If you've already perused LitHub's massive list of 2024 most anticipated books for the second half, let me offer you (better late than never) my own version. Here, you'll find BIG names (Murakami, Sally Rooney), writers returning to fiction after a long time between novels (Attenberg, Tulathimutte), and everything in between.
Please remember, preorders are absolutely crucial for writers (especially midlist writers) for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because preorders help publishers gauge interest in a book, and therefore allocated marketing dollars. So please help writers and preorder early and often! (Also, all the links are below are affiliate links for Bookshop.org, which means when you preorder from these links, I get a little cut, too -- which I will turn into more books, of course!)
Anyway, here are my 10 most anticipated books of the rest of 2024 (and two for 2025):
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| My favorite tshirt: "Ban the fascists, save the books." |
The Rich People Have Gone Away, by Regina Porter (August 6) -- I'm actually reading this now to review it for the Chicago Review of Books. In what is starting to feel like a glut of pandemic novels, this books feels like a really fresh approach, following the lives of several New Yorkers as they search for a missing pregnant woman.
Colored Television, by Danzy Senna (September 3) -- Several readers whose opinions are usually right tell me I'm missing out by never having read Senna. So I'm gonna fix that now.
Two-Step Devil, by Jamie Quattro (September 10) -- I love a good cult novel, and this sounds like a GREAT cult novel. I read Quattro's story collection I Want to Show Your More many moons ago and was very impressed, but never made it to her first novel, 2018's Fire Sermon. So I'm excited to read a novel by her for the first time.
Rejection: Fiction, by Tony Tulathimutte (September 17) -- Like this guy's Twitter feed, this book promises to be totally irreverent, more than a little wrong, but absolutely hilarious. It's seven connected stories about "the touchiest problems of modern life." Yes, please.
Playground, by Richard Powers (September 24) -- I won't ever miss a new Powers novel -- I loved his books even before The Overstory became one of my favorite novels of the last decade or so.
When The World Tips Over, by Jandy Nelson (September 24) -- I rarely read YA but I'll read a new Jandy Nelson novel, only based on how much I loved I'll Give You the Sun -- still my go-to recommendation for the youths who come into the bookstore just looking for something good to read.
Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney (September 24) -- Okay, fine, yeah, I'll add this to the list. Rooney's last novel didn't really do it for me, but Normal People I thought was great. I haven't read Conversations with Friends, so Intermezzo will be the tiebreaker for me.
A Reason To See You Again, by Jami Attenberg (September 24) -- WOOHOO, Jami Attenberg's first new novel in seven years spans 40 years in 240 pages. As great a writer as she is, I'm sure the pages will fly by as quickly as the years.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami (November 19) -- Here's the promo copy for this book: "A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times." YES! Inject it directly into my brain.
And here are two for 2025:
The Heart of Winter, by Jonathan Evison (January 7, 2025)
A Forty-Year Kiss, by Nickolas Butler (February 4, 2025)
Both of these guys are in my top 10 list of favorite writers, so I'm super excited they're both publishing again within a month of each other!
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