Twenty new books hit shelves today, and the list reads like a literary festival. Emily St. John Mandel returns with speculative fiction, Leigh Bardugo closes out her trilogy, and Kate Atkinson delivers another historical novel. The nonfiction lineup is just as crowded, with contributions from Naomi Klein, Ben Macintyre, and a range of other authors. Here is everything you can pick up now.
The Big Names
Mandel’s Exit Party is the headline speculative release of the day. Knopf published it, and Kirkus praised it as “both a thrilling read and a virtuoso demonstration of the moral and philosophical possibilities of speculative fiction.”
Bardugo’s Dead Beat ends her Ninth House trilogy. Flatiron released it, and the publisher describes it as “the highly anticipated, explosive conclusion to the Ninth House trilogy.”
Atkinson’s Our Noble Selves is the historical novel from Doubleday. Kirkus called it “another exquisitely humane novel from one of contemporary fiction’s finest writers.”
The Nonfiction Pair
Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor team up on End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, published by FSG. Booklist said their analysis “delineates concrete, achievable methods for navigating this daunting new territory.”
Harel Shapira’s Basic Pistol: Living and Dying by the Gun in America comes from Pantheon. Heather Ann Thompson described it as “at once page-turning and deeply disquieting, Harel Shapira’s Basic Pistol is a must read.”
Short Fiction and Memoir
Sarah Anderson’s Fallow is out from FSG. Olivia Colman had strong words for it: “I loved Fallow. Funny, intelligent and unputdownable, this is the book that everyone will be talking about.”
Cristina Rivera Garza’s Terrestrial, translated by Christina MacSweeney, is a collection of stories about travel. Kirkus called it “absolutely beautiful, written with Rivera Garza’s sparkling and enchanting prose.”
Spies and Presidents
Ben Macintyre’s Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy is out from Crown. John Grisham said he grabs each new book by Macintyre and reads it fast, adding that “Redwood might be his best.”
Jacob Weisberg’s Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era is out from Penguin Press. Tina Brown wrote that it is “fascinating, and instructive, to see the multiple ways supposedly upstanding titans of the establishment give themselves permission to become creatures of expedience.”
Poetry and Science
Antonio Damasio’s Natural Intelligence & the Logic of Consciousness is out from Pantheon. Adam Grant called it “A bold reimagination of what makes us sentient.”
Lawrence Joseph’s Precisely Now: Poems is out from FSG. The publisher’s blurb describes poems that “write unsparingly of the detritus of the Trump presidency, the sins of our nation, the horrors of genocide, and the decline of the body.”
Fiction From Around the World
Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes: Stories is out from W. W. Norton. TIME said she “packs her deceptively straightforward short stories with raw emotional power.”
Gabe Bullard’s Against Convenience: Embracing Friction in an Age of Endless Ease is out from Hanover Square Press. Jennifer Wallace wrote that it is “A wake-up call. Effort and friction aren’t obstacles to a good life—they’re essential to it.”
Isabel Allende’s Story Telling: A Writing Life is out from Ballantine. Booklist called it “A charming and welcome celebration of the magic and power of literature.”
The Final Novels
Lydia Mathis’s Desperate Bodies: Stories is out from Roxane Gay Books. Booklist said it is “A thrilling journey through the trials and tribulations of adolescence, one that establishes Mathis as a dynamic voice in fiction.”
Casey Gerald’s The Great Refusal is out from Little Brown. Imani Perry described it as “A captivating and sharply insightful blend: deeply imaginative and unerringly practical, intimate and political, hopeful and loving yet unflinchingly honest.”
Terrence Holt’s Soldiers & Sailors is out from Liveright. Jay Parini wrote that “The beauty of the prose is almost painful at times, and Holt’s novel is a gift to us at time when, more than ever, we desperately need to grapple with the roots of human conflict.”
“The beauty of the prose is almost painful at times, and Holt’s novel is a gift to us at time when, more than ever, we desperately need to grapple with the roots of human conflict.”
That line, from Jay Parini’s review of Terrence Holt’s Soldiers & Sailors, captures what ties this haul together: a sense of urgency in the prose. These are not books that coast on name recognition. They are books that critics and readers alike seem to have already fallen for.
The sheer density of the release is notable. Twenty books across genres land on the same day. The blurbs matter too. Olivia Colman, John Grisham, Tina Brown, and Adam Grant all weigh in on individual titles.
This is the part worth watching. The blurbs are specific enough to tell you why a book stands out.
It is a remarkable moment for anyone who loves books. The options are endless, and the quality appears to be high across the board.
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