Josephine Baker! Lidia Yuknavitch! Geraldine Brooks! Ali Smith! 26 new books out today.

It’s the beginning of a new month in a year that has already felt interminably long, and, for many of us, lugubrious. But amidst the chaos and devastation, there are still things to look forwards to, still things to bring us joyful moments of contemplation and release. In that category, of course, are new books, new companions on our quest through the shifting labyrinth of this year.

And today, there are many brilliant offerings on display in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including highly anticipated work by Hanif Kureishi, Lidia Yuknavitch, Ali Smith, Geraldine Brooks, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Eowyn Ivey, the first American publication of Josephine Baker’s celebrated memoir, and more. Below, you’ll find no these and many others, with twenty-six exciting, genre-spanning new works to consider.

Be safe, as always, Dear Readers, and let’s make it through this strange year together, with literature by our side. Books, after all, are far less fickle and mutable than administrations and their ordinances—and there’s something beautiful, rare, and remarkable in that security.

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Ali Smith, Gliff
(Pantheon)

“An ingenious speculative novel… Smith makes the most of her protagonists’ youthful perspectives to bring a sense of wonder, inquisitiveness, and pathos to the story… The lush narrative doubles as an anthem of resistance, in this case against tyranny and the destruction of the environment. Inspired references to Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf add to Smith’s literary tapestry. The results are extraordinary.”
–Publishers Weekly

Youssef Rakha, The Dissenters
(Graywolf)

“The Dissenters is an encyclopedia of all the ways bodies are imprisoned or made free—by politics, sex, power, love, death. An Egypt of the senses, mind and heart, laid open and dissected in every manner. This book will seduce you from its opening pages and stun you with its last. A tremendous, confident novel from Youssef Rakha, assuming his rightful place on the literary stage.”
–Bina Shah

Victoria Christopher Murray, Harlem Rhapsody
(Berkley)

“The best of historical fiction is a creative balance between an author’s curiosity and connection, between a character’s personal discovery and discomfort. Victoria Christopher Murray has achieved both in this bold, imaginative, and deeply researched novel about the life of Jessie Redmon Fauset, literary mid-wife to the Harlem Renaissance. Her singular story, filled with wonder and woe will surprise you, rouse you, and have you applauding this beautifully rendered legacy.”
–Kwame Alexander

Lidia Yuknavitch, Reading the Waves: A Memoir
(Riverhead)

“Brilliant, unflinching, and written with the same heady, literary sophistication as Yuknavitch’s novels. Compounded by real moments of narrative vulnerability, this memoir is as much an act of dismembering as it is of remembering.”
–Library Journal

Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days
(Viking)

“Brooks, with arresting precision, sensitivity, and candor, takes deep soundings of her grief and evolving perceptions and feelings in a generous and resonant remembrance….Brooks’ many fans will want to learn more about her, while ardent memoir readers and those looking for books about grief will also reach for Memorial Days.”
–Booklist

Josephine Baker, Ijeoma Oluo (foreword), Fearless and Free: A Memoir (trans. Sophie R. Lewis and Anam Zafar)
(Tiny Reparations Books)

“While Josephine Baker is likely best known as an iconic and pathbreaking dancer and performer, this fascinating memoir, Fearless and Free, reveals that she was just as accomplished intellectually and strategically as a lieutenant for the French Resistance in World War II and civil rights activist. All the while, she gave her time, energy, and money to those more vulnerable than herself….This book is a gift.”
–Jenn M. Jackson

Pádraig Ó Tuama, 44 Poems on Being with Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection
(Norton)

“A wonderful anthology of poetry filled with fascinating and thought-provoking commentary.”
–William Sieghart

Roya Marsh, savings time: poems
(MCD)

“Known for her spoken-word poetry, Marsh’s print poems climb off the page and stand tall in many contexts. While musical and expertly paced, the poems are also notable for language that matches emotion with expert precision…for their rejection of veiling what must be said…and for the discourse that opens with Marsh’s honesty, then moves forward to ask essential questions of us all.”
–Booklist

Erin Crosby Eckstine, Junie
(Ballantine Books)

“Eckstine combines the lyricism of Jesmyn Ward and Toni Morrison with the speculative historical fiction of Tananarive Due and Leslye Penelope in a stunning debut that will also appeal to fans of Percival Everett’s James.”
–Booklist

Brittany Newell, Soft Core
(FSG)

“Soft Core is not just a book but a fully realized and highly seductive way of life—louche, fleshy, and freestyle. Brittany Newell, a hoarder of details and perfumer of moods, has written an existential dual-mystery that’s as carefully structured as it is emotionally urgent, like a ransom note in sonnet form. Deeply impressive and fun as hell!”
–Tony Tulathimutte

Eowyn Ivey, Black Woods, Blue Sky (illustrated by Ruth Hulbert)
(Random House)

“No one writes like Eowyn Ivey. Her voice is as enchanting as it is original and Black Woods, Blue Sky may be her best novel yet. A compelling story of love and forgiveness, it is also a page turner, creating a sense of foreboding in the vast Alaskan landscape that Ivey evokes with such passion and precision.”
–Geraldine Brooks

Sarah Chihaya, Bibliophobia: A Memoir
(Random House)

“Bibliophobia remind[s] me how high the stakes were when I first fell in love with reading, and restor[es] to me the sense that books are still a matter of life and death. At once a radical analysis of the relationship between reading, writing, and suicide, and a case study in how seemingly unnarratable and overwhelming experience can be transformed into a transcendent book. A must for any obsessive reader.”
–Elif Batuman

Hanif Kureishi, Shattered
(Ecco)

“Hanif Kureishi has long been one of the most exciting, irreverent, influential voices of his generation. In this beautiful, moving memoir he deals with personal calamity with wit, unflinching honesty and literary grace. It’s an extraordinary achievement.”
–Salman Rushdie

Kate Gies, It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body
(Simon & Schuster)

“An emotional journey through medicine’s most barbaric practices, told in a series of snapshots torn from the author’s memories. Woven together like a poetic patchwork of little traumas, Gies tells a gutting story of medicine for medicine’s sake, robbed of all humanity and accountability…illustrate[s] how childhood medical trauma follows us throughout life….All told, It Must Be Beautiful is a meditation on the lifelong price of beauty and so-called ‘normalness.’”
–Tracey Lindeman

Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, Mutual Interest
(Bloomsbury)

“Wolfgang-Smith explores tensions in the private lives of three queer misfits turned business titans in her stunning latest . . . Wolfgang-Smith’s sharp, sardonic narration brilliantly brings to life both the Gilded Age and her unforgettable protagonists. It’s a virtuosic performance.”
–Publishers Weekly

Jessica Soffer, This Is a Love Story
(Dutton)

“Soffer’s writing is simple yet poetic. Most impressive is her ability to capture the depths of emotions of all her characters while rooting readers in such a strong sense of place….A New York love story at its finest.”
–Library Journal

Corinna Vallianatos, Origin Stories: Stories
(Graywolf)

“In graceful, steely prose, Origin Stories conveys Vallianatos’s unique understanding of interpersonal relationships—familial, professional, and therapeutic. We often encounter her protagonists in moments of adversity; the strength of their resolve and the ways in which they contend with crises are enchanting, disturbing, and provocative in turn. A superb collection.”
–Camille Bordas

Jon Savage, The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream
(Liveright)

“Savage, a deeply knowledgeable British music journalist…tells this enthralling story by focusing on five moments between 1955 and 1979, when gay culture and popular youth culture…took quantum leaps into public consciousness….His encyclopedic scope ranges from the famous—James Dean, Andy Warhol, the Kinks, David Bowie, Bette Midler, Sylvester—to the less known but no less consequential contributors…. A keenly intelligent, comprehensive survey of some of the bravest artists in history.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Ira Madison, Pure Innocent Fun: Essays
(Random House)

“This is the most fun I’ve had reading all year. Like Chuck Klosterman before him, Ira Madison III takes seriously and analyzes the pop culture detritus that took up hours of our lives as byproducts of the late 1900’s. From Coldplay to Family Matters to Passions and everything in between, It feels like Ira has taken apart every dumb thing I’ve obsessed over and put it back together again—all my ‘roman empires.’ I laughed and cried and felt so, so seen.”
–Lin-Manuel Miranda

Chad Sanders, How to Sell Out: The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer
(Simon & Schuster)

“A young Black writer offers a fascinating perspective about race, money, and freedom in America….The blunt ruminations about his experiences, his internal struggles, and the ironic hierarchies he discovered within Black America itself show Sanders at his best and most insightful. His is a voice that should be heeded by anyone who strives to live up to his father’s injunction to never let anyone take your freedom. A frank and arresting read.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Michael Nieva, Dengue Boy (trans. Rahul Bery)
(Astra House)

“Dengue Boy is a psychedelic literary funhouse like no other, its richly imagined narrative mutating and reconfiguring chapter by chapter like the Dengue Boy himself. Michel Nieva’s vision of our beleaguered world two centuries into the future is at once hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, with no mercy shown for any of its survivors…[the novel’s] hallucinogenic impact will linger long after you turn the final page.”
–David Demchuk

Grace Tiffany, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter
(Harper)

“In this engrossing novel, Grace Tiffany brings to life Judith Shakespeare, the daughter of the Bard. A midwife and apothecary, Judith finds herself accused of witchcraft and forced to flee Stratford on horseback. As she navigates a war-torn England, she confronts not only the perils of the road but the weight of her own grief—two sons lost to plague and a marriage unraveling in the aftermath. Witty, resilient, and fiercely intelligent.”
–Christina Baker Kline

Roger Celestin, The Delicate Beast
(Bellevue Literary Press)

“A beautiful and devastating novel about a man born into horrifying political violence and condemned to experience the loss and sorrow he’s spent his whole life avoiding. The sometimes suggestive, sometimes shocking sense of boyhood Celestin creates here is reminiscent of two great classics, Ballard’s Empire of the Sun and Sebald’s Austerlitz.”
–Alice Kaplan

Lauren Markham, Immemorial
(Transit Books)

“Blends memoir, history, and reportage in a wide-ranging and unflinching account….Into this heart-wrenching drama….Markham interweaves ruminations on Greece’s twin crises of immigration and emigration….Interspersed throughout are powerful ruminations on ancient Greece as the birthplace of classical Western ideals and the myth-making process inherent to all migration stories. Readers will be thoroughly engrossed.”
–Publishers Weekly

Brad Snyder, You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech
(Norton)

“Angelo Herndon had been a Communist Party organizer for barely two years when the Atlanta police arrested him for attempting to incite an insurrection. In his careful, compelling new book, Brad Snyder recreates the extraordinary struggle to save Herndon from life on a Jim Crow chain gang for daring to promote ideas the authorities didn’t want to hear. A story of fundamental principles and unlikely heroes, expertly told.”
–Kevin Boyle

Ann-Helén Laestadius, Punished (trans. Rachel Willson-Broyles)
(Scribner)

 “Through taut, concise prose, Punished alternates between harrowing ‘nomad school’ days and fascinating scenes from Sámi daily life. This richly detailed, compelling novel honors the difficult experience of five students while uplifting their ongoing struggle to protect their way of life. Laestadius reminds us that Sámi resilience is rooted in a fierce love for their culture and communities.”
–Diane Wilson