We recommend: The best new book releases

Editor’s note: Dive into this wide-ranging list of recent and upcoming book releases, both fiction and nonfiction. New novels by Booker winners Julian Barnes and George Saunders; TM Krishna writes about constitutionalism and democracy; Toni Morrison on language; a Succession-esque account of the mighty Murdoch family; long awaited novels by beloved authors. We’ve got it all—jump right in!

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Fiction

This Is Where The Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Release: January 13

Class and culture come to the forefront here, in This Is Where The Serpent Lives, the debut novel by much-loved author Daniyal Mueenuddin. It's the story of a wealthy family in Pakistan and the people who work for them, spread over several decades. The Guardian suggests that it's likely to be one of the standout novels of the year: "Imagine a shattering portrayal of Pakistani life through a chain of interlocking novellas, and you’ll be somewhere close to understanding the breadth and impact of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s first novel." 

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes

Release: January 20

On Departure(s), his new (and, per him, his last) ‘novel’, Julian Barnes—winner of the Booker in 2011 for The Sense of an Ending—blurs the lines between fiction and memoir. Our narrator, Julian, tells his story of growing up in the ’60s; he writes about grief and illness (Barnes himself has been living with a blood disorder diagnosed a few years ago). And he writes about playing matchmaker to two of his friends, Stephen and Jean. The New York Times has kind words: “‘Departure(s)’ brims with wisdom reluctantly acquired. Barnes’s powers of observation and comment may have diminished, but his appetite for playfulness and detail, for bedrock human stuff, remains unslakable.” 

Maryam and Son by Mirza Waheed

Release: January 26

British novelist Mirza Waheed returns with Maryam and Son, a book about motherhood. Maryam, a widow, wakes up one day to find her son missing. Dilawar, 20 years old, bright, introverted, has his whole life ahead of him. She reaches out to the police, only to be given a rude shock in return—Dilawar may be involved in unimaginable activities, explaining his disappearance into the void. The book reckons with grief, with faith, with motherhood. Did she ever really know her son? Writes Mint Lounge: “On this scaffolding of a domestic tragedy, Waheed hangs a tale of grief and loss, intersected by questions of identity and belonging.”

Vigil by George Saunders 

Release: January 27

Booker winner George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo, 2017) returns with this short novel that takes us through the final evening of an oil tycoon on his deathbed. The novel grapples with themes of morality, guilt, absolution, and the afterlife as we meet with KJ Boone, 87, and dying of cancer; he is… let’s say, a morally ambivalent man. And he’s visited by Jill, an angel with her own backstory and past life.

Superfan by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

Release: February 3

Parasocial relationships, such an inescapable phenomenon in the modern digital age, lie at the heart of Superfan. Minnie, a Chinese American college freshman in 2010s Texas, fights her loneliness by forming a one-sided ‘parasocial’ bond with a K-pop-esque band. She forms a kind of attachment with one of the members, Eason (or Halo), himself overwhelmed by the rigours of pop stardom. The novel looks at these two stories running in parallel, trying to understand the motivations of its two central characters. The New York Times praises Superfan for “humanizing and giving depth to one of our more derided subcultures and musical genres.”

Kin by Tayari Jones

Release: February 24

Two childhood friends with absent mothers—one who was murdered, the other who left—grow up in 1950s America, in a segregated Louisiana, and from here their lives diverge. Award-winning author Tayari Jones tells the story of Vernice and Annie, in alternating POV chapters, in her moving new novel about race, loss, and womanhood, called Kin.

Nonfiction

The Sari Eternal by Lakshmi Puri

Release: January 5

Lakshmi Puri—respected former diplomat—tells her own story, and that of womanhood in India, through this timeless fabric that has defined femininity and tradition in the country since forever. From the historical journey and significance of the sari, to its role as a subversive act against orthodoxy in western settings, Puri writes a fascinating and rewarding ode to this most Indian of garments.

The Ghosts of Indian Small Towns by Ruskin Bond

Release: January 10

Who better than the beloved Ruskin Bond to write about the disappearing charm of India’s small towns? In this new book, he writes about small town life—the simplicity, the community, the effortlessness. The trains. With the spread of urbanisation, these magical places are rendered hollow ghost towns. And Bond tries to keep those dwindling memories alive with typically bright and nostalgic prose.

Search & Destroy: The Complete Archive (Edited by V Vale, Cecily Chen and Mitch Anzuoni) 

Release: January 20

V Vale started Search and Destroy, a punk zine in San Francisco in 1977, after getting a $100 loan from poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. For two years, this seminal publication captured the essence of the burgeoning punk rock and new wave music scenes of the time. Now, the complete archives of Search and Destroy are available in the form of a book that—through violent punk photography, interviews with people like William S Burrroughs, the Dead Kennedys, Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, and other archival material—capture the essence of this important scene that we can trace a straight line to when we look at rock music today. Such endeavours, in fact, become even more important at a time when cultural publications are under constant threat, ceasing to exist in a changing media landscape or being wrecked by corporate interference.  

We, the People of India: Decoding a Nation’s Symbols by TM Krishna

Release: January 27

Celebrated Carnatic musician TM Krishna, known as well for his progressive writing and views on society, pens this tribute to Indian democratic values. Here, he writes about the specific symbols that became essential to shaping India’s identity as a Republic: the flag, the anthem, the emblem, the motto, the Preamble. He explores the historical and cultural connotations behind each of these founding principles, and how they came to life, in what is at heart a homage to constitutionalism and representation in Indian democracy.

After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace by Robert Polito 

Release: January 27 

What was Bob Dylan up to in the middle stretch of his career? Not the peaks of the ’60s and beyond, when he sort of disappeared and released music that was widely panned. But the next 30 years, from the 1990s? Poet and biographer Robert Polito tackles this stretch of Dylan’s career in After the Flood. Via extensive archival research, examination of his films, albums, lyrics (published and unpublished), liner notes, and other material, Polito presents the musical and political journey of Bob Dylan through this period as a figure of creative resistance and evolution.

Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman

Release: February 3 

One for the fans of Succession: Bonfire of the Murdochs looks at the controversial Murdoch family—with the patriarch pitting his four children against each other—before heading into the story of the Murdoch empire. From its early beginnings as an Australian paper through to its current position as right wing behemoth, the Murdoch saga is full of salacious gossip and infighting and intrigue. With big money comes big drama. And what better way to experience it than in immersive longform nonfiction?

Language as Liberation by Toni Morrison

Release: February 3

The late great Toni Morrison deliberates on the politics of language in this posthumous collection of her lectures, delivered during her time as professor at Princeton University. She confronts the underlying themes of race and Black characters in the greatest works in American literature, to bring to light their role in creating America’s attitudes around racial identities and fears and anxieties.

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot

Release: February 17

Shame has to change sides. Gisèle Pelicot, in 2020, discovered that her husband had been drugging her and inviting men to sexually assault her for nearly a decade—this horrifying case sent shockwaves across the world. In this new memoir, she reckons with the horrors of her past and reclaims her voice, offering a rallying cry of hope and defiance.