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The start of the New Year always brings a lot of excitement as well as a familiar question: What books should I be on the lookout for?
As avid readers ourselves, we love the moments of spontaneity that comes with exploring the back corners of a bookstore, only to find a book that completely takes you by surprise. But there are also plenty of times when we have our calendars marked for new releases from some of our favorite authors. As you look ahead to 2024, here are some exciting books that we’re hotly anticipating.
You Dreamed of Empires
By Álvaro Enrigue
Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
Riverhead Books
January 9, 2024
Set during the fateful first meeting between the Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés and the emperor Moctezuma, You Dreamed of Empires is a brilliant work of historical recreation and imagination. Álvaro Enrigue’s latest perfectly subverts the colonial narrative to create a thrilling revenge tale that carefully builds its tension to a startling conclusion. This is a marvel in both its storytelling and its translation.
— Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
Theophanies
By Sarah Ghazal Ali
Alice James Books
January 16, 2024
Sarah Ghazal Ali’s poetry is sublime in subject, form, and vision. Her work engages the Divine, ancestry, and personal histories, and she often weaves different planes of time and selfhood together within single poems. I’m grateful to have this collection so early in the new year, as I’ve already revisited poems in this collection many times and will continue to ponder them throughout the year and beyond.
— Farooq Chaudhry, Daily Editor
Dead in Long Beach, California
By Venita Blackburn
MCD
January 23, 2024
I’m a huge fan of Blackburn’s razor sharp writing and can’t wait for her debut novel. Described as “a layered, page-turning reckoning with what it means to be alive, dead, and somewhere in between,” this is sure to be a novel you don’t want to miss.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays About the Women Singers Who’ve Made Me Who I Am
By Zachary Pace
Two Dollar Radio
January 23, 2024
This stunning essay collection explores sound, gender, queerness, survival, and the shaping of identity through voice and pop culture. Zachary Pace recounts women singers—from Cat Power to Madonna, Kim Gordon to Rihanna—who shaped them as a person. Blending reportage, cultural criticism, and personal narrative, this beautiful, intimate debut is definitely the best 2024 book I’ve read so far.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
By Michael Wolraich
Union Square & Co.
February 6, 2024
The subtitle says it all. This true-life murder mystery exposes the scandal, graft, and official corruption that engulfed Manhattan during the Jazz Age—and the reckoning that followed.
— Dean Jobb, Contributor
O Body
By Dan “Sully” Sullivan
Haymarket Books
February 06, 2024
From an icon in the Chicago spoken word scene comes O Body, a powerful work of poetry that explores the body in all its potential power and vulnerability. Sullivan leaves us with much to reflect on, but perhaps one of the most interesting threads is the narrative he tells of moving between his hometown of Chicago and his new home of Bloomington and the way it created an immeasurable distance within his own self.
— Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir
By Shayla Lawson
Tiny Reparations Books
February 6, 2024
I loved Shayla Lawson’s essay collection This Is Major, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and I can’t wait for their forthcoming memoir. Anyone familiar with their work knows how sharp and smart everything they write is, but this book, which deals with gender identity, Blackness, disability, and liberation through travel, promises to be one not to miss.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Ordinary Human Failings
By Megan Nolan
Little Brown and Company
February 6, 2024
Nolan is most notable for her essays and column in The New Statesman, and more recently, her intense debut novel, Acts of Desperation, which centers around an obsessive romantic relationship to explore ideas about female desires, suffering, and love. Nolan’s second novel aims to broaden this lens of obsession with higher stakes, framing the story around a journalist who observes a reclusive Irish family implicated in a child’s murder in a London housing estate. With multiple points of view and characters, Nolan’s Ordinary Human Failings casts a wider net to investigate Thatcher-era Britain, 90s exploitative tabloids, emigration, addiction, and intimate family dynamics.
— Cait Stout, Daily Editor
The Turtle House
By Amanda Churchill
Harper
February 20, 2024
Amanda Churchill is a StoryBoard alum, and her debut novel sounds fantastic. The novel was inspired by her grandmother, a Japanese war bride, and is an intergenerational story dealing with friendship, family, identity, and love. Julia Phillips calls it “a gorgeous, wise and assured debut.”
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories
Edited by Sarah Coolidge
Two Lines Press
March 12, 2024
I’m really looking forward to reading Two Lines Press’s Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories (March 12), a compilation featuring some of the most electrifying writers and translators at work today. With contributors like Mariana Enriquez (Our Share of Night) and Mónica Ojeda (Jawbone), this book is sure to be a creepy treat. If you haven’t yet read any Latin American horror stories, this is the sign you’ve been looking for.
— Elizabeth McNeill, Daily Editor
James
By Percival Everett
Doubleday Books
March 19, 2024
My most anticipated book of 2024 is definitely James by Percival Everett. Reimagining huckleberry finn could be done by a lot of authors, but no one will do it with the same sharp wit and incisive commentary as Percival Everett.
— Malavika McGrail, Contributor
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
By Hanif Abdurraqib
Random House
March 26, 2024
There is perhaps no writer I’d rather read a meditation on basketball on than Hanif Abdurraqib. Already one of our most important cultural critics working today, Abdurraqib brings his stunning candor and care to this exploration of the new golden age of basketball, the stars that shined brighter than ever before, and his personal relationship to the sport.
— Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
What’s Not Mine
By Nora Decter
ECW Press
April 2, 2024
I will read anything Nora Decter writes—her sentences are truly electric. Her forthcoming novel, What’s Not Mine, deals with family, addiction, and survival. Familiar themes, but Decter has created a spellbinding story that’s incredibly astute and totally new. Perfect for fans of pitch perfect tragicomedy and darkly funny novels.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
A Good Happy Girl
By Marissa Higgins
Catapult
April 2, 2024
Recent CHIRB contributor Marissa Higgins has a debut novel coming out about a young woman’s emotionally intense relationship with a married lesbian couple. It explores twisted desires, queer domesticity, and the effects of incarceration on families. I’m anxious to read Marissa’s fiction after reading her thoughtful but fun list, 10 Books to Read When You Want To Feel Better About Your Dysfunctional Family.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Oye
By Melissa Mogollon
Hogarth Press
May 14, 2024
I love family sagas and Melissa Mogollon’s debut sounds like a fun one. Described as both a “coming-of-age comedy” and a “telenovela-worthy drama,” this story of a Colombian American family sounds heartfelt and insightful, while also being a super entertaining, fun novel. I can’t wait to check it out!
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Perfume and Pain
By Anna Dorn
Simon & Schuster
May 21, 2024
Anna Dorn’s novels are fun to read. Giving a nod to 1950s lesbian pulp fiction, her forthcoming novel, Perfume and Pain, is about a mid-list author who attempts to revive her career and find true love. Like all Dorn’s work, it promises to be smart, funny, and dynamic.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Fire Exit
By Morgan Talty
Tin House Books
June 4, 2024
One of my favorite story collections of 2022 was Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez, which won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, among others. His first novel, Fire Exit, comes out in June 2024 and it’s sure to be just as powerful and masterful.
— Rachel León, Daily Editor
Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
By Ananda Lima
Tor Books
June 18, 2024
Chicago’s very own Ananda Lima is set to release her debut work of fiction later in the 2024, and it’s sure to be a thrilling experience. Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil explores the surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil, but it’s perfect balance of humor, heart, and hauntedness is what makes this collection truly special. I expect Craft to immediately put Lima in the company of writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Samanta Schweblin.
— Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
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