The next few months are bringing many new books from authors I'm excited to read more from!
→ THE COMMITTED by Viet Thanh Nguyen (March 2): It did not occur to me to expect a sequel to THE SYMPATHIZER, but I was excited to learn one was coming. The excellent first novel follows a double agent from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War to a new life in Los Angeles, and the second takes him to Paris to deal with the many difficult events of his past. I look forward to more time with this fascinating protagonist, and to more of Nguyen's dark humor and clever sentences.
→ LIBERTIE by Kaitlyn Greenidge (March 30): Greenidge's inventive debut, WE LOVE YOU, CHARLIE FREEMAN, featured well-developed characters, complicated family dynamics, and a wide range of topics including sign language and the history of racist science. LIBERTIE promises to deliver more history and complexity with the story of a young Black woman during the Reconstruction who tries to find a life where she can truly be free.
→ THE FIVE WOUNDS by Kirstin Valdez Quade (April 6): This novel expands a short story from Quade's great collection, NIGHT AT THE FIESTAS. All those stories did an impressive job rendering characters and relationships fully enough in a few pages to get me invested. I'm eager to see what Quade does with a whole novel to depict a family coming together in the face of a teen pregnancy.
→ GOOD COMPANY by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney (April 6): I adored Sweeney's debut, THE NEST, a standout in my beloved genre of dysfunctional family dramas. It was a particular delight to enjoy the book so much and see it succeed, because Sweeney and I were workshop-mates at the Community of Writers some years earlier. The new novel explores the truths behind a friendship and a marriage against the backdrop of theater and TV acting.
→ STOP SAVING THE PLANET!: AN ENVIRONMENTALIST MANIFESTO by Jenny Price (April 20): While I'm bragging about personal connections, I'll divulge that this author is one of my cousins, which is why I'm anticipating a book that's pretty far from my usual tastes. But I am genuinely looking forward to reading this, because I agree with the premise that most "save the planet" efforts do little to address the real problems of climate change and environmental inequity. Jenny is also an entertaining writer, and I recommend her previous book about human connections to nature, FLIGHT MAPS.
→ FUGITIVE TELEMETRY by Martha Wells (April 27): I read all the previous installments of The Murderbot Diaries last year and put the series at the top of my 2020 favorites. The title character, a cyborg security expert trying to find its place in human society, is an excellent, opinionated narrator, and I can't wait for its next adventure.
→ SORROWLAND by Rivers Solomon (May 4): AN UNKINDNESS OF GHOSTS and THE DEEP are both intense, beautiful stories about power and complicated relationships. SORROWLAND sounds like it will explore these as well, in the context of another intricately imagined world. I'm especially intrigued by this sentence from the description: "Here, monsters aren't just individuals, but entire nations."
→ ONE LAST STOP by Casey McQuiston (June 1): Since reading the delightful RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE, the politically optimistic gay love story I didn't know I needed, I've been eagerly awaiting more from McQuiston. The new novel is a romance between two women, one of whom is displaced in time, and it sounds just as wonderful.
→ THE HIDDEN PALACE by Helene Wecker (June 8): This sequel to THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI has undergone changes to both title and release date since it was first announced, but it's really on the way now. I'm thrilled we'll be getting more to the richly developed story of two supernatural beings who met as immigrants to New York City and the world of humanity at the turn of the twentieth century.
Good Stuff Out There:
→ Casey McQuiston writes at Goodreads about the importance of queer love stories: "I thought about what it would have meant to a teenager like me, stumbling around and grabbing onto anything that felt sturdy, to see a book like mine while loitering around the stacks. This pastel-colored confection, with a jacket copy describing a fantastical, frothy, happily-ever-after queer love story that sounded like so many of the rom-coms I loved. I think it would have helped her to know that stories like that could be prominently featured in her favorite place."
No comments:
Post a Comment