It’s the middle of July already! What a July it’s been so far, much less what a 2024 it’s been. If you need to sit back and process it all for a bit in the background while you read something delightful, well, you’re in luck, for I have twenty-three fascinating new ones to recommend, all at out today. You’ll find innovative poetry collections by the indigenous writer M.
S. RedCherries and the multi-genre JoAnna Novak, each well worth checking out. In fiction, we have new work from Halle Butler, Ruby Todd, Eugene Lim, Minsoo Kang, Alisa Alering, Meg Shaffer, and many others; you’ll also find a selection of new and classic stories by Brad Watson, with a foreword by Joy Williams.
It’s an especially robust day for nonfiction, with many new memoirs, biographies, and explorations to consider. You’ll find an examination of Judy Blume’s life and work; a memoir by Hyeseung Song memorably described by David Henry Hwang as “a Portrait of the Artist as a Young AAPI Woman”; a collection of real-life tales from tree collectors; a look at the complexities of sharks and of being a Black woman in science; a provocative history of food and inequality in America, from the Trail of Tears to school lunches today; and much, much more. Add some (or many!) of these to your to-be-read lists! It’ll be worth it.
* “In Butler’s world, everyone hates each other, every day is excruciating in its mundanity, every thought is the beginning of an Escherian journey round and round i.
