November 5, 2024, 4:55am

November is here! And, of course, for American readers today is also Election Day. For many of us, this is a day of nervous anticipation at best and heart-thumping anxiety at the fear of civil war at worst, and it can be a day that at once feels too long and too short, too everything, really. If any of that describes you, or if you simply want an escape from it all for a bit, having a new book to spend some time with instead can be really wonderful. Give yourself the permission to pause and read for a bit if you have the time, and it just may help you make it through the corybantic chaos of it all, at least for a bit.

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Below, you’ll find twenty new ones out today to consider in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. (As you’ll see, there are unfortunately fewer fiction options out today than normal, but this is hopefully made up for by an abundance of intriguing nonfiction.)

You’ll find new a fancy new annotated edition of Ann Patchett’s classic Bel Canto, as well as inventive, genre-spanning fiction from Marguerite Sheffer, Elizabeth DeLozier, Antal Szerb, and more. In poetry, you’ll find a “breathtaking” new book from Molly Peacock, as well as selected verse from the Japanese Modernist poet Shuzo Takiguchi. And, in nonfiction, there are many, many new books to consider, including a compilation of Oliver Sacks’ letters, a look at poetry through the ages, a biography of Dante’s Divine Comedy, a critical appraisal of the band R.E.M., and more.

Take a moment to pick up one (or many) of these if you can, Dear Readers. (Not in place of voting, of course, if you haven’t already.) It may well be a tumultuous few days ahead, based on the dismal polarized state of this country, so having a new book by your side may just help you make it to the next day, and then the next.

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Ann Patchett, Bel Canto: The Annotated Edition
(Harper)

“Bel Canto by Ann Patchett should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty. Ann Patchett is a special writer who has written a special book.”
–WXQR

Marguerite Sheffer, The Man in the Banana Trees
(University of Iowa Press)

“The Man in the Banana Trees kicks ass. Every story is a surprise. The dexterity of Marguerite Sheffer’s prose is absolutely awe-inspiring. By turns heartbreaking and brilliant, Sheffer’s stories remind one of George Saunders and Amy Hempel in their playfulness and through their special eye for tragedy.”
–Jamil Jan Kochai

Elizabeth DeLozier, Eleanore of Avignon
(Dutton)

“Eleanore of Avignon is an ambitious historical novel, but debut novelist Elizabeth DeLozier gives the impression she’s been at this for years. I found myself highlighting certain passages, studying the way DeLozier crafted her characters and their relationships with one another…an impressive debut, sure to be loved by readers who also enjoy Maggie O’Farrell and Sarah Dunant.”
–Sarah Penner

Oliver Sacks, Kate Edgar (editor), Letters
(Knopf)

“Oliver Sacks’s letters are superb—fluent, brilliant, candid, intimate—and some of them are deliriously passionate. Oliver could write a multi-page love letter as well as a lengthy analysis of a drug state or a neurological condition. Taken together, over more than fifty years, they constitute an autobiography in epistolary form.”
–Paul Theroux

Dai George, How to Think Like a Poet: The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them
(Bloomsbury)

“With an infectious delight in his material, Dai George is a sure and skilful guide through some of poetry’s most significant waters….Thanks to its consciously global canvas, How to Think Like a Poet does something rather different to your usual poetic history or handbook, opening up fresh connections and avenues of thought….George’s agile, luminous, refreshing readings of individual poets down the centuries reveal just how much they have to offer us today.”
–Sarah Howe

Joseph Luzzi, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Biography
(Princeton University Press)

“Erudite….Luzzi covers the seven centuries since the [Divine] Comedy’s publication with concision and verve. It’s a fleet-footed overview of the influential poem’s eventful afterlife.”
–Publishers Weekly

Molly Peacock, The Widow’s Crayon Box: Poems
(Norton)

“In The Widow’s Crayon Box, Molly Peacock harnesses the full power of grief, rage, and love in bristling sonnet crowns and lyrical poems….Tenderness and hope [live] in these poems alongside verdant dreams of apples and kaleidoscopic colors, finally helping us imagine an end to suffering for ourselves and our beloveds. This is, indeed, a breathtaking book!”
–Hadara Bar-Nadav

Shuzo Takiguchi, A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi (trans. Mary Jo Bang and Yuki Tanaka)
(Princeton University Press)

“Shuzo Takiguchi’s chimeric fever dreams evince the soft brillings of a big big heart….Boldly written in a time and place—imperial Japan—where freedom of thought was most imperiled, and translated and collected into this beautiful volume, the poems document the transcendent capaciousness of a restless, passionate spirit. Time to discover anew this major Japanese Modernist poet.”
–Sawako Nakayasu

Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White, The Author’s Guide to Murder
(William Morrow)

“A pure delight from start to finish! The Author’s Guide to Murder is a mystery packed with twists and turns, some loving (and hilarious) jabs at the publishing world, and a wee dram of romance—all set at a writers retreat in a Scottish castle. What could be better? Williams, White and Willig are in top form in this clever, engrossing whodunnit with a heart.”
–Lisa Unger

Antal Szerb, The Pendragon Legend (trans. Len Rix)
(Pushkin Press Classics)

“Szerb is a master novelist, a comedian whose powers transcend time and language (again, thanks to Rix for his tender approach to the source material), and a playful, sophisticated intellect….it is a romp, but one which romps within itself; it has fun with the conventions, and has fun with having fun with them, too. It is an absolute treat, deliciously ludic, to be read with a big smile on your face throughout.”
–The Guardian

Sy Montgomery, What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird
(Atria Books)

“Spellbinding and informative…seamlessly covering natural history and up-to-date science. Montgomery’s not-to-be-missed chicken chronicle is enlightening and enlivening.”
–Booklist

Sacha Coward, Queer as Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters
(Unbound)

“Mind-bogglingly compendious, queer as hell, and beautifully tender to all us fairies, unicorns and misunderstood demons. In showing us the dazzling queerness of our fantasy realms, Sacha Coward has written a triumphant celebration of queer lives in the real world.”
–Will Tosh

Jaydra Johnson, Low: Notes on Art and Trash
(Fonograf Editions)

“Jaydra Johnson’s Low…is part instruction manual, part genealogy, part art criticism, and part memoir…written in wry, straight-ahead prose that hits no false notes, and feels honest and earned at every juncture. Johnson has a real gift for metabolizing and conveying the importance of everything from Othello to performance art to the political activist Emma Goldman….The sensibility and achievement of this book deserves widespread circulation and contemplation.”
–Maggie Nelson

Sally Huband, Sea Bean: A Beachcomber’s Search for a Magical Charm: A Memoir
(HarperOne)

“Sea Bean is a coastal treasure. Its hard-won attentiveness shows the wonder and vulnerability of our interconnected oceans, wildlife, and people. In Sally’s writing, beachcombing—an old island pursuit—is modern, revealing and restorative. The next time I am at the shore I will have a deeper appreciation and curiosity.”
–Amy Liptrot

Peter Ames Carlin, The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography
(Doubleday)

“R.E.M. is the quintessential indie band, a juggernaut of mumbled poetry and jangly guitar that revitalized the landscape of American music at a moment when we needed it the most. Peter Ames Carlin captures it all in this richly detailed and revelatory book—the fertile Athens scene, the alchemy of a great band bursting into life, their ambivalent rise to superstardom, and the tragedies and triumphs and surprises along the way.”
–Tom Perrotta

Tim Robey, Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops
(Hanover Square Press)

“The beauty of Tim Robey’s ruefully funny and richly insightful book is that it sees every flop as an indelible document of its cinematic moment, the lessons of which reverberate anew in this fraught moment for the film world. Fusing Hollywood history, industry analysis and passionate, deeply informed film criticism, Robey draws sharp distinctions between maligned masterpieces and outright catastrophes, yet embraces them all with the same generosity of spirit and knowledge.”
–The New Yorker

Amber Massie-Blomfield, Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create a Better World
(Norton)

“A fascinating, passionate, and political case for art’s world-changing power, by a fizzingly good writer.”
–Robert Macfarlane

Nigel Hamilton, Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents
(Little Brown)

“In today’s bitterly divided America, ever more of us find ourselves thinking of the fateful moment when this country did divide in two. You will find no better guide for a journey back to that era than expert biographer Nigel Hamilton. He has found a fresh and intriguing way of framing the story in his absorbing tale of the two principal antagonists—and of some remarkable parallels between them.”
–Adam Hochschild

Christopher Cox, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn
(Simon & Schuster)

“Woodrow Wilson was a man of contradictions. Christopher Cox lays them bare in this unflinching biography. An essential read for anyone who wants to know if we should honor Wilson or shun him—or simply wants to understand him better.”
–Beverly Gage

Aaron Betsky, Don’t Build, Rebuild: The Case for Imaginative Reuse in Architecture
(Beacon Press)

“In Don’t Build, Rebuild, architect and critic Aaron Betsky offers an essential alternative to the wasteful paradigm of conventional construction….Through rich historical analysis and inspiring contemporary examples—from repurposed wind turbine blades to transformed swim clubs and train depots—he calls for architects to become urban miners, harvesting the hidden value in our cities’ discarded treasures…thought-provoking and important…a must-read.”
–Stefan Al