Literairyland: March 5-11, 2024

This week's hot new books, writer birthdays, and more

Author

Nicholas Barron
March 05, 2024

Welcome to Literairyland, your list of this week's hottest new books and writer birthdays. Subscribe today and get Literairyland in your inbox every Tuesday!

This week’s email includes 21 hot 🔥 new books.

Table of Contents

This Week’s Hottest 🔥 New Fiction

Mystery & Thriller

Big Time by Ben H. Winters

Logline: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Quiet Boy comes a speculative, corporate espionage thriller that takes the adage "Time is money," and makes it literally, frighteningly so.

Publisher: Mulholland Books

The Hunter by Tana French

Logline: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and "one of the greatest crime novelists writing today" (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside.

Publisher: Viking

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

Logline: From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, an utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Logline: What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

Publisher: Celadon Books

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

Logline: For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

Publisher: Dutton

Historical

The Tower by Flora Carr

Logline: A bold, feminist debut novel, reimagining Mary, Queen of Scots's darkest hour, when she was held hostage in a remote Scottish castle with a handful of loyal women while plotting a daring escape to reclaim her country and her freedom.

Publisher: Doubleday Books

Horror

The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham

Logline: I know this place. The room is too dim to see clearly. It smells like the bones.

Publisher: Zando

Humor

Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet

Logline: Scarface meets Moby Dick in this groundbreaking, darkly comic novel about a young man's attempt to capitalize on his mother's murky legacy--a story steeped in Miami's marvelous and sinister magic.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Romance

This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

Logline: “For fans of Tia Williams and Colleen Hoover comes a deeply moving and personal novel about sacrifice, self-reliance, and finding true happiness from “one of the finest romance writers of our age.” ―Entertainment Weekly

Publisher: Forever

Literary

Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez

Logline: New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death.

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

Logline: The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about competitive friendship, the elastic boundaries of storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague.

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Logline: From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

Logline: A young woman reorients her relationship to the world in the wake of sudden deafness in this mesmerizing debut novel for readers of Rachel Cusk, Clarice Lispector, and Fleur Jaeggy.

Publisher: Catapult

Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon

Logline: An electric contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of one summer on a lush private island, about addiction and sex, family and independence, and who holds the power in a modern underworld.

Publisher: Scribner Book Company

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez

Logline: A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there.

Publisher: Ecco Press

This Week’s Hottest 🔥 New Nonfiction

Memoir

The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir by RuPaul

Logline: From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance. A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity, The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag.

Publisher: Dey Street Books

The Cave: A Secret Underground Hospital and One Woman's Story of Survival in Syria by Amani Ballour, with Tania Abouzeid

Logline: This searing memoir tells the story of a young doctor and activist who ran an underground hospital in Damascus, humanizing the enduring crisis in Syria.

Publisher: National Geographic Society

Essays

Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha Lapointe

Logline: The author of the award-winning memoir Red Paint returns with a razor-sharp, clear-eyed collection of essays on what it means to be a proudly queer indigenous woman in the United States today.

Publisher: Counterpoint LLC

Health

Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking — How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age by Caroline Paul

Logline: From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl, a funny, inspiring, deeply researched exploration into the science and psychology of the outdoors and our place in it as we age.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Music

3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan

Logline: From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists--Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans--who came together to create the most iconic jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue.

Publisher: Penguin Press

Social Science

Trash: A Poor White Journey by Cedar Monroe

Logline: Human beings are not trash, and the system that enables humans to imagine each other as such needs to end.

Publisher: Broadleaf Books

This Week’s Hottest 🔥 New Poetry

36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem by Nam Le

Logline: An explosive, devastating debut book of poetry from the acclaimed author of The Boat.

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

Bookish Trivia 🤔

This Week’s Literary Birthdays & Events

March 5

  • Daniel Alarcón

  • Nelly Arcan

  • Katarina Frostenson

  • Danny King

  • Frank Norris

  • Nathaniel Rich

  • Leslie Marmon Silko

  • Vasily Trediakovsky

  • Constance Fenimore Woolson

  • Wang Zengqi

March 6

  • Michael Cart

  • Gabriel García Márquez

  • Susan Quinn

March 7

  • Bret Easton Ellis

  • Robert Harris

  • E.L. James

  • Andrea Levy

  • Elizabeth Moon

March 8

  • Jeffrey Eugenides

  • Kenneth Grahame

  • John McPhee

  • Norman Stone

  • Douglass Wallop

March 9

  • Keri Hulme

  • Vita Sackville-West

March 10

  • David Grann

  • Janet Mock

  • John Rechy

March 11

  • Douglas Adams

  • Wanda Gág

  • Ezra Jack Keats

  • D.J. MacHale

  • Maaza Mengiste

See you next week!

Animated gif of a young person holding up a book and saying, "These things are great. It's like TV in your head!"