News - Literary News

News - Literary News

Joseph Earl Thomas’ forthcoming memoir SINK is one of Vulture’s most-anticipated reads for this winter. Isle McElroy writes: “Essayist and fiction writer Joseph Early Thomas’s SINK pushes back against the expectations of coming-of-age memoirs. Eschewing the ‘I’ to instead tell the story of Joey in third person, Thomas writes about his family’s flawed attempts to show love and the hardship he faced overcoming his tumultuous childhood — and the community he later found in nerd culture, once he gave up on the urge to fit in. Thomas is a skilled prose stylist, and Sink is loaded with arresting imagery and insights into the eerie space between claustrophobia and freedom unique to childhood.” Grand Central Publishing will publish the memoir on February 21, 2023.

TIME Magazine and BookPage featured Rachel Aviv’s nonfiction debut STRANGERS TO OURSELVES on their respective best-of lists for 2022. Angela Haupt of TIME calls the book “a deeply reported exploration of mental illness…writ[ten] with empathy and nuance,” while BookPage praises it as “stunning.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on September 13, 2022.

Idra Novey’s forthcoming novel TAKE WHAT YOU NEED is one of Vulture’s most-anticipated reads for this winter. Isle McElroy writes: “Idra Novey appears capable of doing it all. She is a poet, a translator, and with TAKE WHAT YOU NEED, her third book of fiction, she is firmly establishing herself as one of the finest and bravest novelists working today…Novey is a master of the small and enormous mysteries that compose every person’s life, and TAKE WHAT YOU NEED is her most skillful exploration of artistic dedication and the ruins that accrue over the course of a life.” Viking will publish the novel on on March 14, 2023.

Brigitta Olubas appeared on the BBC’s Open Book podcast to discuss her biography of Shirley Hazzard. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on November 15, 2022.

The Los Angeles Times featured Rebecca Rukeyser’s debut novel THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH on its holiday gift guide. The citation reads: “This one’s a little naughty. Mira, 18 and obsessed with the concept of ‘sleaziness,’ sets out for an adventure on a remote Alaskan island, dreaming of a hookup with her aunt’s older stepson while working as a cleaner in a small, shady resort. As tensions among the staff boil over, Rebecca Rukeyser weaves a dreamlike spell — TWIN PEAKS by way of NORTHERN EXPOSURE. Give it to someone who wants something weird, in the best way.” Doubleday published the novel on June 7, 2022.

Aurora James, the groundbreaking fashion entrepreneur and founder of the 15 Percent Pledge, announced her forthcoming memoir WILDFLOWER. In a note to future readers, James writes: “WILDFLOWER is not just my story, it’s a story that in so many ways is about all of us — and the pressures we feel to blossom even in the harshest conditions...I hope that this book can serve as a vessel to allow us to come together and talk about the good parts and talk about the hard parts and ultimately create space for each other to get more of what we need...You and I were always born to be wildflowers.” James appeared on NBC News Daily on November 1 to discuss the book. She is also a 2022 Glamour Woman of the Year honoree. Crown will publish WILDFLOWER on May 9, 2023.

THE SWANK HOTEL by Lucy Corin was featured on The New Yorker’s list of “The Best Books of 2022 So Far,” alongside praise from their previous review of the novel: “[A] hypnotic, antic novel…Corin conveys a sense that insanity is everywhere.” Graywolf Press published the book on October 5, 2021.

THE STARS ARE NOT YET BELLS by Hannah Lillith Assadi was featured on The New Yorker’s list of “The Best Books of 2022 So Far.” Riverhead Books published the novel on January 11, 2022.

GIRLS THEY WRITE SONGS ABOUT by Carlene Bauer was featured on The New Yorker’s list of “The Best Books of 2022 So Far,” alongside an excerpt of their previous praise of the novel: “[A] prickly-coy novel…Bauer is a crackerjack chronicler of the slide into humility which follows ravenous early adulthood.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on June 21, 2022.

VERY COLD PEOPLE by Sarah Manguso was featured on The New Yorker’s list of “The Best Books of 2022 So Far,” alongside an excerpt from their previous review of the novel: “The poet and memoirist Sarah Manguso’s debut novel has a fairy-tale quality, a ring of the nursery rhyme lent by its symmetries, prototypical figures, and brutality…In minimalist, austere prose, Manguso conjures the torpor, stasis, and ambient suffering that envelop a whole town.” Hogarth published the novel on February 8, 2022.