The 2024 Releases I’ve Read So Far
I happen to have read eight pre-release books so far, all of them for paid review; mostly for Shelf Awareness, with one for Foreword. (I also have proof copies of upcoming novels by Tania James, Margot Livesey, Sigrid Nunez and Sarah Perry on the shelf, but haven’t managed to start on them yet.) I’ve given review excerpts, links where available, and ratings below to try to pique your interest. Early in January I’ll follow up with a list of my dozen Most Anticipated titles for the coming year.
My top recommendations so far:
(in alphabetical order)
Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali [Jan. 16, Alice James Books]: In this poised debut collection by a Muslim poet, spiritual enlightenment is a female, embodied experience, mediated by matriarchs. Ali’s ambivalence towards faith is clear in alliteration-laden verse that recalls Kaveh Akbar’s. Wordplay, floral metaphors, and multiple ghazals make for dazzling language. 
Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley [Feb. 27, MCD]: A bereavement memoir like no other. Heart-wrenching yet witty, it bears a unique structure and offers fascinating glimpses into the New York City publishing world. Crosley’s apartment was burgled exactly a month before the suicide of her best friend and former boss. Investigating the stolen goods in parallel serves as a displacement activity for her.
Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj [Jan. 16, HarperVia]: Darraj’s second novel-in-stories is a sparkling composite portrait of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore. Across nine stellar linked stories, she explores the complex relationships between characters divided by—or connected despite—class, language, and traditional values. The book depicts the variety of immigrant and second-generation experience, especially women’s. 
The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton [April 9, Scribner]: Many use the words “habit” and “ritual” interchangeably, but the Harvard Business School behavioral scientist argues convincingly that they are very different. While a habit is an automatic, routine action, rituals are “emotional catalysts that energize, inspire, and elevate us.” He presents an engaging and commonsense précis of his research, making a strong case for rituals’ importance in the personal and professional spheres as people mark milestones, form relationships, or simply “savor the experiences of everyday life.”
Other 2024 releases I’ve read:
(in publication date order)
House Cat by Paul Barbera [Jan. 2, Thames & Hudson]: The Australian photographer Paul Barbera’s lavish art book showcases eye-catching architecture and the pets inhabiting these stylish spaces. Whether in a Revolutionary War-era restoration or a modernist show home, these cats preside with a befitting dignity. (Shelf Awareness review forthcoming) 
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo [Feb. 13, Henry Holt/Quercus]: Choo’s third novel is steeped in Chinese folklore, like her previous work, this time with a focus on tantalizing stories related to foxes, which were often worshiped at village shrines in China. Two tandem searches ramp up the level of suspense: in the winter of 1908 in Manchuria, in northeast China, a detective investigates a series of unexplained deaths; at the same time, a fox-woman masquerading as a servant plots vengeance against the man who murdered her child. 
The Only Way Through Is Out by Suzette Mullen [Feb. 13, University of Wisconsin Press]: A candid, inspirational memoir traces the events leading to her midlife acceptance of her lesbian identity and explores the aftermath of her decision to leave her marriage and build “a life where I would choose desire over safety.” The book ends on a perfect note as Mullen attends her first Pride festival aged 56. “It’s never too late” is the triumphant final line. (Foreword review forthcoming)
36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem by Nam Le [March 5, Knopf]: A fearless poetry debut prioritizes language and voice to explore inherited wartime trauma and expose anti-Asian racism. Each poem is titled after a rhetorical strategy or analytical mode. Anaphora is one sonic technique used to emphasize the points. Language and race are intertwined. This is a prophet’s fervent truth-telling. High-concept and unapologetic, this collection from a Dylan Thomas Prize winner pulsates. (Shelf Awareness review forthcoming) 
Currently reading:
(in release date order; all for Shelf Awareness review)
God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music by Leah Payne [Jan. 4, Oxford University Press]: “traces the history and trajectory of CCM in America and, in the process, demonstrates how the industry, its artists, and its fans shaped—and continue to shape—conservative, (mostly) white, evangelical Protestantism.”
Raised by Wolves: Fifty Poets on Fifty Poems, A Graywolf Anthology [Jan. 23, Graywolf Press]: “Graywolf poets have selected fifty poems by Graywolf poets, offering insightful prose reflections on their selections. What arises is a choral arrangement of voices and lineages across decades, languages, styles, and divergences, inspiring a shared vision for the future.”
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl [April 30, Random House]: “When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual gift: a one-way plane ticket, and a note reading ‘Go to Paris’. But Stella is hardly cut out for adventure … When her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.”
Will you look out for one or more of these?
Any other 2024 reads you can recommend?
That’s it for me until later next week when I start in on my year-end round-ups (DNFs, miscellaneous superlatives, books of the year, and final statistics). Merry Christmas!
Book Serendipity, October to December 2023
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. The following are in roughly chronological order.
- A woman turns into a spider in Edith Holler by Edward Carey and The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts by Soraya Palmer.
- Expulsion from Eden scenes (one literal, after the Masaccio painting; another more figurative by association) in Conversation Among Stones by Willie Lin and North Woods by Daniel Mason.
- Reading my second 2023 release featuring a theatre fire (after The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland, which I actually read last year): Edith Holler by Edward Carey.
- The protagonist cuts their foot in The Rituals by Rebecca Roberts and The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward.
- On the same evening, I started two novels where the protagonist’s parents both died in a car crash: The Witches by Roald Dahl and Family Meal by Bryan Washington. This is something I encounter ALL THE TIME in fiction (versus extremely rarely in life) and it’s one of my major pet peeves. I can excuse it more in the children’s book as the orphan trope allows for adventures, but for the most part it just seems lazy to me. The author has decided they don’t want to delve into a relationship with parents at all, so they cut it out in the quickest and easiest possible way.
- A presumed honour killing in Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj and The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps by Michel Faber.
- A Houston, Texas setting in The Only Way Through Is Out by Suzette Mullen and Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
- Daniel Clowes, whose graphic novel Monica I was also in the middle of at the time, was mentioned in Robin Ince’s Bibliomaniac.
- The author/speaker warns the squeamish reader to look away for a paragraph in Robin Ince’s Bibliomaniac (recounting details of a gross-out horror plot) and one chapter of Daniel Mason’s North Woods.
- A mentally ill man who lives at the end of a lane in Daniel Mason’s North Woods and The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward.
- Reading Last House before the Mountain by Monika Helfer and The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward at the same time.
- The Daedalus myth (via Aeschylus or Brueghel, or just in general) is mentioned in Last House before the Mountain by Monika Helfer, The Ghost Orchid by Michael Longley, and Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain.
- A character goes to live with their aunt and uncle in Western Lane by Chetna Maroo and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (both Booker-longlisted), but also The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, and The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery. I came across all five instances within a few days! Later I also encountered a brief mention of this in Ferdinand by Irmgard Keun. How can this situation be so uncommon in life but so common in fiction?!
- The outdated terms “Chinaman” and “coolie” appear frequently in Train Dreams by Denis Johnson and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.
- A 15-year-old declares true love in The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir and Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain.
- A French character named Pascal in The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir and The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble.
- A minor character called Mrs Biggs in Harriet Said… by Beryl Bainbridge and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.
- The Chinese zither (guzheng) is mentioned in Dear Chrysanthemums by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, which I read earlier in the year, and The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.
- Oscar Wilde’s trial is mentioned in The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng, as it was in The New Life by Tom Crewe, which I read earlier in the year – in both it was a cautionary case for older homosexual characters (based on real people: W. Somerset Maugham vs. John Addington Symonds) who were married to women but had a live-in male secretary generally known to be their lover. At the same time as I was reading The House of Doors, I was rereading Wilde’s De Profundis, which was written from prison.
- In Fifty Days of Solitude Doris Grumbach mentions reading Bear by Marian Engel. I read both during Novellas in November.
- Living funerals are mentioned in Ferdinand by Irmgard Keun and The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton.
- A character insists that lilac not be included in a bouquet in In the Sweep of the Bay by Cath Barton and Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll.
- A woman has a lover named Frances in Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll and The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde.
- The final word of the Fanny Howe poem in Raised by Wolves (the forthcoming 50th anniversary poetry anthology from Graywolf Press) is “theophanies.” At the same time, I was reading the upcoming poetry collection Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali.
- The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde, which I’d read the month before, was a major influence on the cancer memoir All In by Caitlin Breedlove.
- Two foodie memoirs I read during our city break, A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm and The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz, both likened a group of young men to a Dolce & Gabbana ad. (Chisholm initially lived at Porte des Lilas, the next Metro stop up from where we stayed in Mairie des Lilas.)
- A French slang term for penis, “verge,” is mentioned in both The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz and Learning to Drive by Katha Pollitt.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 