There’s no season better well-suited to curl up with a book than winter. Whether you’re seeking a Tuscan adventure or a book with a hot monster, these new titles—recommended by indie booksellers from across the country—span genres and styles, offering something for everyone. So grab a blanket, a hot drink, and escape the cold with the buzziest new books of the season:
Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton
“A wonderful story full of humor, warmth, a small Tuscan village that has seen better days, and a cast of hilarious, quirky characters. If you have a passion for Italy and beautiful, descriptive writing, grab this book and find out what happens when local truffle hunter, Giovanni, finds the world’s biggest ever truffle. The word mayhem springs to mind, but in the best possible way. This book is a gem!”—Polly Stott, The Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot, Connecticut
Isola by Allegra Goodman
“If you enjoy reading historical fiction, pick up this book! The setting is 16th-century France, and Goodman does a masterful job of creating characters of different classes as well as a sense of life at a chateau and its village. Marguerite becomes the heir to this wealthy estate when she is orphaned at five and her guardian uses her inheritance to his advantage and as the years pass to eventually finance his expedition to New France. He takes her with him and during the voyage discovers she has befriended his secretary (remember this is the 16th century!). She and the secretary are then abandoned on a remote island. Is survival possible?”—Pat Moody, The Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot, Connecticut
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
“Have you ever watched a Studio Ghibli movie and gone ‘I wish there was a little more monster fucking in this?’ Alternatively, have you ever watched a horror movie with a hot monster and gone, ‘This needs more loving descriptions of food and decor?’
Great news for BOTH CAMPS: this book has it all. Despite being a confirmed arachnophobe, I really enjoyed the monstrous romance, the gothic fantasy vibes, and the gentle grotesqueries in this novella.”—Nino Cipri, Astoria Bookshop in Queens, New York
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett
“Florida clown meets Shakespearean fool in Arnett’s new novel for me, for you—for all of us failures and hopefuls. Cherry the clown tries to make sense of her craft—something no one else seems to understand—in the birthday parties, carnivals, and children’s hospitals of Florida. Arnett’s meta tragi-comedy or comi-tragedy is for anyone who has ever felt like a mess. This book won’t fix you, but it may mirror you back to yourself. You’ll end the book saying, ‘how did she do that?’ and ‘ow,’ and ‘please do it again.’”—Julia Paganelli Marin, Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Lion by Sonya Walger
“Lion has quickly become one of my favorite autobiographical novels. Sonya Walger beautifully portrays the many feelings of frustration, yearning, and grief when reckoning with a parent’s inability to parent, to love, to listen, throughout both childhood and adulthood. This novel completely immersed me in Walger and her father’s broken world, and kept me tethered to every word. Lion will linger with me for a long, long time!”—Amali Gordon-Buxbaum, Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York
Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by CB Lee
“This Young Adult cozy fantasy follows a ‘geeky overachiever’ and a ‘troublemaking chosen one’ who meet in a magical coffeeshop where their two different worlds collide. What excites me about this novel is that it is queer, cozy, and the cover is STUNNING! I have a personal appreciation for CB Lee’s work after interviewing them for the Pride Book Fest and it was just such a pleasure. I think fun, quirky, queer novels are so important and should be celebrated!”—Kaliisha, Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
“If you’re in any doubt of Peters’ abilities as a writer, just note how she’s able to queer old lumberjack lingo into poetry in this book’s excellent titular story, ‘Stag Dance.’ In all the stories, some futuristic, some timeless, she explores the allure (and dangers) of transitioning, as well as the meaning of sisterhood and community.”—Rachael Innerarity, Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts
At the End of the World There Is a Pond by Steven Duong
“‘The Anthropocene,’ Steven Duong writes, ‘demands a new syntax;’ what might it be? His answer: poems like ghost story manifestos tweeted out into the void; verse in which the spectral presence of Vietnamese fathers and refugee mothers hangs heavy overhead, ever-present and ever-calling; a collection in which their young American offspring, self-dubbed the ‘king of not killing myself,’ reigns over his domain of Oxycodone and Molotov cocktails at the collapse of empire. His answer is this book, a trickster’s debut about loving and surviving (against all odds, against yourself, against your worst impulses made manifest) through the end of the world.
‘when the markets fall & the workers
pop their bubbly
I will die old
poet laureate
of wherever they find me’
And so I ask you, dear reader: let the guillotine spare our newfound poet laureate, syntax-monarch-turned-aquarium-revolutionary, so he may follow this first book with a second and third and fourth, and so we may read them all while the champagne flows and the workers of the world, having united and at long last arrived at the better world ahead, can sit back and relax, beloveds by their side and At the End of the World There Is a Pond in hand.”—Mira Braneck, A Room of One’s Own in Madison, Wisconsin
Underground Barbie by Maša Kolanović, translated by Ena Selimović
“Set during the Yugoslav wars, Underground Barbie by Maša Kolanović is translated from Croatian by Ena Selimović. Two friends play with their Barbies while air raid sirens sound and bombs fall. Despite everything, this book is playfully illustrated and charming. Highly recommended!”—Caitlin L. Baker, Island Books in Mercer Island, Washington
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
“If the world could be saved by a journalist’s razor-sharp precision & a novelist’s sense of style & narrative alone, El Akkad would not have had to write this book. But he did. And we need to read it.”—Josh Cook, Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Beartooth by Callan Wink
“After the death of their father, two brothers find themselves adrift and lost in the modern American West. Falling deeper and deeper into debt, they accept a job from a shadowy neighbor that, if successful, could allow them to climb out of the hole. However, failure means prison or worse. Let’s just say that things don’t go as planned, and the two brothers are forced to depend on each other as they never have before to find their way to safety. Callan Wink’s Beartooth is a gripping crime novel and a western story like you’ve never read before.”—Brad Lennon, Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes
“Somehow, a certain type of person (the young, progressive digital creative/freelancer/what have you) has the same houseplants and the same midcentury-style couch, despite living in different cities across different continents. They drink the same lattes in near-identical cafes; their dinner parties are all impeccably plated, locally-sourced, softly lit, and essentially indistinguishable. How could this be?
“Enter Perfection, a rare sharp social novel about millennials who find that the ever-elusive picture-perfect life omnipresent across their culture-flattening feeds seems to constantly be just out of reach IRL. The novel follows expat couple Anna and Tom as they socialize with their stylish artist friends across Berlin, attempt (and fail) to get involved in politics in a meaningful way, and go digital-nomad-mode in search of Meaning when Berlin ceases offering the newness they so desperately crave. And while I thought the premise of this novel seemed to land somewhere between vaguely grating and downright insufferable, Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection, sharply translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes, instead offered a vivid, piercing novel that so accurately depicts the young and disillusioned who go in search of some sort of contemporary specificity and authenticity, only to find themselves defeated and disappointed. Deceptively scathing and lowkey bleak, this novel made my ears ring.”—Mira Braneck, A Room of One’s Own in Madison, Wisconsin
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
“The Turn of the Screw meets American Psycho in this dark, comic tale about a governess as charming as she is murderous, and the long-buried secret that will rip her new family of employers apart (in more ways than one). Much like Miss Notty does to her victims, Feito turns the gothic novel inside out, bringing the disgusting, gory details of the Victorian age — everything from chamberpots to imperial exploitation — to the forefront, all presented through the eyes of a protagonist no less sociopathic than the society she holds in contempt. The only difference: she’s more than happy to admit it to herself.”—Nik Long, P&T Knitwear in New York, New York
“Much like its protagonist—a governess with a penchant for bloodshed—something evil writhes through the pages of Victorian Psycho. It’s my favorite horror novel of the year so far, and for good reason. Feito’s ability to breathe life into a soulless character is nothing short of masterful. With sharp, curt dialogue that doesn’t always match the characters’ seemingly sunny dispositions, this novel blends humor with horror in a way that keeps you on your toes. The ending? Utterly shocking. If you love Suspiria and American Psycho, you’ll devour this.”—Alexis Powell, The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
“Han Kang’s newest novel is very literally stunning, and several of its passages left me reeling. The narrator is a writer who ventures into a secluded stretch of woods in South Korea to help save her friend’s parrot, because her friend has been hospitalized following a brutal injury. The narrator’s journey forces her to face the history of two real massacres that bookended the Korean War, as well as her friend’s relationship to that history. Reality and fiction intertwine in the novel for both the reader and the narrator, making for an eerie book that left me hung up on the history it centers.”—Maritza Montanez, Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York
Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza
“I’m still reading Death Takes Me, but I love Cristina Rivera Garza’s work for the way she and her characters analyze language, as well as for the careful attention she pays to gendered violence. Here, a professor goes for a run and finds a castrated corpse accompanied by a line of poetry at the crime scene. When she reports it to the police as part of a larger wave of serial murders, she gets roped into the investigation by a detective who’s intrigued by the professor’s knowledge of each poem, and newly obsessed with poetry herself. The writing is brilliant–disorienting, and more delightful than you may expect based on the story’s violence.”—Maritza Montanez, Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York
