Shred Sisters, by Betsy Lerner
A coming-of-age overcast with the inconstant cloud of mental illness, Lerner’s first novel follows Amy Shred, an aspiring biologist turned book editor in 1970s suburban Connecticut whose older sister, Ollie, is beautiful, effortlessly cool and deeply unstable. As Ollie weaves in and out of psychiatric hospitals, Amy — by turns exasperated, awed and destroyed by her sister — probes what exactly it means for love to be unconditional.
The Third Realm, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The third novel in a series that Knausgaard began with “The Morning Star” returns to the setting of that book, in which nine narrators see a strange new celestial body in the sky and reflect on whether it has anything to do with some recent dark events. “The Third Realm” offers new perspectives on these events, which include ghastly murders, while continuing the author’s examination of psychosis, religion and the supernatural.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten
Food Network star, prolific cookbook author, specialty foods-seller — Garten has taught much of America to cook with her accessible, sophisticated recipes and easy warmth. This memoir shows us the woman behind the Barefoot Contessa: as a child, a young army wife and an economist who worked in Washington before changing her life completely. As Ina would say, “How good is that?”
The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates’s latest work, an intricate meditation on the potential of storytelling to effect change, unfolds as a series of essays that take him to Howard University, his alma mater, where he teaches writing; to South Carolina, where a high school instructor comes under fire for teaching Coates’s prizewinning book “Between the World and Me”; and to Senegal, Israel and the occupied territories — each trip a strand in a larger argument about the necessity of “fusing beauty and politics” in narrative form.
Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
The best-selling New Yorker staff writer and podcaster revisits the ideas that made him a national name a quarter century ago. He looks for fresh clues in subjects as wide-ranging as the opioid crisis and corporate diversity to figure out what makes social epidemics spread and social progress stick.
The Sequel, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
This follow-up to “The Plot” finds Anna Williams-Bonner basking in literary acclaim (and moola from her murdered husband’s estate) — until pesky excerpts from a manuscript resurface and put questions of authorship, and the publishing world’s values, under the microscope.
Henry V, by Dan Jones
In an ambitious new biography of the British monarch, the prolific historian Dan Jones attempts to get under the skin of his elusive subject. Although he reigned for only nine years and died at 35, Henry V has been lionized as England’s greatest warrior king, and vilified as a monster. With meticulous research and in lively style, Jones presents us with the man beyond the Shakespeare character.
Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst
Hollinghurst’s latest novel follows the life of a gay and biracial British actor named Dave Win. The book is framed by Dave’s troubled relationship with Giles Hadlow, a pro-Brexit politician he met when they were both students at boarding school, but the core of the story is centered on Dave’s various trials, tribulations and romances as he grows up.
Annihilation, by Michel Houellebecq; translated by Shaun Whiteside
Houellebecq returns with a new political novel speculating on a near-future France. Amid a heated presidential contest in 2027, the country, battling rampant poverty, falls victim to a series of mystifying cyberattacks involving violent (and fake) videos. The protagonist, a government bureaucrat, is having problems of his own: His marriage is on the rocks, and he’s forced to reunite with his estranged siblings after their father has a stroke.
John Lewis, by David Greenberg
This rigorous and poetic biography enlivens the few crucial years that its hero spent in the struggle to bring down Jim Crow and, for the first time, renders in full the dramatic battles he fought to get and keep his seat in the U.S. Congress, where he served for two and a half decades and became a living embodiment of the civil rights movement.
Selling Sexy, by Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez
When Victoria’s Secret launched in the 1970s, it marked a major change to the American retail scene. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the company’s over-the-top catwalk shows — and its catalog — defined an era’s aesthetic and made many of its “angels” stars. But as society changed, Victoria’s Secret failed to. Drawing on extensive interviews and in-depth research, this story of a lingerie icon’s rise and fall reflects larger truths about our culture.
The Elements of Marie Curie, by Dava Sobel
Sobel, the best-selling author of “Galileo’s Daughter,” brings her singular blend of insight and lyrical science writing to this biography of the legendary physicist. This is a tribute not just to Curie’s groundbreaking work, but also to the generations of women scientists she mentored and trained.
What I Ate in One Year, by Stanley Tucci
“My taste buds have a very strong memory,” the actor and foodie writes in this globe-trotting diary where the menu includes cannellini beans and canned tuna (Jan. 3), baked beans in an airport lounge (April 20), risotto with butternut squash and sea bream (Nov. 22) and home-brewed ale at Guy Ritchie’s 1,100-acre country estate (Dec. 28). Read it and salivate.
Curdle Creek, by Yvonne Battle-Felton
Battle-Felton’s latest horror novel is a gothic exploration of race, home and inheritance. Curdle Creek is an all-Black town; to ensure the safety of its population, residents are required to follow particular rules and participate in unusual ceremonies. But when a widow, Osira, is endangered by the town’s rituals and then sucked into a series of different realms, she must embark on a tricky quest to answer for the town’s past and return home.
Don’t Be a Stranger, by Susan Minot
She’s a 52-year-old divorced mother. He’s a musician, 20 years younger and just out of prison. Their obsessive, destabilizing love affair powers Minot’s first novel in a decade.
Dogs and Monsters, by Mark Haddon
The new story collection by the author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” is inspired by an eclectic variety of sources, including a novel by H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf’s first published story and Greek mythology. In dark tales inflected with moments of humor — a suspenseful account of adolescent boys trying to fit in at a sadistic boarding school, new retellings of the myths of the Minotaur and Tithonus — this consummate storyteller honors the impressive range of human nature.
Absolution, by Jeff VanderMeer
This surprise fourth volume in VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series returns to Area X, a coastal region that has been blocked off from human contact for decades. The novel is set before this partition, chronicling in three sections some early expeditions into the terrifying, paranormal wilds of this place.
Patriot, by Alexei Navalny
Earlier this year, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny died in a remote Arctic penal colony after spending more than a decade leading his country’s political opposition. This memoir, which he wrote in prison, will tell the story of his life in the fight for democracy against Vladimir Putin’s autocratic rule.
No One Gets to Fall Apart, by Sarah LaBrie
LaBrie, a TV writer and librettist, searches her coming-of-age in Houston’s Third Ward for early signs of the schizophrenia her mother would eventually be diagnosed with — a disease LaBrie fears will plague her too. Worrying over a novel she’s trying to write about time travel, the author collapses generations into a heap of inherited pathologies: the legacies of her ancestors’ enslavement in Georgia, her more recent forebears’ “violent emotion” and the “depression I’m always trying to give the slip.”
The Price of Power, by Michael Tackett
The Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell has served in Congress for nearly 40 years. Yet he remains an enigma: a politician once known for his pragmatism who has presided over the G.O.P.’s hard-right tack and accommodation of extremists within its ranks. Tackett draws on a vast archive of material, as well as interviews with McConnell’s associates and the senator himself, in an effort to reveal the man behind the sphinx-like facade.
Feast While You Can, by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta
Part Sapphic horror and part ’90s romance novel, “Feast While You Can” follows a woman in rural Italy who is targeted by an ancient evil. The only person who can help her is her nemesis, who happens to be her brother’s former girlfriend — and to whom she feels a powerful, forbidden attraction.
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