrea

From French literary talent and Prix Goncourt winner Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a “sprawling fresco and star-crossed love story” (The New York Times) following a dwarf and skilled sculptor as he recounts the moments in his life that inspired his mysteriously powerful masterpiece—perfect for readers of Martyr! and The Covenant of Water.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Dandelion Is Dead

Rosie Storey

Jake has fallen head over heels for Dandelion. The only problem? Dandelion is dead. With sparkling wit and aching tenderness, debut author Rosie Storey gives us a modern love story about the courage it takes to live again after loss and finding hope in the most unexpected places.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Hitch

Sara Levine

From the author of the cult classic Treasure Island!!!, a delightfully unhinged comedy following a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world .

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Is This a Cry for Help?

Emily Austin

Emily Austin, the bestselling queen of darkly quirky, endearingly flawed heroines, returns with a luminous new novel following a librarian who comes back to work after a mental breakdown only to confront book-banning crusaders in an empowering story of grief, love, and the power of libraries.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Lost Lambs

Madeline Cash

Rippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction. Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. 

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Scavengers

Kathleen Boland

A rollicking debut novel about a cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother venturing west in search of buried treasure—and a way back to each other—before they run out of patience, money, and options 

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The School of Night

Karl Ove Knausgaard

London. 1985. A city rife with possibility and desire. One young man who wants it all. In a thrilling twist on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Karl Ove Knausgaard masterfully spins a cautionary tale about the lengths that we will go to achieve success—and how far we are willing to fall.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Sheer

Vanessa Lawrence

Told over nine charged days, Sheer is the gripping tale of a controversial beauty mogul’s insatiable ambition and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

This Is Where the Serpent Lives

Daniyal Mueenuddin

A stunning new work from universally acclaimed Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose debut short story collection was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives powerfully evokes contemporary feudal Pakistan, following the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters whose lives are linked through violence and tragedy, triumph, and love.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Crux

Gabriel Tallent

In this story of intense friendship and grit, two down-and-out teens escape their lives and chase a different future through rock-climbing — from the New York Timesbestselling author of My Absolute Darling.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Half His Age

Jennette McCurdy

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Discipline

Larissa Pham

A taut, electrifying debut about a woman forced to confront unsettling truths about herself, her past, and the life she rebuilt following a ruinous affair with her former mentor, from a “lit world phenom.”

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Future Saints

Ashley Winstead

Perfect for fans of Daisy Jones and the Six and In Five Years—a beautiful, powerful, and transportive new novel about a music executive desperately trying to bring a rock band back from the brink, from bestselling author Ashley Winstead.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

Nina McConigley

A bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel that begins with an uncle dead and his tween niece’s private confession to the reader—she and her sister killed him, and they blame the British.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Just Watch Me

Lior Torenberg

Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister—a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Vigil

George Saunders

An electric novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo,taking place at the bedside of an oil company CEO in the twilight hours of his life as he is ferried from this world into the next.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Historical Fiction

Call Me Ishmaelle

Xiaolu Guo

From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author, a feminist reimagining of Herman Melville’s classic Moby-Dick through the eyes of one inimitable woman and a diverse, swashbuckling crew.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Meet the Newmans

Jennifer Niven

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Niven, a novel about America’s favorite TV family, whose perfect façade cracks, for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Skylark

Paula McLain

The New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife weaves a mesmerizing tale of Paris above and below—where a woman’s quest for artistic freedom in 1664 intertwines with a doctor’s dangerous mission during the German occupation in the 1940s, revealing a story of courage and resistance that transcends time. 

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Bookbinder’s Secret

A.D. Bell

Every book tells a story. This one tells a secret. A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth when a confession hidden beneath the binding of a burned book reveals a story of forbidden love, lost fortune, and murder.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Fire Sword & Sea

Vanessa Riley

The real Pirates of the Caribbean were Black, and women! From Vanessa Riley, acclaimed author of Queen of Exiles, comes a sweeping, immersive saga based on the life of the legendary seventeenth-century pirate Jacquotte Delehaye.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Jean

Madeleine Dunnigan

Set over one hot summer, a startlingly assured debut about the kinds of love that break us and make us whole. Spellbinding and evocative, Jean is a meditative narrative of loss and escape distilled into the heartrending story of an intense and dangerous adolescent love.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Last of Earth

Deepa Anappara

From the award-winning author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line comes a stunning historical novel set in nineteenth-century Tibet that follows two outsiders—an Indian schoolteacher spying for the British Empire and an English “lady” explorer—as they venture into a forbidden kingdom.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Burn Down Master’s House

Clay Cane

Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for readers of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree

Nikesha Elise Wiliams

From the two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and host of the Black and Published podcast comes a sweeping multi-generational epic following seven generations of Dupree women as they navigate love, loss, and the unyielding ties of family in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Women of a Promiscuous Nature

Donna Everhart

Girl, Interrupted meets The Handmaid’s Tale in 1940s North Carolina, as a young woman is accused of “promiscuity” and unjustly incarcerated at The State Industrial Farm Colony for Women…
Based on the long-buried history of the American Plan, this powerful and shockingly timely story of resistance and resilience exposes the real government program designed to regulate women’s bodies and sexuality throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Romance

Playing for Keeps

Alexandria Bellefleur

Lambda Literary Award winner and national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur returns with a steamy Sapphic rom-com about two rival publicists who are forced to work together when their mega-famous clients—a popstar and a quarterback—begin to date.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Drive Me Crazy

Lizzy Dent

Sparks fly when an up-and-coming team principle and her new hot-shot driver—and former childhood crush—are forced to work together to save their careers and team in this deliciously winning Formula 1 romance.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Odds of You

Kate Dramis

A data analyst turned author meets a famous British actor on a flight, leading to unexpected encounters and romance after paparazzi drama brings them together on the Isle of Skye.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Like in Love with You

Emma R. Alban

Mean Girls meets Northanger Abbey in this sharp and sexy Regency Romance that begs the question: what if Cady and Regina just… kissed?

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Magic of Untamed Hearts

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

After several years stuck as a ghost, Sky Flores learns to reconnect with the living again with the help of her handsome neighbor in this lush romance from the USA Today bestselling author of Witch of Wild Things.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Most Eligible

Isabelle Engel

The Bachelor meets Funny You Should Ask in this laugh-out-loud rom-com debut about a journalist who goes on reality TV only to find her country music star one-night stand is the host.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Our Ex’s Wedding

Taleen Voskuni

Two people who can’t stand each other must come together to plan their mutual ex’s wedding in this new romantic comedy by Taleen Voskuni, author of Lavash at First Sight.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Dom-Com

Adriana Andes

An experienced Dom and a baby sub must keep their kink-lives a secret after discovering they’ve just become office mates and professional rivals in this super-steamy contemporary romcom, perfect for fans of Lana Ferguson and Tessa Bailey.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Thrillers & Mysteries

The First Time I Saw Him

Laura Dave

The author of Save Our Souls and The Dante Club makes his eagerly awaited return to fiction with this irreverent and propulsive novel about a young writer trying to make his way through a cutthroat literary scene that turns deadly.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Murder at World’s End

Ross Montgomery

Knives Out meets Downton Abbey! Secrets, murder, and mayhem collide as this unlikely sleuthing duo—an under-butler and a foul-mouthed octogenarian—hunt a killer in a manor sealed against the end of the world, in this locked-room mystery.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Wreck Your Heart

Lori Rader-Day

From award-winning author Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart is an engaging, “wisecracking and wonderful” crime novel with a big heart, about a country and midwestern singer out to catch her big break before family―or murder―wrecks everything.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Briars

Sarah Crouch

The USA TODAY bestselling author of Middletide returns with a lush and atmospheric novel of suspense following a young woman whose job as a game warden puts her in the path of a murderer in a small town eager to protect its own.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

All the Little Houses

May Cobb

From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Escape!

Stephen Fishbach

A propulsive debut novel following a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a show set on a remote island, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

My Husband’s Wife

Alice Feeney

The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists is back with a psychological masterpiece that will leave you questioning everything you know about love, identity, and revenge.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Very Slowly All at Once

Lauren Schott

A propulsive and wickedly entertaining debut thriller for fans of Laura Dave and Ashley Elston that explores the dark underside of the American dream, about a couple whose financial problems are seemingly answered when they begin receiving growing sums of money from an unknown source . . . a windfall that will carry an unthinkable price.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Cormorant Hunt

Michael Idov

Slow Horses meets Red Sparrow in this electrifying spy thriller and follow-up to The Collaborators, where a disillusioned CIA officer infiltrates an extremist group in the heart of Europe.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Missing Sam

Thrity Umrigar

A tense and twisty story of a woman who goes missing on a morning run and her wife’s determination to both find her and clear her own name—from the bestselling author of Honor.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Horror & Gothic Fiction

The Storm

Rachel Hawkins

St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms, and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

A Box Full of Darknes

Simone St. James

Simone St. James, the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel, returns with her scariest, most shocking novel yet in this pulse-pounding story about siblings who return to the house they fled 18 years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request: Come home.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Hemlock

Melissa Faliveno

A woman haunted by a dark inheritance returns to the woods where her mother vanished, in this queer Gothic novel. In the tradition of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Hemlock is a butch Black Swan and a novel of singular style, with all the edginess of a survival story and a simmering menace that glints from the very periphery of the page.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

This House Will Feed

Maria Tureaud

Amidst the devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine, a young woman is salvaged from certain death when offered a mysterious position at a remote manor house haunted by a strange power and the horror of her own memories in this chillingly evocative historical novel braided with gothic horror and supernatural suspense for readers of Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts and The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

On Sundays She Picked Flowers

Yah Yah Scholfield

In this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut, a woman escapes into the uncanny woods of southern Georgia and must contend with ghosts, haints, and most dangerous of all, the truth about herself.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200

Robert Brockway

Stephen King meets Sesame Street in this delightfully unhinged, mind-bending horror novel. Ivan, a man who kills imaginary friends for money, must face his toughest challenge yet when 8-year-old Kay hires him to get rid of Eddie Video, an unusually dangerous imaginary companion.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism

The Starseekers

Nicole Glover

Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic…if not murder.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Book of Blood and Roses

Annie Summerlee

A vampire hunter goes undercover at a mysterious university—and finds herself falling in love with her roommate, an alluring vampire, in book one of a seductive sapphic paranormal fantasy.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Graceless Heart

Isabel Ibañez

#1 New York Times bestselling author Isabel Ibañez makes her adult debut with a gorgeous, historical, and romantic fantasy perfect for fans of One Dark Window and Ever After. A lush tale full of enemies-to-lovers tension, whimsical magic, villain romance, and slow-burn desire, set in an enchanted, perilous Florence where forbidden power could ignite a war.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

A Vow in Vengeance

Jaclyn Rodriguez

Deadly tarot, wicked schemes, dangerous alliances . . . can you survive the Forge? Sexy, action-packed, and brimming with magic, A Vow in Vengeance is an unputdownable romantasy debut.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

George Falls Through Time

Ryan Collett

Less meets the year 1300 in this exhilarating and thoughtfully genre-defying literary novel about a man transported through time in a moment of extreme stress, whose modern anxieties are replaced by medieval brutalities.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Poet Empress

Shen Tao

Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Elsewhere Express

Samantha Sotto-Yambao

When you lose your way in life, the Elsewhere Express just might find you. Step on board the train that may take you to your life’s purpose in this wistful, Ghibli-esque fantasy from the bestselling author of Water Moon.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Nine Goblins: A Tale of Low Fantasy and High Mischief

T. Kingfisher

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Nine Goblins, a tale of low fantasy and high mischief. No one knows exactly how the Goblin War began, but folks will tell you that goblins are stinking, slinking, filthy, sheep-stealing, henhouse-raiding, obnoxious, rude, and violent. Goblins would actually agree with all this, and might throw in “cowardly” and “lazy” too for good measure.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

A Beast Sinks Toward Beijing

Alice Evelyn Yang

A dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

We Who Have No Gods

Liza Anderson

In a world of witches, a human woman must hunt or be hunted in this explosive debut novel filled with dangerous rivals, guarded secrets, and simmering chemistry.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Short Stories & Essays

The Age of Calamity: Stories

Senaa Ahmad

Written by an inimitable new voice, The Age of Calamitiesis a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

I Could Be Famous: Stories

Sydney Rende

From a magnetic new voice in fiction “made for this moment and for those coming of age within it” (Jonathan Dee), a debut story collection following ten ambitious women and one male superstar as they pursue their desires–however deluded–for more.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Mega Milk: Essays on Family, Fluidity, Whiteness, and Cows

Megan Milks

A sparkling, funny, and often wrenching portrait-in-essays on the dairy industry, queer intimacy, family, fluidity, whiteness, and cows. Milks takes on their namesake subject in all its dimensions, venturing into the worlds of small dairies, bovine genetics, and manure while also turning their eye on their family and themself. 

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Every One Still Here: Stories

Landan Ní Chuinn

A searching, incisive, and profound debut collection of stories about people―mothers, fathers, sons, strangers, sisters―living in the aftermath of violence.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

One Sun Only: Stories

Camille Bordas

A stunning collection of stories exploring love and art, luck and loss, from the “invaluable” (George Saunders) author of How to Behave in a Crowd and The Material. In these sinewy, thoughtful stories, celebrated New Yorker contributor Camille Bordas delves into the mysteries of life, death, and all that happens in between.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Memoirs & Biographies

Homeschooled: A Memoir

Stefan Merril Block

A heartbreaking, empowering and often hilarious debut memoir about a mother’s all-consuming love, a son’s perilous quest to discover the world beyond the front door and the unregulated homeschool system that impacts millions like him.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, & China

Jung Chang

The magnificent follow-up to Wild Swans, the multimillion copy, internationally bestselling sensation that traces the history of modern China through the true stories of three generations of courageous women in one family.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

Belle Burden

A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage—an aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joy.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Two Women Living Together

Kim Hana & Hwang Sunwoo

The big-hearted, bestselling South Korean memoir co-written by two best friends flouting gender norms and societal expectations with their decision to grow old together under one roof.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle

Jonathan Bernstein

A Rolling Stone journalist presents the story of the late singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle. This heartbreaking, deeply researched tale is an exemplary music biography.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Flower Bearers

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. In The Flower Bearers, Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America

Patrice Nganang

A path-breaking work of biography of two American giants, Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, whose lives would forever be altered by the Cold War, and would explosively intersect before its most notorious weapon, the House Un-American Activities Committee — from one of the best sports and culture writers working today. 

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

One Aladdin Two Lamps

Jeanette Winterson

A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights to explore new and ancient questions. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter whether you are honest? What makes us happy?

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Scale Boy: An African Childhood

Patrice Nganang

An extraordinary chronicle of youth that evokes the paradoxes of modern Africa―complex, contradictory, and full of conflict, tragedy, and joy. 

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Nonfiction

Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th

Mary Clare Jalonick

The definitive, unbiased account of the twenty-four hours surrounding the historic January 6th attack on the Capitol. A vivid, terrifying, and human portrait, Storm at the Capitol is an essential read for anyone who is worried about the future of our democracy.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Invisible Illness: A History from Hysteria to Long Covid

Emily Mendenhall

A moving cultural history of disability―and a powerful call to action to change how our medical system and society supports those with complex chronic conditions. Weaving together cultural history with intimate interviews, Invisible Illness upholds the experiences of those living with complex illness to expose the failures of the American healthcare system―and how we can do better.

Publication date: January 6

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism

Ian Frazier

Selected pieces on nature, history, politics, and urban culture from a master of the nonfiction narrative. This collection of pieces―consisting of features and reportage for The New Yorker beginning in 1970, articles on topics such as COVID and rereading Lolita fifty years later, and work published in the last year―showcases the wide-ranging play of Frazier’s imagination.

Publication date: January 13

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon

Eric King

A searing firsthand account from inside the most repressive prison in the United States, a place built not for rehabilitation but for disappearance. A Clean Hell is a crucial document of solidarity and struggle inside the belly of the beast and required reading for anyone concerned with mass incarceration, political repression, or the inhumane architecture of the US prison system.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Beronda L. Montegomery

This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth

Nicolas Niarchos

Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals—essential for the decarbonization of our economies—and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII

Mark Braude

The “irresistible” (Susan Orlean) untold story of a trailblazing Paris correspondent for The New Yorker, who sounded the alarm about the rise of fascism in Europe while becoming enmeshed in the sensational case of a German serial killer stalking the streets of the French capital on the eve of WWII.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Volga Blues: A Journey into the Heart of Russia

Marzio G. Mian

A risky undercover reporting trip along Russia’s great mother-river, the Volga, reveals the tortuous history and frightening current fantasies of a nation.

Publication date: January 20

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood

William J. Mann

Illuminating and captivating, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown and Bogart offers the first definitive account of the Black Dahlia murder—the most famous unsolved true crime case in American history—which humanizes the victim and situates the notorious case within an anxious, postwar country grappling with new ideas, demographics, and technologies.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy

Susan Wise Bauer

Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-reason beliefs seem to be triumphing over common sense today. How did we get here? The Great Shadow brings a huge missing piece to this puzzle―the experience of actually being ill. What did it feel like to be a woman or man struggling with illness in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century, or in 1920? And how did that shape our thoughts and convictions? The Great Shadow uses extensive historical research and first-person accounts to tell a vivid story about sickness and our responses to it, from very ancient times until the last decade.

Publication date: January 27

Cover of "Discontent" by Beatriz Serrano featuring a young woman in an office setting.

Looking for past month’s most anticipated lists?

←
→