A new year is here, a year defined, already, by its uncertainties, by its unmappable contours. So it goes. What is certain, Dear Readers, is that there are new books out today, new things to keep at our side as the year unfolds. If you felt like there was a drought of new books last month—which is the norm for the publishing industry in December—we’re back today with a bevy of new ones.

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Below, you’ll find no less than twenty-seven exciting, anticipated new offerings in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including the release of a never-before-published Zora Neale Hurston novel; a “definitive” new translation of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil; a wild account of the woman who inspired Hawthorne’s famous heroine, Hester Prynne; essays on the strange, defining phenomenon of Y2K; and much, much more. I hope you’ll add one (or many) of these to your to-be-read lists as we wade into the murk of 2025.

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Zora Neale Hurston, The Life of Herod the Great
(Amistad Press)

“In this unfinished novel, Hurston (1891–1960) attempts a biblical retelling similar to her novel Moses, Man of the Mountain, unspooling a stimulating if rushed revisionist narrative of Herod the Great….Because Hurston left the manuscript incomplete, chunks of the plot are missing, particularly toward the conclusion. Still, she delivers an intriguing counterpoint to the biblical ‘massacre of the innocents’ story….Hurston completists ought to snatch this up.”
–Publishers Weekly

Adam Ross, Playworld
(Knopf)

“Playworld is…a time machine of a kind, if they were ever used to seek revelations. I was reintroduced to an American history I lived through, and so much of what I had never known I’d forgotten, so much of what I was never taught to fear—but perhaps should have been. This was not my story but I saw mine in it—a boy lost in the house of adulthood, trying to learn how to be one of the people he sees around him. Haunting, mesmerizing, provoking—this novel is a triumph.”
–Alexander Chee

Anita Desai, Rosarita
(Scribner)

“Rosarita is not the Desai of Clear Light of Day (1980) or Fasting, Feasting (1999), those great, studiously realist and Booker shortlisted novels of Indian family life. This is a much more ludic tale, as taut and weird and entrancing as a story by Jorge Luis Borges. If it is to be her swansong…then it’s a magnificent way to go out.”
–The Telegraph

Kate Winkler Dawson, The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne
(Putnam)

“Who killed Hester Prynne? In this haunting true crime investigation, Kate Winkler Dawson pursues justice for the real woman behind Hawthorne’s heroine, Sarah Maria Cornell, whose mysterious death was initially ruled a suicide….Dawson takes the reader on an intrepid and utterly gripping journey of discovery. Written in shimmering transportive detail, The Sinners All Bow is an exceptional work of historical reportage that resonates all too strikingly today.”
–Abbott Kahler

Irvin Weathersby Jr., In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space
(Viking)

“The sentences alone in In Open Contempt make it one of the most memorable books of the decade. But it’s the unexpected lingering and genius crafting of consequential action that makes this one of the freshest explorations of space I’ve ever read. Irvin Weathersby Jr. has made something we’ve never before seen, felt, or witnessed.”
–Kiese Laymon

Colette Shade, Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was)
(Dey Street Books)

“In this trenchant debut collection, millennial essayist Shade details how the social and economic convulsions of the ‘Y2K Era’ (1997 – 2008) set the stage for the twenty-first century….The selections elegantly blend dark humor with thought-provoking arguments….A rich blend of cultural and economic analysis, this soars.”
–Publishers Weekly

Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil: The Definitive English Language Edition (trans. Nathan Browne)
(Verso)

“I have, over the years, seen and taught many translations of Les Fleurs du Mal, some by celebrated poets, some by leading scholars, but to my eye and ear, Nathan Brown’s is the most successful. Here is a superb translation of one of the great poetic works of modernism.”
–Marjorie Perloff

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Winter of Worship
(Copper Canyon Press)

“Intentionally or unintentionally, a text responds…to conversations of its moment, and the conversation centering trans and nonbinary communities is a high stakes one. Candrilli’s book refuses narratives that depict tragic victims for cis consumption. The book doesn’t, however, ignore wounds. In doing so, it acknowledges that ‘we can hold / just about everything inside of us, whether we want to or not.’ This book [will] break your heart…[and] show you its own.”
–Pleiades

Karissa Chen, Homeseeking
(Putnam)

“Karissa Chen’s debut novel weaves expertly between present and past, telling the story of childhood sweethearts who meet again late in life and are torn between looking back and moving on. A kaleidoscopic yet intimate view of the Chinese diaspora, Homeseeking explores how identities flex and and transform during war—and which fundamental parts of us remain the same no matter where we find ourselves.”
–Celeste Ng

Kevin Maloney, Horse Girl Fever: Stories
(Clash Books)

“A seizing sexworker, gay Abe Lincoln, the titular ‘Horse Girl’—this cast of characters navigate the cruel realities of human experience with resilience, tenderness & humor. A collection that is a testament to Maloney’s voice and his ability to find beauty anywhere, even Portland.”
–Madeline Cash

Jonathan Evinson, The Heart of Winter
(Dutton)

“Jonathan Evison, the brilliant American storyteller, has written a novel for the ages. Abe and Ruth Winter are in a long marriage, having experienced all the joy and pain that comes from living in a lifelong partnership. Ruth is a resplendent character, a mother and wife with dreams of her own, while Abe has to reinvent himself when the worst happens. Love, forgiveness and redemption built the soul of this story. A must read.”
–Adrian Trigiani

Marlene L. Daut, The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henri Christophe
(Knopf)

“A tour de force. Daut brings King Henry Christophe vividly back to life in this deeply researched and rivetingly told biography. In a work overflowing with new archival discoveries and insights, she carries us expertly through a moment of revolutionary political thought and cultural transformation that reshaped our world and its possibilities. Everyone should know this history.”
–Laurent DuBois

Mary Frances Phillips, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins
(New York University Press)

“A remarkable story of awakening, commitment, grit, and fearlessness in the wake of personal pain, grassroots struggle, and state violence. This first-ever historical biography of Ericka Huggins is itself a meditation on the pertinence and power of spiritual wellness and encourages us to consider what a radically holistic movement for liberation might need. Wholly original and illuminating!”
–Rhonda Y. Williams

Preston Lauterbach, Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King
(Da Capo)

“Lauterbach has long since made a place for himself as the most valuable chronicler of African-American music as a fulcrum and a center of American culture. But here, with astonishingly detailed and serpentine storytelling…he has outdone himself. And with humor, the cool eye of a hanging judge, and the flair of a dancer, he has lifted his ongoing argument to the realm of Mark Twain, Damon Runyon, Chester Himes, and Percival Everett.”
–Greil Marcus

Adam Haslett, Mothers and Sons
(Little Brown)

“Mothers and Sons is like sonar in a lake, pinging out everything submerged, the hidden stories, the shames and the joys. There’s nothing else like it. Haslett’s characters feel so real, their choices so hard, their lives so true. He is everything you want in a writer.”
–Andrew Sean Greer

Isa Arsén, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf
(Putnam)

“In this engaging historical novel, Arsén brings to life a captivating protagonist, Margaret Wolf, a passionate Shakespearean stage actress wrestling with inner demons….As in her debut, Shoot the Moon, Arsén injects light magical Realism….When Margaret and Wesley—richly dimensional, sympathetic, and invariably thirsty players with plenty to lose—are thrust into dangerous territory, they are forced to perform the best dramatic performance of their lives.”
–Booklist

Caryl Phillips, Another Man in the Street
(FSG)

“A novel about the immigrant experience from an author known for his interrogations of colonialism. Novelist, playwright, and essayist Phillips was born on St. Kitts, but he grew up in a predominantly white community in the United Kingdom. In his work, he explores the impact of British imperialism and the lives of Black people trying to find their way in a society that sees them as ‘other.’”
–Kirkus Reviews

Paula Whyman, Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop
(Timber Press)

“Bad Naturalist is a thoughtful, engaging, and fascinating exploration of the riddle of land stewardship….Whyman is eager, curious, and humble in the description of her journey as the owner of a two-hundred-acre mountaintop in Virginia. She draws on all sorts of sources in her narrative—philosophical, poetic, literary and ecological. As a gardener and modest landowner, myself, I found it instructive and deeply absorbing. Brava!”
–Roxana Robinson

Amy Gamerman, The Crazies: The Cattlemen, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West
(Simon and Schuster)

“Amy Gamerman’s riveting narrative reads like Yellowstone meets Matlock. This gripping story of a dispute over land rights is also a tale of the ongoing struggle to both preserve and exploit the American West.”
–Tom Clavin

Ted Kessler, To Ease my Troubled Mind: The Authorized Unauthorized History of Billy Childish
(Akashic Books)

“Ted Kessler gets as close as anyone is ever likely to get to one of the most enigmatic artists of the modern age, with an electric text that brings in multiple voices and viewpoints to present a complex portrait of a damaged boy alone with his art against the world. It is a touching, sad, sometimes hilarious, and ultimately inspirational work.”
–David Keenan

Eiren Caffal, All the Water in the World
(St. Martin’s Press)

“A gorgeously written novel that tackles not just the climate condition, but the human one. Narrated by Nonie, a young member of a family in the near future, All the Water in the World tells the story of their escape from their dwelling, which just happens to be the top of the Museum of Natural History (called Amen) until after a fierce super storm makes it inhabitable, forcing them to flee to what they desperately hope is going to be safety…brilliant and engrossing.”
–Caroline Leavitt

Samrat Upadhyay, Darkmotherland
(Soho Press)

“Darkmotherland is Samrat Upadhyay’s magnum opus, full of narrative energy and dramatic dynamics. With a Dickensian sweep and a vast cast of characters, Upadhyay created an ancient world saturated with the spirit of our time and shaped by political ambition and dark vision; hence the unavoidable violence of destruction. It is also a world that at times vibrates surreal resonances. A grand novel indeed.”
–Ha Jin

Sergei Lebedev, The Lady of the Mine
(New Vessel Press)

“A monumental feat. Lebedev mines the blackest seams of the Soviet Union’s past and Russian’s more recent to conjure up a book of rare elemental power that lays bare the dark forces driving Putin’s Russia today. There is no braver and more important writer of his generation.”
–Catherine Belton

James H. Sweet, Mutiny on the Black Prince: Slavery, Piracy, and the Limits of Liberty in the Revolutionary Atlantic World
(Oxford University Press)

“Mutiny on the Black Prince looks unflinchingly at the greed, exploitation and violence that powered Britain’s immense slave trade during the eighteenth century. This important new book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how the slave trade operated and its importance for shaping global capitalism.”
–Nicholas Radburn

Mike Pepi, Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia
(Melville House)

“gainst Platforms is a searing critique of the platforms that hold our culture, politics, media—and lives—in an increasingly tight stranglehold. Mike Pepi makes a passionate argument against Silicon Valley’s utopian vision, and offers hope that technology can still be deployed in our best interests. This fascinating book is a timely and meticulous examination of a supremely important topic.”
–Peter Ward

Adam Chandler, 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life
(Pantheon)

“Work has always been a central part of the American character, with the idea that success comes from effort, persistence, and ingenuity. But Chandler, a journalist and an author, argues that much of this is a myth….The majority of working Americans are stuck in low-income jobs, Chandler says, [with little] job security…his thesis is valid: Work is simply not working—for many, if not most, Americans. Some new thinking is needed. A welcome call for a return to fairness and common sense.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Bernhard Schlink, The Granddaughter (trans. Charlotte Collins)
(Harpervia)

“Some great novels manage to encapsulate an entire era, showing how history makes its way into the innermost recesses of families and individuals. Such is the case with War and Peace, in its epic style, and such is the case, for a very different subject, with Bernhard Schlink’s new book, The Granddaughter.”
–Le Monde