The January 2023 Prepub Alert posts are also available as a downloadable spreadsheet of titles.  

Fiction

Literary Fiction

Ganeshananthan, V.V. Brotherless Night. Random. Jan. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780812997156. $28. LITERARY

In 1980s civil war–shattered Sri Lanka, 16-year-old Sashi works as a medic at a field hospital for the Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for a separate homeland. When the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers bring further atrocity, Sashi joins a dangerous underground project to document human rights violations in her country. From the author of Love Marriage, which was long-listed for the Women’s Prize.

Harding, Paul. This Other Eden. Norton. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781324036296. $28. LITERARY

In 1792, formerly enslaved Black man Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discovered Malaga Island off the coast of Maine and created a racially integrated community that endured for a century. Then white folks arrived with the goal of “cleansing” the island, threatening to send off residents in boats (but for one light-skinned boy) unless they submitted to white domination. The Pulitzer Prize–winning Harding reimagines Malaga Island and its terrible fate.

Hemon, Aleksandar. The World and All That It Holds. MCD: Farrar. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780374287702. $27. CD. LITERARY

In 1914 Sarajevo, gentle-souled Rafael Pinto pounds herbs in his pharmacy until war explodes with Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and he finds himself in the trenches, attracted to and protected by man-of-action Osman. The two desert the trenches, countering spies and Bolsheviks along the way, and in travels far and wide (even to Shanghai) Rafael is sustained by his love for Osman. From National Book Award/National Book Critics Circle finalist Hemon.

Laestadius, Ann-Helén. Stolen. S. & S. Jan. 2023. 400p. tr. from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles. ISBN 9781668005071. pap. $17.99. LITERARY

During a Swedish winter above the Arctic Circle, a nine-year-old Sámi named Elsa witnesses the killing of her reindeer calf in utter violation of Sámi cultural values and is forced to keep quiet until years later, finally confronting the killer even as threats against the Sámi rise. Of Sámi and Tornedalian descent, Laestadius offers a first adult novel after winning the August Prize for Best Young Adult and Children’s Novel.

Markley, Stephen. The Deluge. S. & S. Jan. 2023. 896p. ISBN 9781982123093. $32.50. LITERARY

In a near-future United States, fraught with extreme politics and extreme weather, scientist Tony Pietrus receives a death threat, which ties him to the interlocked fates of an advertising strategist, an eco-terrorist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a religion-besotted former actor, and a determined young activist. Their actions could determine the fate of the nation—and humanity itself. Echoing the structure and sensibility of the author’s big-hit debut, Ohio.

Steavenson, Wendell. Margot. Norton. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781324020844. $28.95. LITERARY

After three books of reporting (e.g., Circling the Square) and the well-received novel Paris Metro, Steavenson tells the story of Margot Thornsen, raised simply to marry by her wealthy family (think Park Avenue and Oyster Bay). A terrible fire destroys the family’s financial base and frees Margot to follow her wishes by attending Radcliffe—just as the Sixties swing into place.

Torday, Daniel. The 12th Commandment. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250191816. $27.99. LITERARY

Situated in rural Ohio, a community whose members belong to the Dönme sect—descendants of Ottoman Empire Jews who converted to Islam—is upended when the son of their self-proclaimed prophet is murdered. Journalist Zeke Leger, whose college girlfriend prosecuted the murder case, is intrigued enough to take another look. In light of conflict within the community and suspicion from without, he decides the murder has not yet been solved. From two-time National Jewish Book Award winner Torday.

Literary Fiction Debuts

Abbas, Fatin. Ghost Season. Norton. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781324001744. $28.95. LITERARY

Even as civil war threatens, a badly burned corpse is discovered in a border town between northern and southern Sudan, the location of an NGO compound. This could spell trouble for white Midwestern aid worker Alex, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena, and eager-to-rise 12-year-old Mustafa. Meanwhile, South Sudanese translator William worries about missing cook Layla, whom he loves. A debut novel plumbing the fraught issues of humanitarian aid, divided identity, and internecine conflict.

Minnicks, Jamila. Moonrise Over New Jessup. Algonquin. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781643752464. $28. LITERARY

It’s 1957, and the all-Black town of New Jessup, AL, has opted for self-determination over integration as a means of Black advancement. New arrival Alice Young soon falls for Raymond Campbell, who’s questioning the town’s precepts, a move that could get them both in trouble. Pushcart Prize nominee Minnicks won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for this debut novel, a celebration of Black culture that takes in opposing viewpoints on the issue of desegregation in that era.

Moeng, Gothataone. Call and Response: Stories. Viking. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780593490983. $27. Downloadable. LITERARY

Former Wallace Stegner fellow Moeng grounds this first collection in the landscape of her native Botswana, particularly Serowe, her birthplace and the country’s largest village. Tradition rubs up against modern times as a young widow contemplates the meaning of the mourning clothes she wears and a young woman’s brother brags about his sexual exploits even as she feels she must hide her own.

Mohamed, Deena. Shubeik Lubeik. Pantheon. Jan. 2023. 528p. ISBN 9781524748418. $35. LITERARY

The title of Egyptian writer/illustrator Mohamed’s debut graphic novel means “your wish is my command” in Arabic, and the story concerns three people who buy wishes at what looks to be an ordinary kiosk in Cairo. Recently widowed Aziza must battle bureaucracy to claim her wish, privileged Nour must decide whether to use their wish to counter depression, and Shokry tries to help a friend refusing to indulge in wishing. Winner of Best Graphic Novel and the Grand Prize at the 2017 Cairo Comix Festival.

Nkrumah, Nyaneba. Wade in the Water. Amistad. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063226616. $27.99. CD. LITERARY

In rural, segregated 1982 Ricksville, MS, a Black 11-year-old named Ella—smart but unwanted by family and town—befriends Ms. St. James, a white woman from Princeton there to do research. Ella needs Ms. St. James so desperately that she unintentionally pushes up against secrets from Ms. St. James’s past, with terrible consequences. From U.S.-born, Ghana and Zimbabwe–raised Nkrumah.

Peyton, Tracey Rose. Night Wherever We Go. Ecco. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780063249875. $27.99. CD. LITERARY

To counter financial setbacks, the owners of a Texas plantation decide to hire a stockman to impregnate the plantation’s six enslaved women. The women rebel, secretly agreeing to chew cotton root clippings to prevent pregnancy. But their plan will backfire—and jeopardize them all—if any one of them bears a child. From CUNY Writers’ Institute graduate Peyton.

Schwartz, Selby Wynn. After Sappho. Liveright: Norton. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781324092315. $28.50. LITERARY

A Lambda finalist for The Bodies of Others, Schwartz launches her fiction career with a novel sifting together the stories of women intent on living their own lives and forging a queer identity at the turn of the 20th century. Among them: Italian novelist, poet, and essayist Rina Faccio, U.S. painter Romaine Brooks, and the indomitable Virginia Woolf.

Mystery

Amidon, Stephen. Locust Lane. Celadon: Macmillan. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250844231. $27. MYSTERY

Carlsson, Christoffer. Blaze Me a Sun: A Novel About a Crime. Hogarth: Random. Jan. 2023. 448p. tr. from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles. ISBN 9780593449356. $28. MYSTERY

Cosimano, Elle. Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Finlay Donovan, Bk. 3). Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250846037. $26.99. CD. MYSTERY

Cotterill, Colin. The Motion Picture Teller. Soho Crime. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781641294355. $27.95. MYSTERY

Harper, Jane. Exiles. Flatiron: Macmillan. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250235350. $27.99. CD. MYSTERY

Harper, Jordan. Everybody Knows. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780316457910. $28. MYSTERY

Rosenfield, Kat. You Must Remember This. Morrow. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063207394. $27.99. CD. MYSTERY

Tracy, P.J. The Devil You Know. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Detective Margaret Nolan, Bk. 3). 320p. ISBN 9781250859945. $27.99. MYSTERY

In Amidon’s Locust Lane, a young woman is found dead in the more fashionable section of a New England suburb, and the three teenagers who were with her that night are now suspects in her murder (100,000-copy first printing). From Carlsson, youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, the internationally best-selling Blaze Me a Sun features a serial killer in a small Swedish town who commits his first murder the same night in 1986 when Prime Minister Olof Palme is assassinated. In a continuation of Cosimano’s USA Today best-selling and Edgar–nominated series starring author and single mom Finlay Donovan, readers will find that Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun; unexpectedly owing Russian mobsters a favor, she must help them identify a contract killer before the cops do, especially crucial because the killer might actually be a cop. In The Motion Picture Teller, a stand-alone from CWA Dagger winner Cotterill set in 1996 Bangkok, postman Supot and his best friend, video store owner Ali, discover a mysterious film titled Bangkok 2010 that no one seems to know anything about—and that might be cursed. In Jane Harper’s Exiles, Australian federal investigator Aaron Falk—whom readers know from the New York Times best-selling Dry—senses fault lines among the close group of attendees at a party in South Australian wine country, owing to the disappearance of a friend whose baby was found abandoned at a busy festival. From the Edgar Award–winning Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows features publicist Mae Pruett, who makes sure that everybody doesn’t know about the shady dealings of the lawyers and private security firms for which she works, now trying to discover the secret her boss took to his death. In You Must Remember This, from Edgar-nominated YA author Rosenfield, Miriam Gardiner’s fall through thin ice one Christmas Eve in the spot where decades ago she used to meet a lover might be an accident or suicide, but motives for murder emerge when daughter Delphine starts looking into the entire family. In the New York Times best-selling Tracy’s The Devil You Know, LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan faces a tough case with the suspicious death of popular actor Evan Hobbes in a Malibu rockslide just 24 hours after a fake video smashes up his career; the subsequent murder of his agent’s brother-in-law suggests evil intent.

Thrillers

Adams, Sean. The Thing in the Snow. Morrow. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780063257757. $27.99.CD. THRILLER/ABSURDIST

Following his eye-catching debut, The Heap, Adams returns with a psychological thriller cum satire set at an all-but-abandoned research institute in an unspecified chilly north. While the sole remaining researcher studies the sensation of coldness, supervisor Hart is alarmed by the appearance of something out there in the snow. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Alsterdal, Tove. You Will Never Be Found. Harper. (High Coast, Bk. 2). Jan. 2023. 448p. tr. from Swedish by Alice Menzies. ISBN 9780063115118. $28.99. CD. THRILLER/INTERNATIONAL

First seen in We Know You Remember, a Glass Key winner also voted Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, Det. Eira Sjödin is handling a missing-persons case when her own boss (with whom she was having an affair) vanishes. Meanwhile, workers have found a fearful, quaking man hiding in a mining town that’s being relocated—the old mine is swallowing houses and streets wholesale. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Bennett, Michael. Better the Blood. Atlantic Monthly. Jan. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9780802160607. $27. THRILLER/INTERNATIONAL

From Māori screenwriter/director Bennett, this debut thriller features stubborn Māori detective Hana Westerman, constantly rejiggering her work-life balance as she hunts down New Zealand’s first serial killer. The killings soon prove to be retribution for the execution of a Māori leader during the country’s bloody colonial past, and for Hana things get personal.

Brennan, Allison. Don’t Open the Door. Mira: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. (Regan Merritt, Bk. 2). 368p. ISBN 9780778333623. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780778386506. $9.99. CD. THRILLER

Because Regan works as a U.S. marshal, husband Grant blames her when their 10-year-old son, Chase, is shot dead while playing a videogame. After they divorce, Grant ends up wanted for questioning in relation to several deaths, and Regan must discover whether he’s guilty—and, if so, of what. With a 400,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Grippando, James. Code 6. Harper. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063223783. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER/TECHNOLOGICAL

Playwright Kate Gamble has made an enemy of her father with a play about the shadier side of the data integration company SF-Technologies, of which he is CEO. Then she’s contacted by a former boyfriend, who’s prosecuting a case against SF-Technologies. Expect combustion of all sorts from the New York Times best-selling Grippando; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

Hawkins, Rachel. The Villa. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781250280015. $27.99. CD. SUSPENSE

In 1974, bad-boy rock star Noel Gordon recharged creatively at the Italian villa where childhood friends Emily and Chess are now reconnecting. Among his guests was rising-star Pierce Sheldon, who was murdered there, and as Emily begins digging into the villa’s past, she senses there’s more to that story than revealed at the time. Following the New York Times best-selling Reckless Girls; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

Johnstone, Carole. The Blackhouse. Scribner. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982199678. $28. THRILLER

Two decades ago, five-year-old Maggie caused a media sensation when she announced that a man had been murdered on a mist-wrapped island in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides she had never visited. Now she’s traveling there, trying to make sense of this spooky event. Following the well-received Mirrorland.

Kapoor, Deepti. Age of Vice. Riverhead. Jan. 2023. 544p. ISBN 9780593328798. $30. Downloadable. THRILLER

Kapoor launches a trilogy about the wealthy, corrupt Wadia family of New Delhi, linking the stories of playboy Sunny, who wants to supersede his father; cautious servant Ajay, from a shockingly destitute background; and ambitious journalist Neda, who becomes involved with Sunny. A big hit at Frankfurt in 2019, this saga sold immediately to 20 countries worldwide and is slated for a Fox TV series. Indian-born-, -raised, and -educated Kapoor worked in New Delhi as a journalist and now lives in Portugal.

Krentz, Jayne Ann. Sleep No More. Berkley. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593337820. $28. THRILLER

With her latest, romantic suspense queen Krentz launches “The Lost Night Files” trilogy, about three women whose lives were changed—they’ve developed mysterious powers—on a single night none of them can remember. A cold-case podcast could help them understand this startling turn of events.

Kubica, Mary. Just the Nicest Couple. Park Row: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780778333111. $28.99. CD. SUSPENSE

Jack Hayes vanishes after a ferocious fight with his wife, Nina, who’s now looking for him frantically, and Nina’s friend and coworker Lily thinks she’s the last person to have seen him before he wisped away like smoke. But she and her husband agree they can’t tell anyone. Following the New York Times best-selling Local Woman Missing; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

Ledwidge, Michael. Hard To Break. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. (Michael Gannon, Bk. 3). 352p. ISBN 9781335449337. $27.99. CD. THRILLER

Last seen in Run for Cover, Michael Gannon is on a grizzly bear hunt in Alaska with his son when he’s trapped by bad guys and put on a corporate plane heading toward a frightening encounter. From James Patterson coauthor Ledwidge; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Marshall, Kate Alice. What Lies in the Woods. Flatiron: Macmillan. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250859884. $28.99. CD. THRILLER

In this adult turn from successful children’s/YA author Marshall, Naomi Shaw is attacked while playing in the woods with best friends Cassidy and Olivia. She survives 17 knife wounds and joins with her buddies in identifying the assailant, helping to put away a serial killer. But there’s more to the event than they revealed, which a grown-up Naomi is determined to disclose. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Patterson, James & Brendan DuBois. Countdown. Little, Brown. Jan. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780316457378. $29. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

When a CIA special Activities operation goes wrong, an undercover officer realizes that her superiors are dealing shadily with an informant, and she’s suddenly privy to a plot that could kill thousands. To scotch it (in seven days), she must give up her identity and tread even further into the shadows.

Pellegrino, Amanda. The Social Climber. Park Row: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780778387022. $17.99. Downloadable. THRILLER

Pellegrino follows up the LJ-starred Smile and Look Pretty with dreamer-schemer Eliza Bennett set to marry upper-crust Graham Walker after pommeling her way into Manhattan high society and a top PR job. But word about shady doings in her evangelical-college past makes her friends start wondering who Eliza really is—and what she wants.

Preston, Douglas & Lincoln Child. The Cabinet of Dr. Leng. Grand Central. Jan. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781538736777. $30. THRILLER

FBI Special Agent Pendergast and Constance Greene are back, but on different timelines. Catherine has found her way to late 1800s New York, where she’s intent on putting an end to events that would lead to the deaths of her sister and brother and also to Dr. Enoch Leng, the serial killer who first terrified readers in the authors’ The Cabinet of Curiosities. In the present day, Pendergast frets about reuniting with her. With a 375,000-copy first printing.

Reyes, Ana. The House in the Pines. Dutton. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593186718. $27. THRILLER

When Maya sees a YouTube video of a young woman dropping dead before a mysterious man named Frank, just as Maya’s best friend did before this same man seven years previously, she returns to her Berkshires hometown to uncover the source of Frank’s baleful influence. A buzzing debut.

Taylor, Brad. The Devil’s Ransom. Morrow. (Pike Logan, Bk. 17). Jan. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780063221987. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Bad news: Pike Logan’s Taskforce has been hit by a ransomware attack that seems to have originated with the Taliban. Worse news: it’s just a trial run, and the real attack is coming from a traitor who once served as a National Security Agency specialist in the U.S. government. Next in a long-running series after End of Days.

Tudor, C.J. The Drift. Ballantine. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593356562. $28. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Hannah is trapped in a crashed bus after escaping from boarding school, former detective Meg awakens among strangers in a swaying cable car, and Carter and his pals, who survive in a deserted ski chalet by manufacturing vaccines for trade, fear their generator is dying. All while a blizzard threatens. Following the raved-about Burning Girls and forthcoming short story collection A Sliver of Darkness.

Willingham, Stacy. All the Dangerous Things. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250803856. $27.99. CD. THRILLER

Unable to sleep but for the occasional quick nap after her toddler was taken from his crib a year previously, Isabelle Drake is willing to do anything to discover what happened to him—including being interviewed by a true-crime podcaster. But the way he probes into Isabelle’s past is making her nervous. Following her skyrocketing debut, A Flicker in the Dark.

SFF/Horror

Bardugo, Leigh. Hell Bent. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. (Alex Stern, Bk. 2). 448p. ISBN 9781250313102. $24.99. CD. FANTASY

In Ninth House, best-selling YA author Bardugo’s much-cheered adult debut, Galaxy “Alex” Stern can see the dead, which wins her a free ride to Yale from benefactors concerned to track the occult activities of the university’s secret societies. Here, she’s determined to rescue her mentor from hell, even if (heaven forfend!) it loses her a place at Yale. With a 500,000-copy first printing.

Chen, Mike. Vampire Weekend. Mira: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780778334316. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780778386964. $17.99. CD. FANTASY

In the New York Times best-selling Chen’s follow-up to Light Years from Home, vampires don’t go around bloodsucking people to death (an idea they find abhorrent) but wrangle blood bags and work night jobs. For Louise Chao, it’s a lonely life, relieved by her passion for punk rock. Then a teenage relative she barely knows arrives at her door, and for once she connects—but in the end there’s big-time trouble. With a 30,000-copy paperback and a 10,000-copy hardcover first printing.

DiLouie, Craig. Episode Thirteen. Redhook: Hachette. Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780316443104. pap. $18.99. HORROR

Told in appropriately jagged bits of correspondence, journal entries, and tapes, Bram Stoker–nominated DiLouie’s story features a ghost-hunting reality TV crew heading to the tumbledown mansion housing the Paranormal Research Foundation. They hope to prove that it’s haunted, but a lot more happens. With a 15,000-copy fist printing

Elsbai, Hadeer. The Daughters of Izdihar. Harper Voyager. (Alamaxa Duology, Bk. 1). Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780063114746. $28.99. CD. FANTASY

In this debut (and first in a duology) from Egyptian American librarian Elsbai, entitled aristocrat Nehal and Giorgina, an impoverished bookshop worker who expects little of life, discover that they share a common interest in women’s rights. And they both have the means to fight for those rights by using forbidden magic, Nehal as a waterweaver and Giorgina as an earthweaver. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Golden, Christopher. All Hallows. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250280299. $27.99. HORROR

Even as families bicker and crumble on Halloween night in 1984, Coventry, MA, four children who aren’t from town go door to door in vintage costumes and creepily washed-out makeup, begging for protection from the Cunning Man. As the author is Bram Stoker Award–winning Golden, we know something horrifying will soon happen. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

Hendrix, Grady. How To Sell a Haunted House. Berkley. Jan. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593201268. $28. HORROR

The author of New York Times best-selling fiction (The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) and Bram Stoker Award–winning nonfiction (Paperbacks from Hell), Hendrix launches a new scarefest that explains what’s really terrifying about family.

Johns, Jessica. Bad Cree. Doubleday. Jan. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780385548694. $28. Downloadable. HORROR

Young Cree woman Mackenzie increasingly dreams about a long-ago weekend at her family’s lakefront campsite that transpired before her sister Sabrina’s death. The dreams are full of fierce crows, and now crows are following her in real life, so she heads home to rural Alberta to get help from her family. A debut for Nehiyaw author Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta.

McGuire, Seanan. Lost in the Moment and Found. Tor.com. (Wayward Children, Bk. 8). Jan. 2023. 160p. ISBN 9781250213631. $21.99. FANTASY

In the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, Antoinette cannot find her father, but she does discover many different doors by which she can leave. Each goes to a different world, though leaving is not that easy. A stand-alone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning series.

Newitz, Annalee. The Terraformers. Tor. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250228017. $27.99. CD. SF

Like her family before her, Destry is devoted to terraforming Sask-E and nurturing its various eco-systems, but her assumptions about the world she loves are tossed into question when she discovers a city full of people who shouldn’t even exist sequestered inside a volcano. From the Lambda Award–winning Newitz (Autonomous); with a 125,000-copy first printing.

Suarez, Daniel. Critical Mass. Dutton. Jan. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780593183632. $28. Downloadable. SF

When things go wrong at a cutting-edge commercial asteroid-mining mission that’s not yet won approval, two crew members are left stranded, and the crew that made it home must build an advanced rescue craft in time for the asteroid’s next close sail by Earth. From the New York Times best-selling, TEDGlobal-speaking Suarez.

Historical Fiction

Benedict, Marie. The Mitford Affair. Sourcebooks Landmark. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781728229362. $27.99. HISTORICAL/WORLD WAR II

Blauner, Peter. Picture in the Sand. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250851017. $27.99. HISTORICAL/THRILLER

Correa, Armando Lucas. The Night Travelers. Atria. Jan. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781501187988. $27.99. HISTORICAL/WORLD WAR II

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Independence. Morrow. Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780063142381. $28.99. CD. LITERARY/HISTORICAL

Saab, Gabriella. Daughters of Victory. Morrow. Jan. 2023. 512p. ISBN 9780063297050. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780063246492. $17.99. lrg. prnt. CD. HISTORICAL

Thomas, Kai. In the Upper Country. Viking. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593489505. $27. HISTORICAL

In the New York Times best-selling Benedict’s The Mitford Affair, Nancy Mitford must choose between family and country when she realizes to her shock that two of her sisters support the Nazis’ rise to power. Billed as an historical thriller (with the accent on historical), the Edgar Award–winning Blauner’s Picture in the Sand tells the story of Egyptian American businessman Ali Hassan, who shares his secret activist past with a grandson now in Syria as a holy warrior, hoping to dissuade him from extremist actions (75,000-copy first printing). By the author of the internationally best-selling The German Girl, Correa’s The Night Travelers moves from Ally Keller’s struggles to get biracial daughter Lilith out of 1930s Berlin to Lilith’s experiences during the Cuban revolution to Nadine’s work in late 1980s Berlin to honor the remains of victims of the Nazis even as daughter Luna encourages her to investigate her own past. American Book Award–winning, Orange Prize short-listed Divakaruni’s Independence tracks the fate of three Indian sisters—ambitious Priya, gorgeous Deepa, and devout Jamina—who are torn apart as the 1947 Partition looms (50,000-copy first printing). Saab’s Daughters of Victory, successor to her well-received debut, The Last Checkmate, follows Svetlana Petrova from revolutionary idealism in 1917 Russia to disillusionment with Bolshevism to concern for a granddaughter aching to join the resistance as Germans invade the Soviet Union in 1941 (100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). A debut from Black Canadian Thomas, In the Upper Country opens in 1800s Dunmore, Canada, terminus of the Underground Railroad, where imbued Black journalist Lensinda Martin urges a new arrival who’s just killed a slave hunter to give testimony before her arrest; instead, she proposes that they trade stories, with the resulting narrative a braided-together history of Black and Indigenous peoples in North America.

Friends, Family, Lovers

Allen, Jayne. Black Girls Must Have It All. Harper. (Black Girls Must Die Exhausted). Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780063296640. $26.99; pap. Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780063137943. $18. CD. CONTEMPORARY

Cai, Delia. Central Places. Ballantine. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593497913. $27. CONTEMPORARY

DeFino, Terri-Lynne. Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story. Morrow. Jan. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780063228436. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD. FAMILY LIFE

Harper, Lana. Back in a Spell. Berkley. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593336106. pap. $17. ROMANCE

Lipman, Elinor. Ms. Demeanor. Harper. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780358677888. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD. LITERARY/CONTEMPORARY

Salesses, Matthew. The Sense of Wonder. Little, Brown. Jan. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780316425711. $28. Downloadable. ASIAN AMERICAN/CONTEMPORARY

Shroff, Parini. The Bandit Queens. Ballantine. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593498958. $28. CONTEMPORARY

Steel, Danielle. Without a Trace. Delacorte. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781984821867. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CONTEMPORARY/ROMANCE

Zigman, Laura. Small World. Ecco. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780063088283. $27.99. CD. LITERARY/CONTEMPORARY

In Allen’s wrap-up to the “Black Girls Must Die Exhausted” trilogy, Tabitha Walker balances new motherhood, new job possibilities, new friendship issues, and an ultimatum from boyfriend Marc about their relationship, and she’s beginning to wonder if she really believes that Black Girls Must Have It All (75,000-copy paperback and 20,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Central Places, a debut from journalist Cai, Audrey Zhou left Hickory Grove, IL, for a big-deal job in Manhattan but is returning home to introduce star-worthy fiancé Ben to her hectoring parents and ignored friends; she also reconnects with laidback Kyle, the only person who ever understood her. DeFino moves from The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And Their Muses) to Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story, which features a widow whose mother and daughter conspire to get her dating again (50,000-copy first printing). In the New York Times best-selling Harper’s Back in a Spell, puissant witch Nineve Blackmoore has been abandoned at the altar by her fiancée and ends up on an awkward and ultimately antagonistic first date with nonbinary townie Morty Gutierrez (angry that her family wants to buy out his pub); then Morty unexpectedly starts acquiring magical powers. In Lipman’s genre-blending Ms. Demeanor, big-deal lawyer Jane Morgan loses both career and social life after a busybody neighbor reports her for having hot sex on the rooftop of her New York apartment building, then faces more trouble when the neighbor winds up poisoned and leaves a note implicating Jane (100,000-copy first printing). From Pen/Faulkner finalist Salesses, The Sense of Wonder stars Won Lee, the first Asian American in the NBA, whose seven-game winning streak wins him the moniker “The Wonder”—all witnessed by sportswriter Robert Sung and studio producer Carrie Kang, with whom Won launches a relationship (50,000-copy first printing). In debuter Shroff’s The Bandit Queens, a young Indian woman named Geeta is suspected of killing her long-vanished husband, which proves beneficial—no one wants to cross her—and then uncomfortable as other women push her for advice on getting rid of their husbands. After surviving his car’s plunge off a cliff in Normandy, Charles Vincent, Steel’s latest protagonist, is nursed back to health by a kind woman he stumbles across in a nearby cabin and realizes that he could vanish from his unhappy life Without a Trace. In Zigman’s Small World, Joyce invites sister Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment (if only temporarily) when Lydia returns east from California, but the two divorcees find their relationship disrupted by memories of their deceased sister (60,000-copy first printing).

Nonfiction

Social Science

Black, Daniel. Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781335449382. $27.99. CD. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Winner of the Distinguished Writer Award from the Middle-Atlantic Writer’s Association, novelist and cultural critic Black (Don’t Cry for Me) offers a debut essay collection examining issues that range from police brutality to the role of queer representation in the Black church. Along the way, he celebrates the strength of Black Americans—and indeed anyone on the margins—and the ongoing struggle for fairness and equality. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Bump, Philip. The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. Viking. Jan. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593489697. $30. Downloadable. POLITICAL SCIENCE

The baby boom effectively created modern America, but what’s next? How long will boomers hang on, to whom will the power eventually shift, how will aging boomers impact the health care system, how will political parties respond, and, in terms of identity, what will matter most: age, region, or ethnicity or race? Washington Post Bump national columnist has answers.

Cohen, Roger. An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics. Knopf. Jan. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593321522. $30. Downloadable. POLITICAL SCIENCE

Currently Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, Cohen spent 12 years as a Times columnist writing sharply observant pieces about issues that include U.S. political divisiveness, Trump’s threat to democracy, the global refugee crisis, the consequences of COVID, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. relations with China, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here he picks favorites and annotates them.

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Black and Female: Essays. Graywolf. Jan. 2023. 128p. ISBN 9781644452110. $23. ESSAYS

Black feminists are “the status quo’s worst nightmare” argues Zimbabwean novelist/playwright/director Dangarembga, whose This Mournable Body was short-listed for the Booker Prize. In this wide-ranging essay collection on race, empire, and gender, she compares being separated from her parents as a toddler to the damage done in Africa by human trafficking and enslavement and challenges how Zimbabwe’s women were treated by the ruling party after independence. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Dean, Janice. I Am the Storm. Harper. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780063243088. $28.99. CD. SOCIAL SCIENCE

The New York Times best-selling author of Make Your Own Sunshine, Dean celebrates those with the guts to step up and do the right thing when sitting back would have been easier. Among those cited: Scott Mann, head of a U.S. veterans’ group that smuggled 1,000 refugees from Afghanistan during U.S. withdrawal, and gymnast Andrea Orris, who challenged her sport’s abusive culture. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Hobbs, Jeff. Children of the State: Stories of Survival and Hope in the Juvenile Justice System. Scribner. Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781982116361. $28.99. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Following The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner, Hobbs takes on a dysfunctional U.S. juvenile justice system that often obstructs the life chances of youngsters for mistakes made at an unformed age. His case studies range from a Delaware detainee dreaming of college to a longtime juvenile-hall teacher worrying that her work is fruitless.

Kara, Siddharth. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781250284303. $29.99. POLITICAL SCIENCE/HUMAN RIGHTS

Cobalt is essential to the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that keep our iPhones, laptops, and other devices humming. But mining it has been horrifically damaging to the people and the environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as evidenced by this work. A senior fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, Kara collected testimonies from the Congolese people themselves. Winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize; a 50,000-copy first printing.

Potter, Matt. We Are All Targets: How Renegade Hackers Invented Cyber War and Unleashed an Age of Global Chaos. Hachette. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780306925733. $29. CYBERCRIME

Two-time Sony Award–winning journalist Potter spent 20 years putting together this history of cyberwarfare, which he tracks to the West’s abandonment of Eastern European hackers as the Cold War shut down. From the FBI’s pursuit of cyber mercenaries in the 1990s to Russian generals itching for a Cold War rematch to the machinations of the criminal underworld and even Silicon Valley, Potter tells a surprising story. With a 25,000-copy first printing.

Rayman, Graham & Reuven Blau. Rikers: An Oral History. Random. Jan. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780593134214. $28.99. SOCIAL SCIENCE/PENOLOGY

Founded in 1932 on an island in New York City’s East River, Rikers is the largest correctional institution in the United States. Veteran journalists Rayman and Blau spent two years interviewing detainees and their relatives, plus officers, lawyers, and commissioners, to paint a portrait of a brutal and haunted place. Of widespread importance with the call for reduced incarceration in the United States and a rethinking of its criminal justice system.

Soni, Saket. The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America. Algonquin. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781643750088. $28. POLITICAL SCIENCE/IMMIGRATION

In 2007, community organizer Soni received news of a horrific case of forced labor in the United States: 500 migrant workers from India, who had paid $20,000 to secure jobs rebuilding oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina, were living in deplorable conditions in a camp surrounded by armed guards. With Soni’s help, they escaped and marched on Washington, DC, to demand justice. Told within the context of the increasing use of forced labor in the United States today; a 35,000-copy first printing.

Whipple, Chris. The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House. Scribner. Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781982106430. $30. POLITICAL SCIENCE

A former 60 Minutes producer and New York Times best-selling author (The Gatekeepers), Whipple relies on access to the White House to chronicle President Joe Biden’s time in office, launched with key legislative victories, stymied by partisan gridlock, and encompassing major crises at home and abroad.

Winston, Ali & Darwin BondGraham. The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-Up in Oakland. Atria. Jan. 2022. 480p. ISBN 9781982168599. $30. TRUE CRIME

George Polk Award–winning journalists Winston and BondGrahan chronicle brutality and corruption within the Oakland Police Department over 13 years, even as the department was under the longest-running federal reform program in the United States. They focus on a group of officers dubbed the Riders, who felt justified in using violence to address crime. Winner of a 2021 Creative Nonfiction grant from the Whiting Foundation.

Memoir

Fleshman, Lauren. Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World. Penguin Pr. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593296783. $28. Downloadable. MEMOIR/SPORTS

Guerrero, Lisa. Warrior: My Path to Being Brave. Hachette. Jan. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780306829499. $28. MEMOIR

Hendrickson, John. Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter. Knopf. Jan. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780593319130. $29. Downloadable. MEMOIR/MEDICAL

Kotler, Steven. Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad. Harper Wave. Jan. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780063272903. $28.99. MEMOIR/SELF-HELP

Orenstein. Peggy. Unraveling. Harper. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063081727. $26.99. CD. MEMOIR/CRAFTS

Sattouf, Riad. Esther’s Notebooks. Pantheon. Jan. 2023. 168p. ISBN 9780593316924. $30. GRAPHIC NOVEL/MEMOIR

Taylor, Goldie. The Love You Save: A Memoir. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781335449375. $ 28.99. CD. MEMOIR

In Good for a Girl, two-time national champion Fleshman chronicles her life as a runner while arguing that the current sports industry is failing young female athletes and needs reform. In Warrior, Guerrero tracks her rise to chief investigative correspondent for Inside Edition despite harassment and pushback (35,000-copy first printing). In fall 2019, Atlantic senior editor Hendrickson limned Joe Biden’s struggle to conquer stuttering (and his own) in a story that went viral and is expanded in Life on Delay, which highlights key issues stutterers face like bullying and depression and the support systems that mattered. ANew York Times best-selling author (see A Small Furry Prayer, my favorite) and human performance expert (he’s executive director of the Flow Research Collective), Kotler explains how he pushed passed his limits to become a crack skier at age 53 inGnar Country (50,000-copy first printing). In Unraveling, the New York Times best-selling Orenstein (Cinderella Ate My Daughter) ends up touching on key social issues (from climate change to women’s rights) as she explains how she coped with big life changes (a mother’s death, a father’s illness, a daughter’s departure for college) by learning how to knit a sweater from scratch (shearing a sheep, spinning and dying yarn, and more) (75,000-copy first printing). In a series of weekly cartoon strips, celebrated French cartoonist Sattouf (The Arab of the Future, 4 vols.) recounted the life of his friend’s daughter Esther from ages 10 to 12; Esther’s Notebooks offers 156 of these strips, taken from the first three volumes of a series that appeared in Europe and has sold over 900,000 copies. Raped at age 11 by a neighborhood boy, Taylor was sent to live in an aunt’s substandard household in rundown East St. Louis; The Love You Save recounts how she survived and thrived, finally becoming a Daily Beast editor at large (150,000-copy first printing).

History

Connelly, Matthew. The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets. Pantheon. Jan. 2023. 560p. ISBN 9781101871577. $30. Downloadable. HISTORY/DOMESTIC POLITICS

A professor of international and global history at Columbia University, Connelly has analyzed millions of state documents via cutting-edge data science techniques to discover what the U.S. government does not want us to know and how much power we have allowed to it. His conclusion: state secrecy is a given in the United States.

Crawford, James. The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World. Norton. Jan. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9781324037040. $30. HISTORY

From bloody territorial disputes in ancient Greece and the modern-day Middle East, from the Mason-Dixon Line to the many boundaries crossed daily by refugees to the “Great Green Wall” envisioned in Africa to battle desertification, borders really, really matter. Historian and BBC One documentarian Crawford considers how they have shaped history.

Fraser, Flora. Flora Macdonald: “Pretty Young Rebel”: Her Life and Story. Knopf. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780451494382. $30. HISTORY

After Prince Charles Edward Stuart was roundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, his efforts to escape to France were helped along by Flora MacDonald, a Stuart loyalist in her twenties. Some readers will know her from Boswell’s account of her conversation with Samuel Johnson in 1773, others from Diane Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series; from biographer Fraser (The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton).

Graeber, David. Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia. Farrar. Jan. 2023. 208p. ISBN 9780374610197. $27. HISTORY/POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

Famed activist/thinker Graeber, associated with Occupy Wall Street and the author of the New York Times best-selling The Dawn of Everything and Debt, died in September 2020. This final work is an outgrowth of graduate research he did in Madagascar on the Zana-Malata, descendants of pirates who settled on the island in the 1700s. What results is a study of pirate societies as self-governing alternatives to European empire. With a 200,000-copy first printing.

Jacobs, Sally H. Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9781250246554. $29.99. BIOGRAPHY/SPORTS

A George Polk Award–winning and Pulitzer Prize finalist journalist who authored The Other Barack, about Barack Obama’s father, Jacobs limns the life of tennis great Althea Gibson. Gibson broke tennis’s color line in 1950 and went on to win five grand-slam titles; she was the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Time and Sports Illustrated and was ranked the world’s No. 1 woman tennis player. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Larson, Edward J. American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765–1795. Norton. Jan. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780393882209. $32.50. HISTORY

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, Larson probes the awful contradiction at the heart of the American Revolution: it was fought to liberate the Colonies from England by settlers who themselves enslaved others.

Montefiore, Simon Sebag. The World: A Family History. Knopf. Jan. 2023. 1296p. ISBN 9780525659532. $45. CD/Downloadable. HISTORY

A multi-award-winning historian who frequently focuses on Russia and the Middle East, Montefiore expands his purview to examine the will to power in great dynasties across human history. His subjects range from Mesopotamian cupbearer Sargon, who led an army dethroning his own king, to Ewuare, oba of the Benin Empire in the 1400s, and Hapsburg empress Maria Theresa.

Parker, Reverend Wheeler, Jr. & Christopher Benson. A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till. One World: Ballantine. Jan. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593134269. $28. HISTORY

Parker is the last living witness to the abduction of his cousin Emmett Till, whose 1955 lynching in Mississippi lent momentum to the Civil Rights movement. Here, with the help of Benson, a lawyer and former features editor for Ebony, he recalls the event, the impact on his family, and efforts over the decades to secure justice for Till.

Pennock, Caroline Dodds. On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe. Knopf. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781524749262. $32.50. Downloadable. HISTORY

A Gladstone Prize–winning expert on Mesoamerica, Pennock draws on literature and poetry to reveal the perceptions of Indigenous Americans—diplomats, explorers, servants, traders, and enslaved people—when they encountered Europe. Often abducted and often marginalized, these observers saw a continent full of surprises, including the disparities between rich and poor.

Popkin, Jim. Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy—And the Sister She Betrayed. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781335449887. $27.99. TRUE CRIME/ESPIONAGE

A high-up at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Montes spent 17 years sharing U.S. intelligence secrets with the Cuban government, who then sold them to countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. She was arrested shortly after 9/11, and among those who felt most keenly betrayed was her sister Lucy, a veteran FBI agent who won awards for helping to unmask Cuban spies. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Tabor, Nick. Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781250766540. $29.99. HISTORY

In 1860, the Clotilda landed on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, illegally bringing the last group of enslaved people from Africa to the United States. After emancipation, they created their own Yoruba-speaking community, called Africatown, as chronicled in Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon. Freelance journalist Tabor tells Africatown’s story to this day, with the community struggling to survive even as discovery of the Clotilda’s remains fires up a desire to a create a memorial to the community. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Wilson, Tracy V. & Holly Frey. Women You Missed in History Class. Flatiron: Macmillan. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250268532. $28.99. HISTORY

Hosts of the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast, Wilson and Frey aim to highlight women whose contributions have been denied or diminished. Their subjects range from Jeanne Baret, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe (disguised as a man), to an animation pioneer named Charlotte Reinigier whose work antedated Disney. The second book in the Stuff You Should Read imprint, publishing in partnership with Flatiron Books.

Woo, Ilyon. Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom. S. & S. Jan. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9781501191053. $29.99. HISTORY

Recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Writing Grant, Woo (The Great Divorce) tells the story of an enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, who achieved freedom by traveling openly from Georgia to the North, with the fair-skinned Ellen disguised as a young white male cotton planter accompanied by the enslaved William. Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act forced them to flee again, this time to England.

Arts & Literature

Iyer, Pico. The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise. Riverhead. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780593420256. $26. Downloadable. SPIRITUALITY

Noted for more than a dozen books on cross-cultural themes, plus essays and book reviews that have appeared in over 250 periodicals worldwide, Iyer here focuses on the concept of paradise: what it means in different cultures, to different people, and whether it can be claimed on Earth.

Malcolm, Janet. Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory. Farrar. Jan. 2023. 176p. ISBN 9780374605131. $26. MEMOIR

In this posthumous memoir, sharp-eyed, much-celebrated New Yorker staff writer Malcolm takes a look at an interesting subject: herself. Given her fondness for overturning convention, it’s no surprise that she doesn’t offer a standard chronology but instead presents her encounters with family photographs. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Call of the Tribe. Farrar. Jan. 2023. 288p. tr. from Spanish by John King. ISBN 9780374118051. $28. LITERATURE

Instead of summing up his life, the Nobel Prize–winning Vargas Llosa offers an intellectual biography, considering the key writers who have influenced his thinking over the last five decades. Among those cited: Adam Smith, José Ortega y Gasset, Friedrich A. Hayek, Karl Popper, and Isaiah Berlin. With a 15,000-copy first printing.

Vargas Llosa, Mario & Rubén Gallo. Conversation at Princeton. Farrar. Jan. 2023. 288p. tr. from Spanish by Anna Kushner. ISBN 9780374129019. $28. LITERATURE

In 2015, Vargas Llosa taught a course at Princeton with Rubén Gallo, using five of his books—Conversation in the Cathedral, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, Who Killed Palomino Molero?, A Fish in the Water, and The Feast of the Goat—to clarify the theory of the novel and the relationship among journalism, politics, and literature. This chronicle of the course reflects the comments of both teachers and students. With a 10,000-copy first printing.

STEM Titles

Clode, Danielle. Koala: A Natural History and an Uncertain Future. Norton. Jan. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781324036838. $27.95. BIOLOGY

Award-winning Australian biologist Clode frequently spotted koalas in her backyard but began studying them in earnest when they were threatened by wildfire. Here she charts the evolutionary biology and ecology of the beloved but endangered koala, the only survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials.

Levitt, Dan. What's Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body's Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night's Dinner. Harper. Jan.2023. 368p. ISBN 9780063251182. $28.99. EARTH SCIENCES

For the last two decades, Levitt has been writing and producing award-winning science and history documentaries for the National Geographic, Discover, Science, and History channels, but this documentary effort is truly ambitious. He investigates the various chemical elements that make up the human body, then tracks them all the way back to the big bang. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Lipsky, David. The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial. Norton. Jan. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9780393866704. $32.50. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

A National Magazine Award–winning, New York Times best-selling author, Lipsky explains how antiscience sentiment became so strong in the United States by focusing on climate change denial. He lays bare the science of climate change, understood decades ago, then shows how fake news about products like aspirin created the tools for denier ideas to take hold.

Marsh, Henry. And Finally: The Matter of Living and Dying. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781250286086. $27.99. MEMOIR/MEDICAL

Author of the New York Times best-selling Do No Harm, which won the PEN Ackerley Prize and was short-listed for many other honors, retired neurosurgeon Marsh got a different take on the medical world when he was diagnosed with advanced cancer. Here he meditates on the move from doctor to patient, the challenges of illness and aging, and the beauties of family and science. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Wilson, F. Perry. How Medicine Works and When it Doesn't: Learning Who To Trust To Get and Stay Healthy. Grand Central. Jan. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781538723609. $29. Downloadable. MEDICAL

Drawing on historical case studies and stories from his own practice, Yale physician/researcher Wilson explains why the doctor-patient relationship is now strained—owing mostly to healthcare corporations and Big Pharma—and how it can be rebuilt. In the meantime, he lets readers know how they can make the best possible decisions regarding healthcare. With a 40,000-copy first printing.