The new year kicks off with a crop of inspiring new books, from nonfiction examinations of some of the biggest questions shaping our culture to page-turning fiction delving into stories of inner strength. Several of the most anticipated books coming out in January dissect what it means to be part of a family. In Meng Jin’s debut Little Gods, a young woman grieves her mother and travels abroad in the hopes of learning more about her roots. In her memoir The Magical Language of Others, E.J. Koh revisits letters her mother sent her during years spent apart. And in Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, a police officer attempts to find her estranged sister who has gone missing in the midst of a murder spree. Here, the 12 new books you should read this January.
Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis, Ada Calhoun (Jan. 7)
By examining her own midlife crisis, memoirist Ada Calhoun asks why she, like other Generation X women she knows, is overwhelmed and exhausted in her middle age. Through researching trends like divorce data and housing costs, she argues that Gen X women encounter unique anxieties (many of which are related to money) that set them apart from Boomers and Millennials. In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun presents these problems and picks them apart in the hopes of supporting and empowering Gen X and future generations of women.
The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir, E.J. Koh (Jan. 7)
When poet E.J. Koh was 15 years old, her family split apart after her father received a compelling job offer in South Korea. Koh was left behind in California with her older brother while her parents moved thousands of miles away in what was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. Koh’s mother sent her letters, written primarily in Korean, detailing her decision to leave, but Koh couldn’t fully understand the language at the time. Years later, she breaks down those letters, unraveling a moving portrait of abandonment, forgiveness and the strength of maternal love.
Long Bright River, Liz Moore (Jan. 7)
A slew of mysterious murders of women in a Philadelphia neighborhood already devastated by the opioid crisis leaves police officer Mickey Fitzpatrick on edge. She hasn’t seen her estranged sister Kacey—an addict who had been living on the streets—for quite some time. Both a propulsive thriller and a poignant family saga, Long Bright River follows Mickey’s dangerous journey as she attempts to find Kacey before she becomes the killer’s next victim.
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity, Peggy Orenstein (Jan. 7)
In her 2016 bestseller Girls & Sex, journalist Peggy Orenstein analyzed the impact of pornography, hookup culture, social media and more on young women’s sexuality in the U.S. Now, she’s turning her attention to the male experience in her new book, which investigates how the current cultural moment is redefining intimacy for all young people. In Boys & Sex, Orenstein interviews academics, psychologists and young men to unearth boys’ perceptions of “locker room” talk, sexual violence and consent.
Topics of Conversation, Miranda Popkey (Jan. 7)
When readers meet the unnamed narrator of Miranda Popkey’s debut novel, she’s a 21-year-old college graduate working as the nanny of her friend’s younger brothers in Italy. It’s 2000 and the protagonist is navigating a breakup, the details of which she shares one night with her friend’s mother. That conversation sets in motion a series of discussions on longing, lust and power. Topics of Conversation moves forward in time, finding the narrator reflecting on many parts of life—motherhood, marriage and more—as she speaks to a variety of women in the years that follow.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories, Zora Neale Hurston (Jan. 14)
Fans of the late, celebrated author and filmmaker Zora Neale Hurston are in for a treat with a new collection of stories, eight of which they likely haven’t seen before. Those “lost” tales—works that previously existed only in archives and periodicals—are finally being released for a larger audience. They have been selected alongside several of Hurston’s other stories in Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick, a collection that showcases the talents of the writer who brought us Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Little Gods, Meng Jin (Jan. 14)
After the death of her physicist mother, a young Chinese-American woman is determined to learn more about her parents. She travels to China in the hopes of uncovering her mother’s past and finding her father, a man she never knew. Though it initially sounds like a quest narrative, Little Gods proves to be much more as it wrestles with grief, immigration and the durability of memory, especially as new characters emerge and point to a bigger mystery surrounding the protagonist’s mother.