Ah, the middle of January, when New Year’s resolutions, Netflix creeps in and lethargy wears off. But the World of Books of 2023 has a lot more to offer, we promise, than messy memoirs Exiled Prince of Ginger.
Below are 16 of the season’s most intriguing titles, from Indian fantasy epics and mystery domestic dramas to heartwarming tales of love, loss, and K-pop.
Deputy Omar by Deepti Kapoor
Kapoor’s sprawling, suspenseful thriller — a tale of crime, punishment and class divisions set in turn-of-the-millennium New Delhi — feels almost like the first big novel of the year in almost every sense of the word: The GodfatherAnd White TigerAnd How to get filthy rich in the rise of Asia Across 544 colorful, messy pages. (a GMA Book Club pick, series adaptation already slated on FX.) (Available now)
The Survivalists By Kashana Kohli
A young black lawyer with a Brooklyn crew preparing for doomsday falls into Cauley’s tart, which appears for the first time in time. Single Aretha is always on the path of a partner but lonely enough to be ready for a guy like Aaron, a coffee businessman with cool guy charm; Their sweet encounter takes a turn when she moves in with his roommates. (out now)
Really good, actually by Monica Hessey
John and Maggie meet at the age of nineteen and marry at the age of twenty-five; After 608 days, it’s over. In fact Not a memoir, but Heisey’s, whose writing credits include television Sheet Creek, she had her own time as a divorcee in her twenties, and that lived experience oozes through her disgusting yet hilarious debut. Come cry, masturbate, and post-split on Tinder; Stay for the mischievous biting humor that lights up nearly every page. (17 January)
Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson
Will it be an omnipresent or informative? until love On the shelves, only Anderson’s publishers know for sure. (It will also be partnered on release day with Netflix Documentary.) But after Mona Lisa kept her silence during a recent Hulu Pam and Tommy The actress, Playmate, and canonical blonde has won more than one chance to share her facts. (31 January)
Big Swiss Written by Jane Begin
Oh, you know, just another novel about a woman who lives on a dilapidated bee-infested Hudson Valley plantation, works as a secret copier for a boho sex therapist and falls into a secret passionate affair with one of his clients, a laconic Swiss goddess named Flavia. Beijing (Pretend I’m dead) has found perhaps the best vehicle yet for her nihilistic whims; Eve was killed‘s Jodie Comer He has already signed on to star in an HBO series. (7 February)
Victory City Written by Salman Rushdie
After, after He survived a near-fatal assassination attempt Last year, we were lucky to have Rushdie at all. Here, the master of magic realism returns to form – comparisons to his 1981 Booker Prize-winning classic midnight kids It was made – by a crowded, richly textured tale about a young girl in 14th century India who is anointed by Goddess Pavanti with extraordinary world-building abilities. (7 February)
My last year is innocent By Daisy Albert Florin
A college student calculates the consequences of what might be a sexual assault by a fellow student–and indulges in an affair with her married professor–against the backdrop of Clinton-Lewinsky-era America in the resonant and quietly composed Florine for the first time. (14 Feb)
Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears By Michael Shulman
Schulman, a longtime employee at The New Yorker, may be the last great writer of profiles that actually breaks through the impenetrable glass surface of the celebrity industrial complex. (Yes, that was him 2021 pcs dated Succession Star Jeremy Strong that set internet poetry on fire in late 2021.) wars It hits the sweet spot between the Jan. 24 nominations and the March 12 ceremony — just in time for award show junkies to inject these delicious (and meticulously researched) vibes right into their veins. (21 Feb)
I have some questions for you Written by Rebecca Mackay
After the events of the wonderfully devastating 2018 in the era of AIDS Great believersMakkai veers towards a series In her latest book, Crossing a Door, she is about a Los Angeles coach and professor who returns at the age of 40 to teach a guest course at the New Hampshire boarding school she once attended on scholarship, and find answers to the death of her charismatic roommate more than 20 years ago. (21 Feb)
users by Colin Wynette
Every novel with a darkly dystopian look at modern tech culture gets a ‘read if you watch it to cutA sign these days, but Wynette’s Charlie Kaufman-esque thriller earns it: When Miles, a creative pioneer at a virtual reality company, receives what appears to be a series of anonymous death threats over creamy stationery, his career and home life are upended; follow a tech nightmare Existential information all the way (February 21)
Pineapple Street by Jenny Johnson
Let’s now praise the pure escapist novels that come to life—like this all-consuming breeze-breaking debut about a wealthy Brooklyn real estate family and the working-class millennials who, for better or worse, marry them. Jackson, the editor at Knopf, has a golden ear for the gilded social stratification of New York money, and all the cocktail perks and secret codes that come with it. (7 March)
Old Babes in the Wood By Margaret Atwood
The woman is 83 years old The Handmaid’s Tale Forever changing the landscape of literature (and later, of course, episodic television) he refuses to rest on any belated professional glories. This old girl still has books—or at least another collection of odd short stories, whether they’re about alien octopuses, George Orwell’s Distinguished Spirit, or seven interconnected tales that follow a couple’s odd marriage through the decades. (7 March)
Now You See Us Written by Balls Kaur Jaswal
The jacket version captions it as “Crazy Rich Asians Meets Help”: When one of them is accused of killing their employer, three Filipino domestic workers in modern-day Singapore unite to uncover the truth in the latest episode of Reese’s Book Club alum Jaswal (Erotic stories of Punjabi widows), a boisterous, exhilarating novel that leans as much on the study of character as it does on unsolved mystery. (7 March)
X’s biography Written by Kathryn Lacey
If Meg Wolitzer the wife he met taryou might read a little like Lacey Personal Biography –a surrealistically slashed envelope exploration of one woman’s attempt to understand her late husband, a towering artist whose basic truths remain elusive to a grieving widow even–or perhaps especially–in death. (7 March)
Y/N by Esther Yi
The title stands not for “yes/no” but for “your/your name”—a landmark of online fan fiction that the fiercely single protagonist Yi, a Korean-American in her twenties living in Berlin, learns when she falls into an obsession with a Korean boy-Bander called Moon in this piercing, frantic, and often stunning debut. (14 March)
Romantic comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
A comfortable skit writer for a late-night sketch show is unexpectedly hooked up with a dreamboat host — but can she flip the script about the romances of a celebrity she seems to prefer normal only when they have XY chromosomes? This is the basic thesis of Sittenfeld’s latest dexterous and adaptive-ready. (11 April)
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