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10 January New Releases To Put On Hold at the Library Right Now

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Liberty Hardy

Senior Contributing Editor

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

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Want to read some of next year’s big titles, but don’t want to wait forever for your turn at the library? I have the cure for the common hold: Beat the waiting lists at the library by putting these ten January new releases on hold now.

(You may have noticed I skipped over December. It’s historically a slow month for publishing, so I thought we’d skip it and get right to the good stuff. There are definitely a few I am interested in reading, like The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash and In Our Mad and Furious City: A Novel by Guy Gunaratne, but I haven’t read enough great ones to make a list.)

Mouthful of Birds Samanta Schweblin CoverMouthful of Birds: Stories by Samanta Schweblin (January 8)

From the author of the creepy and haunting Fever Dream comes a collection of creepy and haunting stories. Her writing is so good, I feel like my head is going to explode when I read her. In the best way.

black enough anthology coverBlack Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America by Ibi Zoboi and Tracey Baptiste (January 8)

Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi, Black Enough is an important collection of stories about what it’s like to be young and Black in America. Featuring such amazing authors as Justina Ireland, Rita Williams-Garcia, Dhonielle Clayton, Tochi Onyebuchi, Jason Reynolds, Nic Stone, Renée Watson, and Brandy Colbert.

an orchestra of minoritiesAn Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (January 8)

Set in Nigeria, and narrated by a chi, or guardian spirit, this novel tells the story of Chinonso, a young poultry farmer saves a woman from jumping off a bridge. United by this experience, they fall in love, but their families object to their union. The couple must make sacrifices to be together, but will it lead to resentment? I loved his last novel, The Fisherman, and I loved this one.

the water cureThe Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh (January 8)

Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, this is a feminist dystopia about a woman and her daughters who have been hidden away from men, until the day three men wash onto their shore, changing the dynamics of their once-safe home.

the dreamersThe Dreamers: A Novel by Karen Thompson Walker (January 15)

I have been waiting for so long for a new novel from KTW that I sat down and read it the moment it arrived, and it was everything I wanted. Following a sickness in a remote college town that causes people to fall asleep and not wake up, this was even better than her wonderful debut, The Age of Miracles.

dragon pearlDragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee (January 15)

We are huge fans here at Book Riot of Yoon Ha Lee’s series for grownups, The Machineries of Empire, so you know we’re excited to get our hands on this middle grade fantasy novel, the next Rick Riordan Presents publication. It’s about a teen girl who comes from a family of fox spirits.

inheritance dani shapironheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (January 15)

Shapiro tells a very personal recent story of her own life: when she submitted her DNA to a genealogy website as a lark, only to discover the man she had always known as her father was not her biological father. This is her examination of the event, as well as a look into how identity shapes us, and what it means when it changes.

the far fieldThe Far Field by Madhuri Vijay (January 15)

Shalini, a privileged woman from Bangalore, sets out for a village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir in search of Bashir Ahmed, a Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home. But things in the village are not what she imagined, and as she learns the politics and comes to care for the family she is staying with, she will be forced to make difficult decisions when violence threatens to erupt in the village.

the kingdom of copperThe Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy) by S. A Chakraborty (January 22)

Yesssssssssss, it’s the sequel to City of Brass! I don’t usually include sequels, but the first book is so good, I just had to. If you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to seek it out now in preparation for the second. It’s a wonderful fantasy about djinn and old magic and kingdoms, and it deserves all the Muppet arms.

we cast a shadowWe Cast a Shadow: A Novel by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (January 29)

A provocative debut novel along the lines of The Sellout by Paul Beatty. It’s a satire about a near-future city in the South, where African Americans can experience a “demelanization” and change them into a white person. But the father of a biracial boy is not sure he wants his son to take part in the process, leading to turmoil within his family. It’s gutsy, it’s electrifying, and it’s fan-freaking-tastic.

Looking for previously recommended releases? Check out 10 November New Releases To Put On Hold at the Library Right Now and 10 October New Releases To Put On Hold at the Library Right Now.