[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Definitely

A Delicate Truth, by John le Carré (out 5/7)

John le Carré, possibly the world’s most famous spy novelist (at worst, he’s number 2 behind Ian Fleming) is still going strong at 81. His latest is about a counter-terror operation that goes wrong and gets covered up, and one man’s effort to correct it. If it’s anywhere near as good as its book trailer, I’m on board.

 

And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini (out 5/21)

The pre-eminent Afghan-American novelist has a new novel out this month. The flap copy is maddeningly vague, saying the new novel is “about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.” I’m not sure what that means, but as the preeminent writer about an often overlooked part of the world, Hosseini gets a pass for shoddy PR work.

 

 

 

A Guide to Being Born: Stories, by Ramona Ausubel (out 5/2)

Ramona Ausubel’s relatively well-received debut novel, No One Is Here Except All of Us, centered around a Jewish village in Romania in 1939, and their decision to “deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch.” I’m a fan of magical realism, but I think it works better in the short form, and that’s why I’m more intrigued by this story collection, with an abundance of weird ideas.

 

Maybe

The Names of Our Tears, by P.L. Gaus (out 5/28)

A mystery revolving around an Amish drug mule. I’ve never heard of Gaus, so I can’t vouch that it’ll be good, but you don’t hear that premise every day.

NOS4A2, by Joe Hill (out now)

Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, and he seems to be following in the old man’s footsteps (minus the booze and drugs, hopefully). Hill’s new horror novel, about a supernatural killer and the escaped victim who’s trying to hunt him down, feature a nauseating title and terrible flap copy, but it’s been getting pretty decent buzz.

The Kings and Queens of Roam, by Daniel Wallace (out 5/7)

The author of Big Fish returns with a new “modern fairy tale.”

You Are One of Them, by Elliott Holt (out 5/30)

Holt’s debut novel follows a pair of American girls—Jenny and Sarah—who, at the height of the cold war, write to the Soviet premier asking for peace. The premier invites Jenny to Moscow, but ignores Sarah’s letter, which makes Sarah jealous until Jenny’s plane crashes, killing her and her family. Ten years later, Sarah gets a letter suggesting that Jenny’s death might’ve been a hoax. Sounds like a unique premise for digging into the old exploring-a-friendship trope.

The River of No Return, by Bee Ridgeway (out now)

This sci-fi debut novel follows a Napoleon-era soldier who wakes up in a modern hospital two hundred years after he should have died, the ward of a time-travel organization known as The Guild.

Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of WW II, by Mitchell Zuckoff (out now)

The author of the well-received Lost in Shangri-La returns with another true story of WWII. This time around, Zuckoff follows the crews of two planes that crash in northern Greenland, and their struggle to survive in the harsh climate until rescue arrives.

[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Definitely

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, by David Sedaris (out 4/23)

Early reviews have knocked the latest Sedaris for not veering far from his staked-out territory, but if you like his writing, hewing close to his norm is good news. These latest funny essays revolve around Sedaris’s travels. If you’re new to Sedaris, I’d recommend listening to an audiobook first—I never found him funny until I heard him read his own stories. If you’re an old fan, I’m just pointing out this new book’s existence.

 

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson (out 4/2)

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this novel; its own flap copy struggles to explain its premise (as do early reviewers). It seems that it’s a bit of a postmodern experiment, about the many possible lives of a woman named Ursula Todd. In one life she dies almost as soon as she’s born, in others “she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways.” I have no idea how this one will even be structured, but I am curious.

 

Life After Life, by Jill McCorkle (out now)

That’s not a typo. There are two books being published within a week of each other, using the exact same title. McCorkle’s Life After Life follows the residents and staff of a nursing home: an ex-teacher, an ex-lawyer, a murder scrapbooker, a tattooed young mother, and many others. This kind of book always comes down to the prose itself, but McCorkle has spent 17 years writing it, so it’s got better odds than most.

 

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach (out now)

C4 favorite Mary Roach returns with another book of entertaining science writing, this time about the digestive process. She attacks questions like: “Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find names for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?” And, she’s one of the funniest nonfiction writers out there. …
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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Definitely

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid (out 3/5)

The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist has a new novel coming out about a poor kid in a poor country (similar to Pakistan but not named), who makes a fortune in the bottled water industry. The narrator, like the country, remains unnamed, as the story is told in the second-person instructional, a mock self-help style popularized by Lorrie Moore’s famed (and excellent) debut short story collection, Self-Help. Kakutani highlighted Hamid’s “high-frequency radar” in sketching out the social network portrayed here. Worth a shot for sure.

The Fun Parts, by Sam Lipsyte (out 3/5)

Next up: the new short story collection from C4 favorite Sam Lipsyte. The flap copy calls it both “hilarious” and “tragicomic,” and I’d be inclined to believe the latter. There have been a glut of story collections recently, and I’m not sure I’ve ever read one without a dud or two. The lucky thing about a collection by talented authors is that one or two or seven duds won’t necessarily sink it. If one has even just a couple of gems, it can be great.

The Book of My Lives, by Aleksander Hemon (out 3/19)

Our own Eric Markowsky said, of Hemon’s 2008 novel The Lazarus Project: “The prose is so compelling, at times devastatingly funny and charming, at others just devastating, that the book moves like a light read despite its heavy themes.” This latest project is a semi-memoir about Hemon’s lives in two cities, Sarajevo and Chicago, and the early buzz raves.

The Tragedy of Mr. Morn, by Vladimir Nabokov (out 3/19)

Pretty much anything by Nabokov will get top honors on this site, whenever it comes up. Nabokov wrote this play when he was 24, and it sounds full of his early themes: odd, fantastical kingdoms; despotic states; revolution; and abnormal, possibly unnerving love. Let’s give it a shot.

Maybe

Middle C, by William H. Gass (out 3/12)

Gass took fifteen years to write this novel, about “the nature of human identity,” and a Jewish man who grew up in London during WWII and who later decides that his calling is to found the Inhumanity Museum. The Millions called it his most accessible fiction in 45 years. Still, dude is dense.

The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman (out now)

A sci-fi novel (maybe?) that was nominated for the Booker, Beauman’s latest seems to focus mainly on a rather obnoxious young man who can’t get laid. This could tip in either direction.

Rage Against the Dying, by Becky Masterman (out 3/12)

A retired FBI agent has spent her career hunting sexual predators. When a man confesses to the biggest unsolved case of her career, she can’t resist getting back in to see if he’s telling the truth.

The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates (out 3/5)

It’s been nine weeks (literally), so it’s time for another Joyce Carol Oates book. This “eerie tale of psychological horror” has gotten luke-warm reviews at best. Maybe she should take a little longer to write the next one?

Written in Red, by Anne Bishop (out 3/5)

This is the first installment in a new urban fantasy series, and it’s getting such rave reviews that I might give it a chance. Meg is a “blood prophet,” Simon is a shape-shifter… presumably they fall in love. This stuff always sounds like a Twilight ripoff to me on paper, but if Bishop’s writing is good enough, I’ll get on board. Maybe.

Fever, by Mary Beth Keane (out 3/12)

A historical novel about Typhoid Mary by one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35.” If you’re a history-fic fan, you know who you are.

The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout (out 3/26)

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Olive Kitteridge returns with the story of the Burgess family. After their father dies in a freak accident, Jim and Bob Burgess escape their small town as fast as they can, leaving their sister behind. When the sister’s own kid gets into trouble, Jim and Bob have to come home and reconcile their past.

The Mapmaker’s War, by Ronlyn Domingue (out 3/5)

This short, fable-like fantasy novel follows a young mapmaker’s apprentice in a “faraway land” who finds a secretive people who guard a mythic treasure. The people regard the mapmaker and her kingdom as a threat, and so the mapmaker is cast out, and has to find a life of her own. Early buzz has been mixed, but I might give this one a shot.

The Demonologist, by Andrew Pyper (out 3/5)

This one sounds like half Persephone myth and half Dan Brown. A professor of demon mythology at Columbia (I guess they have those) has to bring all his knowledge and smarts together to save his daughter from the underworld.

No

Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger (out 3/26)

“A respected mystery writer turns his attention to the biggest mystery of all: God.” That’s a bad mashup.

[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

My arm is still broken, but this new dictation program is working like a champ.  In other news, I recognize almost none of the authors in this month’s Book Radar, and those I do recognize have disappointed me in the recent past.  So this month’s choices are all Maybes, as is almost everything else in the world. Let’s do this.

Schroder, by Amity Gaige (out 2/5)

This novel of identity centers around a young German boy who gives himself a non-German name at summer camp to fit in better. This is Amity Gaige’s fourth book; her first was a collection of photos and poems written when she was just 16. None of the previous books have attained notoriety, but this one is getting enough hype to have the chance to be Gaige’s breakout. Whether it will depends on her prose; it’s difficult to tell much from the premise thus far.

How to Lead a Life of Crime, by Kirsten Miller (out 2/21)

This book, on the other hand, will get most of its hype from its premise. Miller imagines a school for young criminals where all the problems of adolescence exacerbate the pressure of learning a difficult trade that also happens to be illegal. I will probably be giving this one a try, but I’m worried that it might be a little too soapy.

Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Ron Rash (out 2/19)

Ron Rash has delivered, during the life of this website, one of my favorite novels,  and a rather disappointing short story collection. His latest is another story collection, which I suppose will break the tie. Rash’s fiction tends toward the modern Gothic, tales of gritty American life. Here’s hoping this collection comes through. …
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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Definitely

Tenth of December, by George Saunders (out 1/8)

George Saunders won a genius grant for his sharp, surreal satire about the anxieties and neuroses of the modern world, but I think he’s as wildly popular as he is for another, simpler reason: he’s funny. I’ve been avoiding most of the hype about this latest collection so as not to spoil anything for myself, but the little I’ve read suggests that Tenth of December won’t disappoint.

Gun Machine, by Warren Ellis (out now)

This line from Gun Machine’s flap copy might be the worst marketing gobbledygook I’ve ever read: “Warren Ellis reimagines New York City as a puzzle with the most dangerous pieces of all: GUNS.” The rest of the copy is similarly unreadable, but it seems to be about a cop who discovers a huge stash of guns that trace back to unsolved crimes over the past few decades. I’ve heard almost nothing but great things about it, and the silly premise makes me think that if it’s not great, it’ll be spectacularly terrible, and that can be fun, too.

How to Think More About Sex, by Alain de Botton (out now)

I don’t imagine many people have a problem with the frequency of their sexual thoughts, but this book more specifically explores the “dissonance between what we think is normal and what we experience in real life during sex.” De Botton is a world-class thinker, and this latest entry in his “School of Life” series sounds like a winner.

The World Until Yesterday, by Jared Diamond (out now)

The famed author of Guns, Germs, and Steel has a new book out about “traditional” (read: primitive) societies and how they differ from our “modern” society. For example, in primitive societies, parents carry their babies vertically, facing forward and let children make their own decisions. The result is that children learn to walk sooner and children become socially confident earlier and independent much faster. Fascinating stuff. …
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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Still not on schedule yet with the radars, so it’s super short. I’ll do better next month. Almost certainly.

Definitely

Raised from the Ground, by Jose Saramago (out now)

Saramago has an interesting style. He’s not quite up my alley, but you can’t ignore a Nobel Prize winner. Especially in a month this devoid of big names. It’s also a relatively old book, first published in 1980 in Portugal, but this is somehow the first English language translation. Who’s running the show over at Saramago HQ? Here’s a quick tip: when your man wins the Nobel freaking Prize, translate ALL of his books into Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Arabic, in that order. It’s really not as hard as you’re making it look. Anyway, it’s about “the grim reality of [...] farm laborers’ lives” in southern Portugal.

And that concludes this month’s Definitely section.

Maybe

City of Dark Magic, by Magnus Flyte (out now)

It’s unclear whether there’s actually magic in this “fast-paced and wildly imaginative” debut novel, or, for that matter, whether it’s fast-paced or imaginative. It does feature a city, so that’s nice. Specifically, Prague, where a graduate student learns that her mentor might have been murdered, and things go from there.

Me and the Devil, by Nick Tosches (out now)

I had this one marked in my Book Radar google doc, but then I found out it’s about vampires. Even if it’s literally the best vampire novel ever written, I don’t know if that’s enough to get me over my allergy to vampire novels. (Also, it’s probably not the best vampire novel ever.)

Umbrella, by Will Self (out 12/11)

This Booker Prize shortlistee (published in America only two months after that designation stopped being relevant) follows a psychiatrist at a Victorian mental hospital who becomes intrigued with a patient in a coma. Evidently it’s quite dense, so try before you buy.

Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids, by Ken Jennings (out now)

That guy that won Jeopardy! seventy-something times in a row has a new book out. Sounds decently entertaining, if schlocky. This feels like a Christmas present kind of book.

 The Folly of the World, by Jesse Bullington (out 12/18)

Flavorwire says this eccentric half-fantastic novel (about a couple of criminals trying to profit after a massive flood turns 1421 Holland into a small ocean) is full of “Bullington’s trademark wit, bonkers black humor, and mischievous imagination.” Take that with a big grain of salt, but it sounds good enough to give a shot when there’s not much out there.

[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

A bit of an abbreviated Radar this month as I’m just recovering from a longer than expected trip.

Definitely

Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan (out 11/13)

Ian McEwan has won the Booker prize once (for his novel Amsterdam) and been nominated a staggering five other times. His latest novel’s premise isn’t quite up my alley: a beautiful woman has an affair with an older man in Cold War-era England. But the complications involve the woman training to be a spy, and McEwan’s pedigree is second-to-none, so basically anything he writes is worth trying.

Dear Life: Stories, by Alice Munro (out 11/13)

It’s difficult to name a writer who’s dominated a medium the way Alice Munro (who’s now 81) has dominated short stories for the past few decades. She’s written almost exclusively short stories over the course of a 15-book, 34-year career, and her work is consistently excellent. Dear Life chronicles “departures and beginnings, accidents, dangers, and homecomings both virtual and real,” but it doesn’t really matter what the stories are about, because you’re reading this for the author, not the subject matter.

Woes of the True Policeman, by Roberto Bolano (out 11/13)

I’m not a huge Bolano fan, but I am a fan of unique police novels, and this promises to be unique, if nothing else. The flap copy calls it “an intimate police investigation” of its main character, an exiled Chilean professor and ex-revolutionary. “Dark twists” are promised, and at just 250 pages, it seems much more approachable than Bolano’s critically acclaimed, massive tome 2666.

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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

The cusp of fall brings with it the best month for books of the entire year. Let’s get cracking.

Definitely

America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t, by Stephen Colbert (out 10/2)

I’m a diehard Colbert fan (I’m actually wearing a Colbert T-shirt as I write this), so a new book by America’s pre-eminent satirist gets top billing every time. I really liked Colbert’s first book, I Am America (And So Can You!), and if you haven’t seen him reading his children’s book (I Am a Pole (And So Can You!)) to Maurice Sendak, watch it (and part 2) right now. I don’t have much else to say about this one. If you’re going to like it, you probably know already.

Ancient Light, by John Banville (out 10/2)

Though Banville’s latest crime novel was sub-par, but I really liked another one of his Benjamin Black novels, and he’s a tremendously talented writer. I’m interested in trying one of his non-mystery novels, because plotting is definitely not his strong suit, characters are. And this setup, a premise about an aging actor ruminating on his mistakes, is exactly the kind of thing Banville can knock out of the park.

Son, by Lois Lowry (out 10/2)

I completely missed The Giver in school, and when I finally read it last year, it kept me up all night. Son is the fourth and final novel in the Giver quartet, but supposedly the functional sequel to The Giver. Lois Lowry writes with great pacing and plot mechanics, not unlike The Hunger Games’s Suzanne Collins, and since it’ll only take about two hours to read it, there’s little risk.

We Are What We Pretend to Be, by Kurt Vonnegut (out 10/9)

In the subgenre of posthumous publications, this one is an interesting case. It’s billed as two novellas in one book: the first is the first long work Vonnegut ever wrote, never published it while he was alive. The second is his final novel, still unfinished at the time of his death. I’m usually not much of a posthumous novel reader, but this one might just have to be an exception.

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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

The cusp of fall brings with it the best month for books of the entire year. Let’s get cracking.

Definitely

Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon (out 9/11)

Of Michael Chabon’s six published novels, two number among my favorite books of all time—The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. It’s been five long years since Chabon has released long-form fiction (I’m not counting Gentlemen of the Road), and I can’t wait. A champion of genre fiction, Chabon is a phenomenal prose stylist who writes books with captivating plots and charming, nuanced characters. This one follows the co-owners of a record store. I’m intentionally reading as little about this one as possible, so that’s all I know. If you only read one book from this month’s loaded slate, make it this one.

The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling (out 9/27)

J.K. Rowling is the richest writer in the world, worth almost a billion dollars. That’s a miraculous feat when you consider that she actually wrote all her own books, unlike other rich authors (cough, James Patterson, cough). An even more miraculous feat is that she’s still writing. This is an entirely different venture for Rowling: a straightforward novel for adults about a vacant seat on a small town council. There are no wizards of any kind. The success of it (as a novel, obviously it will be a massive financial success) hinges on whether Rowling’s winning imagination translates over into a literary book. I’m willing to bet it does.

Joseph Anton, by Salman Rushdie (out 9/18)

Rushdie’s iconic 1988 novel The Satanic Verses cause such controversy in the Islamic world that the Ayatollah Khomeini issued an order for Rushdie’s execution. For the next nine years, Rushdie lived in hiding, known only by his code name, Joseph Anton (after Conrad and Chekhov). Rushdie is already one of the best living writers in the world; add a riveting true story like the one about his fatwa and this has the makings of an excellent book.

NW, by Zadie Smith (out 9/4)

I might sound like a hipsterite contrarian, but I actually think Zadie Smith’s under-the-radar second novel, The Autograph Man, might be almost as good as her signature debut. White Teeth is obviously a tour de force and a magnificent achievement, but Autograph Man is tighter and more confident, without sacrificing (much of) the entertainment of White Teeth. On Beauty bored me to tears and made me worry that Smith was wandering too far from what made her a superstar in the first place. Her latest has been controversially panned, and I’m more than a little worried that we’ll never get another White Teeth again. But she’s a bona fide genius-grade author, so anything she writes is worth checking out.

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[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]

Definitely

The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle (out 8/21)

When Pepper gets committed to an asylum for doing something he can’t remember, he’s immediately visited by a terrifying devil. The other inmates swear the devil is real, and it’s up to Pepper to harness the talents of his fellow inmates to try and stop or even kill the devil. LaValle is a high-ranking literary writer, so I’m sure you’ll hear a lot more about this one as its pub date approaches.

Lionel Asbo, by Martin Amis (out now)

Amis’s latest is a high-risk, possibly-high-reward satire about a kid named Desmond and his eccentric guardian, Lionel Asbo. Asbo, a small-time thug, wins a lottery and goes big-time, and his ward has to go along for the ride. August is a light month this year—I haven’t read any of the authors on this list. So I’m not entirely sure Amis can pull off this premise, but if he does, it sounds like this could be the best book of the lot.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison (out 8/28)

Benjamin Benjamin takes a course in caregiving after losing his family and his job. He’s assigned to a 19-year-old kid with Duchenne, and as they grow closer, they go on a road trip. This excerpt should give you a feel for what blurbers are calling the “energy” of Evison’s latest.
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