If there’s anything we at Kirkus love more than compiling our best books lists at the end of the year, it’s putting together a preview of coming attractions in the new year. In the new issue, the editors shine a spotlight on 100 titles that we can’t wait for readers to discover. There are long-awaited books from beloved authors, breakout titles by writers who deserve to be better known, and debuts that will make you sit up and take note—across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and young adult. I suspect we’ll be celebrating many of these books again in 12 months, when we unveil our Best Books of 2024 lists. Stick around.
In the meantime, I’ve flagged a bunch of forthcoming releases that will go straight to the top of my To Be Read pile in 2024. Here are four of them:
Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver (Grove, Feb. 13): Diane Oliver was just 22, a student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, when she was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966. Since I first learned of her on the Ursa Short Fiction podcast (hosted by authors Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton), I’ve hoped her slender output would be collected between hard covers. Now we have Neighbors, an emotionally rich—and uncannily chilling—portrait of Black life in the Jim Crow South. “Oliver depicts her subjects with elegance and profound understanding,” says our starred review.
The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll (Penguin Press, Feb. 27): This major new work from the award-winning author of Directorate S and Ghost Wars continues the story of America’s reckless and ill-starred adventures in the Middle East. Here Coll focuses on our nation’s roller-coaster relations with Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein, culminating in the U.S. invasion in 2003—an episode of recent history that demands clear-eyed understanding. “Required reading for all conscientious citizens,” says our starred review.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf, Feb. 27): Orange burst upon the literary scene, fully formed, with There There, an explosive debut novel that follows a handful of Native American characters as they descend upon an Oakland, California, powwow; it was a bestseller and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Orange’s new novel expands upon that narrative in a kind of sequel that follows members of the Red Feather family from There There while moving back—and forward—in time. “A searing study of the consequences of a genocide,” says our starred review.
Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 19): As someone who’s borderline obsessed with all things having to do with Andy Warhol and the Factory, I’m counting the days until this biography is released. (That the author also wrote an outstanding 2012 biography of artist David Wojnarowicz only adds to my anticipation.) Candy Darling was a trailblazing trans performer who appeared in the underground film Flesh, died at 29, and continues to inspire. “Carr resurrects a trans icon whose life, artistry, and struggle speak directly to our moment,” says our starred review.
Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.
