Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

Happy Tuesday, readers! It’s time for another round-up, as we are now halfway through Rounduptember! Today’s newsletter is about 20 of the books coming out in 2020 that I am excited about that I haven’t read yet. (Publishers/editors/authors/agents, feel free to send them to me!) Next week, I’ll cover books I have read. Which is woohoo for me, because you know how I love to tell you about as many books as I can!

You can hear about about more favorites from this year on this week’s episode of the All the Books! María Cristina and I discussed several of our favorite nonfiction books of 2019, including On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, The Priory of the Orange Tree, The Hollow Kingdom, and more!

And now, it’s time for everyone’s favorite gameshow: AHHHHHH MY TBR! Here are today’s contestants:

Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling (Grand Central Publishing, January 7)

I heard that this book was awesome from Kira Jane Buxton, and since she wrote The Hollow Kingdom, I know she has amazing taste. It’s about a future country built entirely on algorithms. Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can’t bring himself to destroy some of the machines sent his way, so his home is now populated by a band of robot misfits. And one day he returns a machine, calling into question Qualityland’s whole system.

Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich (Two Dollar Radio, January 14)

The first offering of 2020 from one of my very favorite indie presses is a novel sent in Prague, Paris, Boston, and Wisconsin. The Guardian calls it a mashup of David Lynch, Elena Ferrante, Anaïs Nin, Antonin Artaud, and Lana Del Rey, which is quite the impressive mashup.

 

King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender (Scholastic Press, February 4)

I was a big fan of Callender’s 2019 release, Queen of the Conquered, which is most definitely NOT a children’s book. But this upcoming release IS for kids (and everyone else.) It’s a middle grade read about a 12-year-old boy who thinks his brother turned into a dragonfly after he died.

 

The Snow Collectors by Tina May Hall (Dzanc Books, February 12)

I marked this one down to read months ago, and then forgot, and then came across it a few weeks ago, and thought “WOWZA! I WANT THIS!” and then of course discovered I had already written it down, lol. I love when I do that. It’s being billed as a Gothic mystery about the Franklin Arctic expedition. I can’t wait to read it! I’d love to have a favorite novel about Arctic exploration that wasn’t by a garbage fire.

So We Can Glow: Stories by Leesa Cross-Smith (Grand Central Publishing, March 10)

I loved Cross-Smith’s novel, Whiskey and Ribbons, from 2018, so I am incredibly interested to see what she has for us in shorter form. Also, I think we need to bring neon signs back to more book covers. Last year’s cover trend was snakes. Maybe this year’s trend will be neon snakes.

 

You Will Never Be Forgotten: Stories by Mary South (FSG Originals, March 10)

I am all aboard for every book that FSG puts out, but I will admit that I saw an author I greatly respect discussing this online, so I marked it down without even reading about it. I can no longer remember who the author was (Elizabeth McCracken, maybe?) but I have now read over the synopsis of the stories and remain committed.

 

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, by Mieko Kawakami, Sam Bett (Translator), David Boyd (Translator) (Europa Editions, April 7)

The author of Ms Ice Sandwich returns with a novel about three women in Japan and their relationships with their own bodies. One woman struggles with self image after giving birth; one is a girl terrified to experience puberty; and the unnamed narrator deals with being neither a daughter or mother.

Braised Pork: A Novel by An (Yu Grove Press, April 14)

I have heard amazing things already about this novel of a woman in Beijing who finds her husband dead in the bathtub after breakfast. Next to his body is a mysterious pencil sketch that sends her off on a journey across the city for answers.

 

 

Northernmost: A novel by Peter Geye (Knopf, April 14)

A man thought lost in an Arctic expedition returns home to discover his funeral is underway. His wife, of course, is shocked to see him alive. Over a century later, a woman travels to Oslo to learn more about her great-great-grandmother who was born there but moved away as a young woman and never returned.

 

The Abstainer: A Novel by Ian McGuire (Random House, April 28)

This is already the third mention of Arctic exploration and I’m not even halfway through my list, but I loved McGuire’s novel, The North Water, about an expedition gone wrong. It is a grisly, darkdarkdark novel, so I cannot wait to see what he does with his new one, about an Irishman in nineteenth-century England and the underground movement for independence.

Gory Details: Adventures From the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt (National Geographic, May 12)

And it wouldn’t be a list by Liberty without something macabre! This book covers “the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe” and is being compared to Mary Roach. WE NEEDS THE PRECIOUS.

 

House of Dragons by Jessica Cluess (Random House Books for Young Readers, May 12)

The promo material for this YA novel calls it “Three Dark Crowns meets The Breakfast Club with DRAGONS.” I don’t think I need to say anything else.

 

 

Catherine House: A Novel by Elisabeth Thomas (Custom House, May 12)

Okay, not only am I a sucker for a 1980s reference (see above), but I will read anything compared to The Secret History, which this has been. I guess you can say it’s in my Catherine Wheel house. (Sorry not sorry.) It’s a Gothicky novel about a very selective school of higher learning hidden in the Pennsylvania woods.

 

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (Scholastic Press, June 2)

I 100% admit to wanting to read this simply because it is a reference to my favorite Andrew Scott moment on Sherlock. (Yep, that’s where the title for the Billie Eilish song came from, too.) It’s about two girls competing for prom queen who fall in love. Sounds amazing, I want to have read it yesterday. SIGN ME UP.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (Random House, June 16)

This is Mbue’s first novel since her impressive debut, Behold the Dreamers, back in 2016. (Where DOES the time go???) This one is about the people of the fictional African village of Kosawa, who are fighting back against the devastation caused by an American oil company.

 

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey, June 30)

This is SMG’s second novel coming in 2020, the first being Untamed Shore in February. Mexican Gothic is “a reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel, a story about an isolated mansion in 1950s Mexico.” MY BODY IS READY.

 

 

Hamnet: A novel by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf, July 28)

This is based on O’Farrell’s fascination with a story regarding Shakespeare and the death of his eleven-year-old son, Hamnet. It’s a look at Shakespeare and his wife after the loss of the son, and in the years leading up to the production of Hamlet.

 

Empire of Wild: A Novel by Cherie Dimaline (William Morrow, July 28)

This one was blurbed by Tommy Orange, so I cannot wait to get my hands on it ASAP. It’s a fable inspired by the traditional Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou—a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of native people’s communities. My goal in 2020 is to read more Native voices, and I think this one is going to be incredible.

Luster: A Novel by Raven Leilani (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 4)

And this promises to be an electrifying debut about a young Black woman who gets involved in an open marriage, that turns into attachment when she loses her job and grows close with the wife and child.

 

 

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol. 2 by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics Books, September 15)

I’m not going to get too excited, since they have already pushed this release date three times, and then pulled it entirely for a while. But for now, it appears to be back on, and I love the first book so much that I don’t care if I am sharing incorrect information right now, I just want it to happen. The artwork in the first book is some of the most amazing pen-and-ink work I have ever seen.

See you next week!

xx,

Liberty