Along with the promise of a brand-new year come new reading challenges to start and winter weekends that are perfect for cozying up with a good book. Luckily, Newsweek has recommendations for enticing new reads coming out in the next few months. From crime-solving theater troupe protagonists to a century-spanning Australian epic, and a year in the life of an E.R. doctor during the pandemic to the journals of Alice Walker, reserve these 22 picks at your library or pre-order now so you’ll have a steady supply of great fiction and nonfiction to start 2022 off right.
Fiction
Wahala
By Nikki May | January | Custom House $27.99
An exciting debut likened to Sex and the City for our current moment centers on three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and a fourth woman who emerges onto their scene and roils the group. Exciting and razor sharp, we predict Wahala will be on all this year’s “best of” lists.
Take My Hand
By Dolen Perkins-Valdez | April | Berkley $27
A Black nurse working at a family clinic in ’70s Alabama discovers two poor, young girls are being prescribed birth control in this impressive historical epic. Valdez’s story and characters are deeply affecting and call attention to the importance of recognizing history’s dark moments.
This Might Hurt
By Stephanie Wrobel | February | Berkley $26
The mastermind behind last year’s Darling Rose Gold returns with a second, equally sinister feat. This Might Hurt starts as a slow burn that crackles with sinister energy as we’re brought to the serene, unplugged oasis of Wisewood. Bring your troubles and you will certainly leave them behind. But what’s behind the tranquil facade? Fans of Liane Moriarty’s Seven Perfect Strangers will adore this.
The Return of Faraz Ali
By Aamina Ahmad | April | Riverhead Books $27
This beautiful, atmospheric debut unfolds in Lahore, Pakistan, where our protagonist, Faraz, is born but then abducted. Years later, as an adult, Faraz is sent back to the red-light district of his birth at the behest of Wajid, his father, to cover up the murder of a young girl. Now the head of the police station, Faraz finds he is unable to complete the task handed to him by Wajid in a thought-provoking tale of identity.
How High We Go in the Dark
By Sequoia Nagamatsu | January | William Morrow $27.99
A debut that defies expectation and neat categorization, How High We Go in the Dark spans space and time with awe-inspiring scope. It begins in 2030 when a plague is unleashed in the Arctic. The story ripples across the globe like a wave, equally moving and powerful.
No Land to Light On
By Yara Zgheib | January | Atria Books $26
A young Syrian couple anxiously awaits the birth of their first child when their family is wrenched apart by a travel ban. With raw emotion and aching clarity, Zgheib depicts a family trying to make its way back to each other as powers beyond their control shift their lives like gale force winds.
Notes on an Execution
By Danya Kukafka | January | William Morrow $27.99
This distinctive take turns the overdone serial killer trope on its head, making it more palatable, more intelligent and more emotional. Kukafka portrays a sinister man through the perspectives of the women who knew and loved him, with subtle but shattering truths peppered throughout.
Young Mungo
By Douglas Stuart | April | Grove Hardcover $27
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‘Division of the World Is Inevitable'
Countries need to choose whether to align with autocrats or democracies, says a former NATO Secretary-General
City of Water
As climate change triggers sea-level rise and extreme weather, even New York, one of the world's best-prepared cities, may not be doing enough
Bans Off Our Bodies
MoveOn and Abortion Access activists rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3 after the leak of a draft opinion overturning the Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Slower Ways to See the World
Travel should be an act of discovery, not a checklist to complete. Slow travel is an invitation to explore things at a pace that allows you to absorb your surroundings as you move through them-on terms that are meaningful for both you and the people and places you encounter. It may seem counterintuitive that by doing less, you will see more, but that's exactly the idea we propose in our book, Kinfolk Travel (Artisan). Following are a sampling of the destinations from the book, meant to inspire thoughtful travel and spark deeper ways of thinking about new journeys and destinations.
Faith and Murder
Under the Banner of Heaven explores both a brutal crime and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Crypto In Your 401(k)?
Just because you may soon be able to buy Bitcoin in your workplace retirement plan doesn’t mean you should.
Emmy Rossum
PARTING SHOT
Summer Music Festivals to Get Your Groove On
What seemed a relic of the past amidst COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing precautions are now back in full force. This summer promises a music festival resurgence, with events taking place all over the world. Across festivals, lineups are both highlighting international talent and championing local artists. From Afro Nation on the pristine Portuguese seaside to Glastonbury in rural England to Fuji Rock in a Japanese forest, live music lovers of every genre have a lot to anticipate. Let the music play!
Blue -or Bluer
In Pennsylvania and Texas, democratic voters face clear ideological choices that could signal the party's direction
Betrayers in Blue
HBO's We Own This City tells the true story of the crooked cops who preyed on Baltimore for years
Hanya's Boys
The novelist tends to torture her gay male characters—but only so she can swoop in to save them.
You've Heard This One Before
Maggie Nelson believes we react too quickly and think ungenerously. In her new book, she’s guilty of doing both.
6 New Writers to Watch
Wiley Cash’s debut, A Land More Kind Than Home, about the bond between two brothers landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List and received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut of the Year.
We Build It Ourselves
A roundtable on race, power, and the writing workshop
Fiction – Bump
To those who accuse me of immoderate desire, I say look at the oil executives. Look at the Gold Rush. Look at all the women who want a ring and romance and lifelong commitment, and then look again at me.
The Radiant Inner Life of a Robot
Kazuo Ishiguro returns to masters and servants with a story of love between a machine and the girl she belongs to.
Putting a Ring Back on It
It was July 2014. We were building a smaller house and getting ready to move when my husband became very ill. He had to spend nine weeks in assisted living, leaving me to do everything in our new home. By nighttime, I felt as if I was moving in slow motion.
Essay – “No Novel About Any Black Woman Could Ever Be the Same After This”
That’s how Toni Morrison described Gayl Jones’s first book in 1975. Jones has published to great acclaim and experienced unspeakable tragedy. Now she is releasing her first novel in more than 20 years.
Hashtag Highlights Anti-Black Bias
The month of June brought the continuation of daily protests around the United States, and the world, in recognition of violence against Black people and the importance of Black lives.
Ayad Akhtar – Truth
In homeland elegies, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar blurs the line between fact and fiction in an attempt to reclaim the novel: "I think that reality has outpaced the capacity for fiction to speak to us about what we have become."