Palaver
by Bryan Washington
Washington’s latest is the story of a remarkably unhappy family reunion. At the center is “the son,” a gay man from Houston who fled to Tokyo after his family rejected him for his queerness. Now, over a decade later, his mother has shown up on his doorstep, responding to a distressed call from him. She wants to reconnect, but after so many years of distance, is a relationship even possible?
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Nov. 4
Town & Country
by Brian Schaefer
“Town vs. Country” might be a better name for Schaefer’s fiction debut, set in a quaint but rapidly gentrifying village facing an influx of second-home buyers from the big city. Tensions rise between the locals and the so-called “Duffles” — weekend interlopers who are mostly male, upscale and gay — when both sides run candidates in a state election.
Atria, Nov. 4
Thirst Trap
by Gráinne O’Hare
O’Hare’s tale of three hard-partying housemates in Belfast dealing with the undignified onset of their 30s and the aftermath of the death of a close friend — formerly their fourth roommate — reads as a little bit Dolly Alderton and a little bit Lena Dunham, with a wholly Irish soul.
Crown, Nov. 4
Helm
by Sarah Hall
In her latest novel, Hall makes an urgent plea for environmental conservation by bringing readers deep into an unexpected perspective: a fearsome English wind called Helm. The novel follows centuries of this pivotal gale and the rotating cast of characters who interact with it — showing how our climate has shaped humanity, and how humanity is changing the climate.
Mariner, Nov. 4
The Eleventh Hour
by Salman Rushdie
Rushdie told The Observer in June that the notion to write about his time at Cambridge University, where he briefly got to know E.M. Forster, had morphed into an actual ghost story. That tale, “Late,” is one of five pieces in a new collection that also revisits a Mumbai neighborhood from “Midnight’s Children.” It’s the writer’s first fiction since publishing “Knife,” a memoir of the 2022 attack that took his right eye.
Random House, Nov. 4
Other People’s Fun
by Harriet Lane
Remember that golden girl from high school, the one who seemed to float through adolescence unscathed? Ruth — underemployed, recently divorced and facing down a bleak midlife moment — certainly does, and her reunion with her #blessed former classmate, a thriving London yummy mummy named Sookie, becomes rich fodder for Lane’s prickly thriller.
Little, Brown, Nov. 4
Cursed Daughters
by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The author of the breakout 2018 satirical thriller “My Sister, The Serial Killer” returns in a more melancholy and romantic key with this multilayered exploration of several generations of women in one Nigerian family haunted by a matrilineal love curse, which dooms them to pursue men who run “like water in their palms.”
Doubleday, Nov. 4
Son of the Morning
by Akwaeke Emezi
The author of novels including “The Death of Vivek Oji,” “Pet” and “You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty” continues to move freely between genres. “Son of the Morning” finds Emezi dipping into romantasy, with plenty of spice (and a whiff of brimstone: The roguish love interest’s name is Lucifer Helel, if that offers a taste of the sympathy-for-the-devil tale to come).
Avon, Nov. 4
Injustice
by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists tell the behind-the-scenes story of the Department of Justice under Presidents Trump and Biden. One attorney general makes trouble for the chief executive; the other takes orders from the White House. Read on to find out which is which.
Penguin Press, Nov. 4
Book of Lives
by Margaret Atwood
From the Quebec wilderness to the peaks of literary fame, Atwood has put her imagination and keen observation to work in ways that have changed the culture. The author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Blind Assassin” now turns the lens on herself, in a “memoir of sorts” that tracks both the profound experiences and the lighter moments that have informed her writing.
Doubleday, Nov. 4
The Age of Extraction
by Tim Wu
Sounding the alarm about the predations of Big Tech is hardly news. But Wu, an industry authority best known for coining the phrase “net neutrality,” finds fresh mileage in this chronicle of the ways technology platforms like Google and Amazon abandoned the utopian promise of the early internet in favor of monopolistic capitalism, accruing largely unchecked power at the expense of fair market competition and, ultimately, democratic ideals.
Knopf, Nov. 4
Furious Minds
by Laura K. Field
In the ever-growing field of books aiming to explain the rise of the MAGA movement, “Furious Minds,” by a political theorist with longstanding experience in conservative academia, stands out for its emphasis on ideas. Field shows how the New Right, drawing on a loose network of academics and influencers, has coalesced around a vision of America that is socially reactionary, economically isolationist and deeply skeptical of pluralism as an inherent social good.
Princeton University Press, Nov. 4
The Heart-Shaped Tin
by Bee Wilson
When the British food writer Wilson married her husband, she baked their wedding cake herself, in a heart-shaped tin. Now, the marriage has ended, but the tin — and its memories — are still a part of her life. Her new book, inspired by that freighted pan, is a warm, bittersweet tale of food, life and the ways objects hold meaning.
Norton, Nov. 4
Some Bright Nowhere
by Ann Packer
The author of “The Dive from Clausen’s Pier” and “The Children’s Crusade,” Packer is known for her quiet, emotionally intelligent explorations of domestic tension. In her latest novel, Eliot and Claire’s long and happy marriage is upended when Claire, who is terminally ill, decides that she wants a different kind of death — one that doesn’t necessarily involve her devoted husband of nearly four decades.
Harper, Nov. 11
The White Hot
by Quiara Alegría Hudes
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s slim, harrowing novel is written in the form of a letter from a young mother to the daughter she’s abandoned in her quest to quell the incendiary rages — that would be the “white-hot” of the title — that send her spiraling away from her child.
One World, Nov. 11
The Emergency
by George Packer
How have we gotten from “The Unwinding” to “The Emergency”? As Packer, a best-selling nonfiction writer, switches gears for his first novel since 1998, anxiety and precariousness remain central themes. This tale of collapsing empire follows a successful surgeon who is increasingly alienated from his family and friends, until a crisis strikes.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Nov. 11
The American Revolution
by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
Burns and Ward, the dynamic duo behind popular historical documentaries on the Civil War and the Vietnam War, are here with an illustrated companion to their new series on the American battle for independence from the British. It’s a story of blood and politics that brought soldiers and guns from around the world to fight along the Eastern Seaboard.
Knopf, Nov. 11
Girls Play Dead
by Jen Percy
Percy, a journalist and frequent New York Times Magazine contributor, draws on science, sociology, years of original reportage and her own life story to craft a gripping examination of women’s responses to sexual violence, and the nature of vulnerability.
Doubleday, Nov. 11
Crick
by Matthew Cobb
The scientist and writer Cobb presents the first major biography of Francis Crick, bringing the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA to life in all his brilliant, human complexity.
Basic Books, Nov. 11
I, Medusa
by Ayana Gray
Known for her young adult books, Gray makes her adult debut with a retelling of the Medusa myth. Here we meet Meddy, a young woman eager to step out of her sisters’ shadow. Just as she begins to forge a life of her own, she runs afoul of some volatile, vindictive gods. But Medusa is no monster, and she is determined to find justice for the wrongs committed against her and correct the record about her life.
Random House, Nov. 18
The Breath of the Gods
by Simon Winchester
Winchester, a prolific and best-selling popular historian, turns his attention to that most powerful of forces: the wind. With his signature entertaining erudition, he explores a subject that has quite literally powered the human world since our inception.
Harper, Nov. 18
Blank Space
by W. David Marx
The century is one-quarter over, so naturally we’re due for a look back. In this polemical history, Marx, a critic with deep pop culture bona fides, sifts through the onslaught of content both online and off, from the lineup at Lollapalooza to “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” NFTs, TikTok and A.I. slop, decrying a culture that is overwhelming but artistically banal. “Where society once encouraged and provided an abundance of cultural invention,” he declares, “there is now a blank space.”
Viking, Nov. 18
Family of Spies
by Christine Kuehn
Kuehn lived most of her life not knowing her family’s shocking secret: During World War II, her German Jewish aunt and grandparents worked as spies for the Nazis and the Japanese — and their activities led directly to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kuehn weaves together the past and present in this propulsive story of lies, survival and reckonings.
Celadon, Nov. 25
The post 23 Books Coming in November appeared first on New York Times.
