Twenty new books are out today, and they cover everything from a double novel about friendship to a memoir about attention to a historical epic about the gold rush. The list includes Barbara Kingsolver, Lydia Millet, Patricia Lockwood, Michael Lewis, and Meghan O’Gieblyn, among others.
The day’s releases span fiction, poetry, memoir, and nonfiction, with a notable pairing of Stephen King and Peter Straub. Here is the full rundown.
Kingsolver’s Partita
Barbara Kingsolver’s Partita is described as “the story of a brief, passionate, life-changing love affair, wrapped up in what might be the greatest romance of all: our eternal human longing for art and beauty.” It comes from Harper.
Millet’s Fair Ones
Lydia Millet’s Fair Ones: A Double Novel is published by W. W. Norton. Booklist calls it “Millet spikes this transfixing tale with keen and caustic insights into friendship and love, privilege and obsession, delusion and truth.”
Lockwood’s Agate Head/Stone Soup
Patricia Lockwood’s Agate Head/Stone Soup: Poems is out from Penguin Books. Publishers Weekly says the collection offers “vivid attention to the natural world and exuberant imagination make it rewarding.”
Lewis’s Blockers
Michael Lewis’s Blockers is also from W. W. Norton. The publisher describes it as “an inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.”
Mbue’s Every Story
Imbolo Mbue’s Every Story is a Love Story is published by Random House. Patrick Ryan writes that it is “a deeply moving, beautifully told novel about grief, regret, anger, forgiveness, and the insistent resilience of the human heart.”
Daugherty’s McCarthy
Tracy Daugherty’s Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited is from St. Martin’s Press. Publishers Weekly calls it “an astute and penetrating portrait of a literary great.”
Philbrick’s The Rush
Nathaniel Philbrick’s The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World is published by Viking. Ken Burns describes it as “a confounding and encouraging chronicle told from a myriad of perspectives, a bottom-up, epic tale of an inevitable rush toward profit and near-national suicide.”
Thompson-Spires’s Milford
Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford is out from Scribner. Raven Leilani says the novel is “sharp, expansive, and polyphonic, a propulsive novel rendered with the wit and care present in all of Thompson-Spires’ work.”
Washburn’s New World
Kawai Strong Washburn’s The Names of the New World is from FSG. Tommy Orange says the writing is “cerebral, muscular, electric, moving us through disaster with a light touch, consistently tempered with tenderness, humor, and love, often gorgeous with poetry, and deeply insightful about what it means to be human.”
Perry’s Ordinary Man
Sarah Perry’s Death of an Ordinary Man is from Mariner. The Sunday Times calls it “an extraordinary book. One that slips seamlessly from the metaphysical to the brute realities of the dying body.”
King and Straub’s Other Worlds
Stephen King and Peter Straub’s Other Worlds Than These is out from Scribner. Booklist calls it “an astonishingly good novel.”
O’Gieblyn’s Will and Attention
Meghan O’Gieblyn’s Will and Attention: A Memoir is from Doubleday. Jia Tolentino writes that she was “instantly helpless before Meghan O’Gieblyn’s Will and Attention, which spoke with a kind of flaying clarity and graceful consolation to a set of questions about worth, depravity, intention, and practice that scaffold my entire experience of the world.”
Schwab’s Victorious
V. E. Schwab’s Victorious is from Tor. Kirkus calls it “a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.”
Byrne’s Sleeping Beauties
David Byrne’s Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up is from Penguin Press. Kirkus says if music doesn’t pan out for Byrne, he has a viable sideline as a pop-history writer — “he has a wry, entertaining, and informed voice whether he’s discussing Vermeer’s paintings or water-management systems in ancient India.”
Huyler’s The Red Dress
Frank Huyler’s The Red Dress is from Bellevue Literary Press. Foreword describes it as “a suspense-filled, character-driven novel about a fraught father-daughter relationship and the father’s work to redefine himself.”
Roose’s AGI Chronicles
Kevin Roose’s The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence is from FSG. Publishers Weekly calls it “clear-eyed, deeply reported, and brisk, Roose’s account is an indispensable window into how the world arrived at a precarious technological inflection point.”
Johnson’s Occidental Book
T. Geronimo Johnson’s The Occidental Book of the Dead is from William Morrow. Attica Locke says Johnson’s take on history, politics, and humor “read like jazz, as, with this book in particular, he plays with the novel as a form, bending notes, making new music.”
Treuer’s Savage Mind
David Treuer’s The Savage Mind: An American Legacy is from Little Brown. Publishers Weekly calls it “Treuer’s elegiac narrative probes how family intersects with systems of power, and taps the deepest wells of feeling. It’s a singularly powerful work.”
Blaeser’s Red Ants
Kimberly Blaeser’s Red Ants: Stories is from Counterpoint. Booklist says the prose debut “centers the stories of Anishinaabe people, who defy simple categorization, just like Blaeser’s writing.”
Trapido’s Brother Jack
Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More Famous Jack is from NYRB. Rachel Cusk writes that there are “few modern tales of first love and its disillusions that are as thoroughly realised, as brilliantly lewd, and as hilariously satisfying.”
What Readers Get Today
Today’s releases are a mix of big names and rising talents. The King and Straub collaboration is the obvious draw, but the poetry and nonfiction titles are substantial.
Here is a quick look at the key facts:
- Kingsolver: Partita, Harper
- Millet: Fair Ones: A Double Novel, W. W. Norton
- Lockwood: Agate Head/Stone Soup: Poems, Penguin Books
- Lewis: Blockers, W. W. Norton
- Mbue: Every Story is a Love Story, Random House
- O’Gieblyn: Will and Attention: A Memoir, Doubleday
- King & Straub: Other Worlds Than These, Scribner
- Schwab: Victorious, Tor
The Bottom Line on Today’s List
This is a remarkable haul. Kingsolver, Millet, Lewis, and O’Gieblyn are all established voices, and seeing them release new work on the same day is a notable moment for readers. The addition of a King and Straub collaboration adds a marquee draw for those looking for something big.
The poetry side is strong, with Lockwood’s collection offering a fresh angle on nature and imagination. And the nonfiction titles — Lewis’s look at the Trump administration, Roose’s account of AI development, and Philbrick’s historical epic — cover a wide range of subjects.
What stands out most is the variety. A single day can now offer a reader a novel about a fraught father-daughter relationship, a poetry collection about the natural world, and a memoir about attention, all from authors with substantial reputations.
The sheer density of talent is the story here. These books will not fly off shelves by themselves — readers need to know they exist. That is why a list like this matters, even for writers who already have audiences.
The full list runs long, but each title deserves a closer look. Today’s releases are a reminder that literature moves fast, and a single day can deliver a lot of reading.
Source material: “Barbara Kingsolver, Lydia Millet, Patricia Lockwood, and more: 20 new books out today!,” Literary Hub.
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