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The 50 most anticipated books of 2019

The 50 most anticipated books of 2019

By David Canfield

December 20, 2018 at 08:30 AM EST

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Another year, another (long) reading list

Credit: Little, Brown and Company; Henry Holt and Co.; Knopf; Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Penguin Press; Hogarth; Riverhead Books (2); Random House;

From hotly anticipated sequels to epic romances to addictive thrillers, book lovers will have lots to choose from next year. Here we present our comprehensive guide to the 50 most anticipated books of the next 12 months. Read on, and click the release dates (where applicable) to get your 2019 pre-orders going!

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Chigozie Obioma, An Orchestra of Minorities

Credit: Little, Brown and Company

A Man Booker Prize finalist, Obioma could break out with U.S. audiences with this passionate, emotional contemporary twist of Homer's Odyssey, set in the outskirts of Umuahia, Nigeria. (Jan. 8)

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Mesha Maren, Sugar Run

Credit: Algonquin Books

A tense, atmospheric Southern noir spiked with queer themes, Sugar Run weaves between two timelines in its depiction of Jodi, a woman just finishing an 18-year prison sentence. (Jan. 8)

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Madhuri Vijay, The Far Field

Credit: Grove Press

A debut novel that finds a young woman visiting India in the wake of her mother's death, where she seeks answers about her family's past — and herself. (Jan. 15)

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Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This

Credit: Scout Press

Roupenian inked a huge book deal off of her buzzy New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” and here’s the first result: a collection that provocatively tackles sex and power. Read an excerpt. (Jan. 15)

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Tim Johnston, The Current

Credit: Algonquin

Johnston dazzled with his breakout thriller, Descent; his follow-up is a more ambitious page-turner, unpacking how a shocking murder impacts the denizens of a small Minnesota town as they weather suspicion, guilt, and grief. (Jan. 22)

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Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light

Credit: Little, Brown and Company

Scharer’s splashy first book is a lush fictionalized study of Lee Miller, the photographer who struck up a passionate dalliance with the artist Man Ray. Read a preview. (Feb. 5)

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Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Credit: Riverhead Books

Teased as the “African Game of Thrones,” this epic fantasy by the Man Booker Prize winner (A Brief History of Seven Killings) is set to kick off a new trilogy called The Dark Star. Read a preview. (Feb. 5)

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Elizabeth McCracken, Bowlaway

Credit: Ecco

The brilliantly witty writer returns with her first novel in 18 years, an incisive and generous portrait of a New England clan who operate a candlepin bowling alley. (Feb. 5)

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Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias

Credit: Graywolf Press

Wang won a prestigious Whiting Award for this utterly unique book of essays: a deep, illuminating, and explosively written dive into a life of living with mental illness. (Feb. 5)

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Eva Hagberg Fisher, How to Be Loved

Credit: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Fisher recounts the harrowing fallout of the rupture of an undiscovered mass in her brain at age 30, as well as the people — a few friends in particular — who helped bring her back to herself. (Feb. 5)

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Jill Abramson, Merchants of Truth

Credit: Simon + Schuster

The product of a seven-figure book deal, Merchants of Truth may be the definitive report on the disruption of the news media over the last decade. Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times who was controversially fired some years ago, seems like the perfect person to tell that story. (Feb. 5)

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Angie Thomas, On the Come Up

Credit: Balzer + Bray

Thomas had a big 2018 without even publishing a book, as the adaptation of her red-hot debut, The Hate U Give, hit theaters to great acclaim. Now the author has her encore: the story of aspiring rapper Bri, and an ode to hip-hop. Read a preview. (Feb. 5)

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Christopher Castellani, Leading Men

Credit: Viking

A slice of queer historical fiction which we hope is as delectable as it sounds. Castellani examines the relationship between Tennessee Williams, his lover Frank Merlo, and the mysterious young beauty Anja Blomgren which formed over the hot, fateful summer of 1953. (Feb. 12)

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Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

Credit: Knopf

This could be a major moment for Luiselli, the two-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist behind Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth. Her new book is in many ways a classic American family road-trip novel, only one that confronts our ongoing immigration border crisis. (Feb. 12)

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Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six

Credit: Ballantine Books

Amazon is already developing a series — produced by Reese Witherspoon — adapted from this sketching of a ’70s rock band, digging deep into the group's interpersonal relationships as well as the L.A. music scene around them. (March 5)

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Helen Oyeyemi, Gingerbread

Credit: Riverhead Books

The always terrific Oyeyemi (Boy, Snow, Bird) returns with a mystical exploration of family legacy, carried on through a gingerbread recipe. (March 5)

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T Kira Madden, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing

Madden brings her sharply funny voice to her new book, which humanely explores her coming of age as a biracial queer teenager in Boca Raton, Florida, and the climate of abuse and addiction that surrounded her. (March 5)

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Kathryn Davis, The Silk Road

Credit: Graywolf Press

Davis has been around for a while, this being her eighth novel, and in a perfect world her latest will lead more to discover her. With nothing less than the human condition on its mind, The Silk Road works in archetype and allegory to produce a slim (not even 150 pages!) but resounding book unlike any you've ever read. (March 5)

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Mitchell Jackson, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family

Credit: Scribner

Jackson revisits his early years in a black Portland neighborhood, telling the stories of his struggling family members and analyzing the marginalizing cultural forces around them. (March 5)

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Samira Ahmed, Internment

Credit: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

A story of hope and resistance, Internment is set in a horrifying “15 minutes in the future” United States, following 17-year-old Layla Amin as she is forced into an internment camp for Muslim-Americans along with her parents. Read an excerpt. (March 19)

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Bryan Washington, Lot

Credit: Riverhead Books

This eagerly awaited short-story collection, excerpted in The New Yorker to much fanfare, depicts its author's hometown of Houston with empathy, tragedy, and exceptional specificity. (March 19)

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Evan James, Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe

Credit: Atria Books

We know how this one tends to go: a big summer family gathering, filled with dysfunction and secret-spilling and absurd misunderstandings. Fingers crossed that first-time novelist James can put his own quirky stamp on the subgenre. (March 26)

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Samantha Downing, My Lovely Wife

Credit: Berkley

The thriller we’re most excited to stay up with all night. A married couple of 15 years have developed a unique habit to keep their relationship alive: getting away with murder. What could go wrong? (March 26)

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Laila Lalami, The Other Americans

Credit: Pantheon

Lalami again tackles themes of immigration, family, and consequence in her latest, which begins on the suspicious murder of a Moroccan immigrant. (March 26)

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Chris Rush, The Light Years

Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Rush situates his coming of age in the optimistic ’60s — ignoring college, joining the counterculture — against a turbulent era in American history. (April 2)

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Nell Freudenberger, Lost and Wanted

Credit: Knopf

Freudenberger's cosmic new novel, narrated by a renowned physicist, asks life's biggest questions in a rumination on the space that exists between friends, families, colleagues, and lovers. It's a new, humanistic kind of mystery novel. (April 2)

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Miriam Toews, Women Talking

Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing

The award-winning novelist (A Boy of Good Breeding, Irma Voth) returns with what may be her most experimental work yet, giving voice to eight women as they grapple with the trauma and power of patriarchy. Margaret Atwood said its events "could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale." (April 2)

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Susan Choi, Trust Exercise

Credit: Henry Holt and Co.

The Pulitzer Prize finalist (American Woman) immerses readers in an ’80s performing-arts high school, introducing an intriguing love story before shifting to something much darker — and more shocking. (April 9)

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Sally Rooney, Normal People

Credit: Hogarth

Coming off her lauded debut, Conversations With Friends, Rooney has written a sweeping romance for her second literary act. It’s already an award-winning hit in her native U.K. (April 16)

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Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me

Credit: Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images

The master of historical fiction (Atonement) imagines an alternative 1980s London, with two lovers tested in the grim shadow of a lost war. (April 23)

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Lara Prior-Palmer, Rough Magic

Credit: Catapult

Think the next Educated or Wild. Palmer’s memoir of beating the odds to become a horse champion is an inspiring saga of perseverance — and a classic underdog tale. (May 7)

Account

The 50 most anticipated books of 2019

1 of 51

Another year, another (long) reading list

1 of 51

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Chigozie Obioma, An Orchestra of Minorities

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Mesha Maren, Sugar Run

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Madhuri Vijay, The Far Field

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Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This

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Tim Johnston, The Current

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Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light

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Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

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Elizabeth McCracken, Bowlaway

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Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias

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Eva Hagberg Fisher, How to Be Loved

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Jill Abramson, Merchants of Truth

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Angie Thomas, On the Come Up

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Christopher Castellani, Leading Men

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Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

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Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six

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Helen Oyeyemi, Gingerbread

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T Kira Madden, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

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Kathryn Davis, The Silk Road

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Mitchell Jackson, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family

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Samira Ahmed, Internment

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Bryan Washington, Lot

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Evan James, Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe

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Samantha Downing, My Lovely Wife

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Laila Lalami, The Other Americans

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Chris Rush, The Light Years

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