16 highly anticipated new books coming out this week. ‹ Literary Center

It’s a BIG WEEK, folks! New titles from Emily St. John Mandel, Douglas Stuart, Jennifer Egan, Ocean Vuong, Samantha Hunt and more hit shelves today. Prepare your minds, your hearts and your wallets.

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Emily St. John Mandel, sea ​​of ​​tranquility
(Knopf)

“In sea ​​of ​​tranquility, Mandel delivers one of his finest novels and one of his most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction to date, but it is his ability to convincingly inhabit the ordinary and his ability to project an enduring recognition of the beauty that sets the novel apart. ”
–The New York Times book review

Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
(grove press)

“Young Mungo, like its predecessor, is a nuanced and beautiful heartbreaker of a novel. Reading it is like peeking into the flat of another broken family whose Glasgow building might be down the road from Shuggie Bain.
-NPR

Jennifer Egan, The candy house
(Scriber)

“Egan has a knack for combining the outrageous and the plausible without ejecting us from the narrative… It’s all wrapped up together; almost everyone is connected in some way. It’s too much, except it’s not… She knows where she’s going and what polyphonic effects she wants to achieve, and she gets them.
-The New York Times

Ocean Vuong, time is a mother
(PenguinPress)

“Vuong’s mighty sequel to Night sky with exit wounds does more than demonstrate poetic growth: it deepens and extends an overall project with 27 new poems that consider loss and impermanence.
–Publisher Weekly

Samantha Hunt, The unwritten book
(FSG)

“Hunt plumbs the depths of human experience in this assemblage of reflections on the sweet mystery of life… A vulnerable, vast, and at times deeply moving patchwork of ruminations on the unknown.”
–Kirkus

Jenny Tingui Zhang, Four Treasures of Heaven
(Iron)

“The resonance and immediacy of these barbaric 19th century events testify to Zhang’s storytelling powers and should be a wake-up call to us all.”
–The New York Times book review

Chelsea Bieker, Broken Heart
(Catapult)

“Bieker flexes a giveaway for the short-form in his scorching debut collection. Each story draws readers in, entices them to love Bieker’s crusty characters before ending just in time to satisfy them.
-List of books

Sara Novic, True Biz
(Random House)

“Tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged… True Biz is moving, fast and fiery – we have direct access to all the points of view of the main characters – but also skillfully educational.
–The New York Times book review

Audrey Schulman, The House of Dolphins
(Europe)

“The woman and the dolphins come to life in this riveting and beautifully realized novel.”
–Kirkus

Ben McGrath, Riverman
(Knopf)

“The captivating story of an inveterate wanderer who marked the many people he met on his travels before suddenly disappearing… A hymn to eccentricity and endurance and a study of a life that changed the columnist’s own perceptions.”
–Kirkus

Amina Ahmad, The return of Faraz Ali
(River)

“…quietly breathtaking…stunning not only because of the writer’s talent, of which there are clearly many, but also in his humanity, in the way a book so inflexible in its depiction of the injustice of class and institutional can still feel so tender.”
–The New York Times book review

Katia Kazbek, The little foxes took matches
(Tin House)

“A rich and moving look at a child in the midst of self-discovery. As dark as a Grimm fairy tale and as magical.
–Kirkus

Elizabeth Alexander, The Trayvon Generation
(Large central)

“[A] deep and lyrical meditation on race, class, justice and their intersections with art… As much as this magnificent book is anything else, it is a commitment to this generous and crucial life’s work.
–The New York Times book review

Lawrence Rankin, body on the line
(Counterpoint)

“body on the line tells the stories of communities that have come together with the opposite goal in mind: to provide patients with comfort and protection.
–The New York Times book review

Richard Overy, Blood and ruins
(Viking)

“Blood and ruins is a monumental work; it is hard to imagine that a fuller study of World War II could be contained between two covers. Richard Overy has given us a powerful reminder of the horror of war and the threat posed by dictators who dream of empire.
-The Wall Street Journal

Jeff Deutsch, Tribute to good bookstores
(Princeton University Press)

“Deutsch, director of the Seminary Co-op bookstores in Chicago, reflects on the importance of book sales in its stirring beginnings…A resonant elegy for an evolving business, it will appeal to literature lovers.”
–Publisher Weekly