Winter has arrived. You know what that means: It’s time for reading, and lots of it. Quiet, cold days demand just one thing, which is why we’re going to spend those winter hours reading great books that spark our imaginations—and some that transport us to sunnier climes, too. When winter descends, it brings with it plenty of opportunities to curl up with a cozy blanket and get lost in a good book. (The ideal afternoon, if you ask me.)
The next time a friend laments the onset of winter, send them this list—it’s sure to brighten their day and feed their reading habits. What’s on the list, you ask? An exciting selection of brand-new releases that will make a splash when they hit the shelves in January and February 2018. It’s shaping up to be an exciting season for new books. There’s new work from Zadie Smith and Marilynne Robinson, plus so many exciting debuts we can barely contain ourselves. While this isn’t an exhaustive list of new releases, it is packed with plenty of picks for your reading pleasure. Without further ado, here are the new releases (organized by publication date) that we can’t wait to read when they arrive this season.
Green by Sam Graham-Felsen
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Adolescence is at the heart of this compelling new book by Sam Graham-Felsen. Narrated by one of the most original voices you’ll read this year, it’s a story about race, privilege, and friendship, as well as growing up and growing into awareness about the inequalities of the world we inhabit.
Missing Isaac by Valerie Fraser Luesse
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Buy it: $14.99, amazon.com
We’re especially excited about this debut novel from Southern Living Travel Editor Valerie Fraser Luesse. It’s set in Glory, Alabama, during the 1960s in the wake of a disappearance that ultimately forces a young man and the small town in which he lives to confront issues surrounding class, race, and social change.
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Rachel Joyce’s The Music Shop is filled with—you guessed it—music. It’s a charming, poignant story about a record store with a proprietor named Frank who can pinpoint the exact music any given customer needs and whose life is forever changed when a woman named Ilse Brauchmann faints nearby.
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com
Early praise for this thriller has been rolling in, with the likes of Gillian Flynn (“Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing.”) and Stephen King (“Unputdownable.”) expressing their approval for a story that's a Rear Window-esque tale of surveillance between neighbors, one in which nothing is what it seems.
Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
The ramifications of a crime committed in a small New York town in 1982 reverberate through the decades, finally catching up with three friends who are still haunted by it in this smart, taut thriller with plenty of twists for fans of suspense.
King Zeno by Nathaniel Rich
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $28, amazon.com
Set in New Orleans in 1918, Nathaniel Rich’s King Zeno is historical fiction with a dose of crime. In it, three characters—detective William Bastrop, jazz musician Isadore Zeno, and widow Beatrice Vizzini—are thrown off course and into danger by a succession of literal ax murders.
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
Kelly Corrigan’s story-essays identify and examine the phrases that life requires of us—phrases we all learn and use and adapt, phrases that comfort and connect us, phrases that are powerful and hard—with stories that nourish, surprise, and of course, entertain. You’ll want to read them over and over again.
The Afterlives by Thomas Pierce
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
The Afterlives follows the aftermath of a death—sort of. It introduces Jim Byrd, a man who is revived moments after dying from a heart attack at age thirty. He, along with his wife, Annie, becomes tangled in the questions that arise after such an experience. Told with sharp humor and big questions, it will make you laugh while simultaneously urging you think deeply about technology, loss, faith, and life.
The Boat People by Sharon Bala
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $26.95, amazon.com
In this moving novel, hundreds of Sri Lankan refugees make a dangerous voyage to seek asylum in Canada. The threat of deportation soon follows their arrival, sparking questions about compassion and humanity and identity—identity, in all its transformative complexities.
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
The Immortalists is a moving novel about the deep bonds of family, specifically a family of four siblings whose lives and choices are informed by one very significant event: They all receive prophecies from a traveling psychic that reveal the day each sibling will die. The directions of their lives spin out differently across the decades, illuminating and challenging notions about destiny and choice.
The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Once you read Gregory Blake Smith’s The Maze at Windermere, you’ll understand why Richard Russo calls it “a dazzling high-wire act.” It’s a labyrinthine, layered novel that spans three centuries while following the exploits and experiences of a compelling cast of characters—a Gilded Age bachelor, an American Revolution-era British officer, and a young Quaker orphan among them.
This Could Hurt by Jillian Medoff
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com
Set within the cogs of corporate America, This Could Hurt tells the story of five colleagues struggling with professional tumult, uncertainty, and ambition. Jillian Medoff unfolds these characters’ daily lives, the hours spent at the office, with precision and a strong dose of humanity.
Winter by Ali Smith
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Buy it: $25.95, amazon.com
The second novel of Ali Smith’s planned seasonal series delves into the coldest season with brisk energy, a lively freedom that rises from the page in dialogue with the concerns of the present day as it skips like a stone on water across boundaries of genre and subject.
Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
Publication Date: January 16, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
Everything Here Is Beautiful is Mira T. Lee’s exciting debut about two sisters, Miranda and Lucia, the unpredictable changes of their lives, and the necessary sacrifices and important gifts that sisterhood brings.
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin
Publication Date: January 16, 2018
Buy it: $28, amazon.com
Two Hollywood legends propel the narrative of this vibrant new novel by Melanie Benjamin. It’s the story of screenwriter Frances Marion and famed actress Mary Pickford, two women in show business who forge a friendship and develop a professional relationship that catalyzes a revolution in the earliest days of motion pictures.
The Infinite Future by Tim Wirkus
Publication Date: January 16, 2018
Buy it: $28, amazon.com
This two-part book promises to be mind-blowingly good—the first section is an adventure in which three characters set out to track down a missing masterpiece that, legend has it, reveals the secrets of the universe. The second part is that fabled missing masterpiece.
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson
Publication Date: January 16, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Twenty-five years after his lauded story collection, Jesus’ Son, captured imaginations, there’s new book on the horizon from late writer and National Book Award-winner Denis Johnson. It’s easy to get lost in Johnson’s prose; it’s mysterious and arresting, ordinary and poetic, in the sky and in the dirt, facing up to big questions while noticing the smallest details—a must-read when it’s released in January.
Brass by Xhenet Aliu
Publication Date: January 23, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
This enthralling debut from Athens, Georgia-based writer Xhenet Aliu is a stunning story about a mother, Elsie, and her daughter, Luljeta, which is told in parallel narratives that are as bold and tough as they are extraordinarily sensitive and deeply felt.
Our Lady of the Prairie by Thisbe Nissen
Publication Date: January 23, 2018
Buy it: $25, amazon.com
This novel is as funny as it is sharp. It’s about crises big and small, specifically the dilemmas that befall a midwestern professor whose life in the Iowa heartland is thrown into utter disarray by tornados, in-laws, and one unadvisable affair.
Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Publication Date: January 23, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Winter is the second novel in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s projected seasonal quartet. It’s a delicate book filled with tender epistles about nature, life, and seasonal change written to his unborn daughter as he waits for her arrival.
The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Buy it: $28.95, amazon.com
Dave Eggers is back with a compelling true story about a young man named Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a son of Yemeni immigrants living in San Francisco, who sets his sights on the coffee business in Yemen. Interwoven with history of the industry, the onset of civil war, and his own journey, this story will captivate—there’s no putting this one down.
The Winter Station by Jody Shields
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Based on a true story and set against the backdrop of early twentieth-century China, this story brings to life a man called the Baron, a Russian aristocrat and medical commissioner who attempts to fight the spread of a devastating plague in the city of Kharbin in Northern China.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $26.95, amazon.com
Tayari Jones weaves a moving love story in her new novel, An American Marriage. It’s set in Atlanta, where a wrongful conviction and subsequent imprisonment threaten to tear a marriage—that of newlyweds Celestial and Roy—apart forever.
Back Talk: Stories by Danielle Lazarin
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $16, amazon.com
The short stories in Danielle Lazarin’s Back Talk paint portraits of women and girls navigating the world around them, the relationships they nurture, and the surprises they encounter. It’s a collection about figuring things out, bending boundaries, and looking inward to examine what’s true.
Daphne by Will Boast
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $25.95, amazon.com
Will Boast retells the myth of Apollo and Daphne in this exciting new novel. It introduces readers to Ollie and Daphne, two young people living in San Francisco, the latter of whom experiences paralysis when overcome with extreme emotion.
Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $28, amazon.com
In her latest essay collection, Zadie Smith organizes her thoughts—on social media, libraries, culture, politics, climate change, and so much more—into five categories: In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free. No matter the subject, we're always excited to hear what this ever brilliant writer thinks about it, because it makes us think too.
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $25, amazon.com
An unexpected attachment between a grieving friend and an orphaned Great Dane is at the center of this heartwarming story about friendship lost and found—and the possibility of finding healing in unexpected, sometimes canine, places.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $28.99, amazon.com
Fans of The Nightingale should pick up Kristin Hannah’s newest release as soon as possible. It’s a story about a family that’s forever changed when their patriarch returns from the Vietnam War and moves them to the Alaskan frontier. In the deepening winter, their family continues to fracture and their survival is tested from within and without.
The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook
Publication Date: February 6, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
The Texas frontier provides the vivid, visceral landscape for this new novel by Elizabeth Crook. In it, a young man named Benjamin narrates the journey upon which his sister embarks, a journey of revenge in which she seeks to track down the panther that attacked her and killed her mother.
Don’t Skip Out on Me by Willy Vlautin
Publication Date: February 13, 2018
Buy it: $22.99, amazon.com
A young ranch hand sets out to prove his worth in the boxing ring in this wonderful new novel from Willy Vlautin that asks essential questions about family, destiny, and dreams of the future.
Hotel Silence by Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir
Publication Date: February 13, 2018
Buy it: $16, amazon.com
A grieving man travels from Iceland to a war-torn country armed only with a toolbox and thoughts of suicide in this unforgettable book by Icelandic writer Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir. When the people he meets there ask him again and again to fix what’s broken, his life begins to change.
Madness is Better than Defeat by Ned Beauman
Publication Date: February 13, 2018
Buy it: $27.95, amazon.com
A wild conceit unfurls into a can’t-put-it-down read in this high-flying thriller from Ned Beauman. The adventure begins with a conflict over an ancient temple in 1930s Honduras; decades later, the CIA gets involved, revealing danger and conspiracy at every turn.
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu
Publication Date: February 13, 2018
Buy it: $23, amazon.com
During a fateful night at a camp in the Pacific Northwest, a group of girls become stranded without signs of rescue. The experience affects each member of the group differently, and the novel follows them over the years as the trauma of the past impacts each life, each friendship, in ways they cannot avoid or outrun.
The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin
Publication Date: February 13, 2018
Buy it: $26, amazon.com
Fans of Grey’s Anatomy are sure to enjoy this new release, a novel about friendship, success, and secrets set amid the day-to-day drama of a hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. It follows the lives of doctors and best friends Zadie Anson and Emma Colley as a figure from their past reenters their lives.
The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone
Publication Date: February 20, 2018
Buy it: $28, amazon.com
This lively new biography tells the story of David Fairchild, a world traveler who, in the nineteenth century, transformed American cuisine by importing and introducing exotic foods like kale, mangoes, and avocados, all the while sidestepping trouble when it inevitably found him.
What Are We Doing Here?: Essays by Marilynne Robinson
Publication Date: February 20, 2018
Buy it: $27, amazon.com
Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson brings readers a gift for the New Year in the form of this essay collection. In it, she examines the modern political landscape, theology, faith, and beauty, among a vaulting array of subject matter. This collection calls the titular question into bold and humane relief. “What are we doing here?” Read to find out.
