Happy Tuesday, book friends! I hope you had a good weekend and read something that made your heart and brain happy. We have reached the part of the new year where so many of the 2023 books I was anticipating are now coming out and I am trying to keep up with them. They are zipping to my TBR like little book bees! (T-Bee-R, lol.)
At the top of my list to acquire today are Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl, Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal, and The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln. You can hear about some more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s (400th!) episode of All the Books! Danika and I talked about some of the books we’re excited about this week, including Big Swiss, VenCo, and Our Share of Night.
Today I am doing a round-up of several exciting titles from the first Tuesday of February 2023. Below, you’ll find titles (loosely) broken up into several categories, to make it easier for your browsing convenience. I hope you have fun with it! And as with each first Tuesday newsletter, I am putting asterisks *** next to the books that I have had the chance to read and loved.
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Biography and Memoir
B.F.F.: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found by Christie Tate
Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss by Gayle Brandeis
The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir by Priscilla Gilman
Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H
Never Far from Home: My Journey from Brooklyn to Hip Hop, Microsoft, and the Law by Bruce Jackson
My What If Year: A Memoir by Alisha Fernandez Miranda
Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance by Francesca T. Royster
Fiction
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin ***
Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl
VenCo by Cherie Dimaline ***
A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò
My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig
Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal, Jessica Moore (translator)
One Month of You by Suzanne Ewart
Deceit by Yuri Felsen, Bryan Karetnyk (translator)
The Promise of a Normal Life by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
It’s the End of the World My Love by Alla Gorbunova
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein
Black Foam by Haji Jabir, Sawad Hussain and Marcia Lynx Qualey (translators)
The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly
Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier, Daniel Levin Becker (translator)
When Trying to Return Home: Stories by Jennifer Maritza McCauley
The Love Scribe by Amy Meyerson
Call and Response: Stories by Gothataone Moeng
Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes
City of Blows by Tim Blake Nelson
What Napoleon Could Not Do by DK Nnuro
Victory City by Salman Rushdie
Brutes by Dizz Tate
The Incredible Events in Women’s Cell Number 3 by Kira Yarmysh, Arch Tait (translator)
Middle Grade
Akim Aliu: Dreamer by Akim Aliu, Greg Anderson Elysée, Karen De la Vega and Marcus Williams (illustrators)
The Pearl Hunter by Miya T. Beck
Opportunity Knocks by Sara Farizan
Rick Riordan Presents Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee
The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln
Mystery and Thriller
Such Pretty Flowers by K. L. Cerra
The Sanctuary by Katrine Engberg
Six Sweets Under by Sarah Fox
Black Dove by Colin McAdam
Last Seen in Lapaz (An Emma Djan Investigation) by Kwei Quartey
Double the Lies by Patricia Raybon
The House Guest by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Cold People by Tom Rob Smith
Nonfiction
The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris
Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru
The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls by Miriam Darlington
When Broadway Was Black: The Triumphant Story of the All-Black Musical that Changed the World by Caseen Gaines
Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House by Alex Prud’homme
Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner
I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever by Barbara Rae-Venter
The Poetics of Wrongness by Rachel Zucker
Poetry
Village by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs
Romance
Not Your Ex’s Hexes by April Asher
Just My Type by Falon Ballard
Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Horror
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez, Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Illustrator), Megan McDowell (Translator)***
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones***
Wild Massive by Scotto Moore
Pod by Laline Paull
The Cradle of Ice (Moon Fall, 2) by James Rollins
Young Adult
Out of Character by Jenna Miller
The Long Run by James Acker
Wildblood by Lauren Blackwood
Come Home Safe by Brian G. Buckmire
NerdCrush by Alisha Emrich
This Time It’s Real by Ann Liang
Seven Faceless Saints by M.K. Lobb
These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi
Boy in a White Room by Karl Olsberg
Afterglow (Golden Boys) by Phil Stamper
This One’s for You by Kate Sweeney
Daughters of Oduma by Moses Ose Utomi
The Severed Thread by Leslie Vedder
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This week: I’m currently reading The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Outside of books, I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I loved it. It was the kind of supreme weirdness that my brain craves. The song stuck in my head right now is “Just Wanna Rock” by Lil Uzi Vert, ever since Jayson Tatum posted a video of his son Deuce bopping along to it. And of course, here’s a cat photo: You’re not imagining it — Millay is totally judging you.
That’s it for me today, friends. I am sending you love and good wishes for whatever is happening in your life right now. Thank you, as always, for joining me each week as I rave about books! See you next week. – XO, Liberty ❤️