Most Anticipated Books: Winter/Spring 2022

Jan 26

Jan 26 Most Anticipated Books: Winter/Spring 2022

There is much to look forward to in 2022, including some highly-anticipated book releases! These are the ones we can’t wait to read in the first half of the year. Check out the whole list on our website.

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara (January 11)

Hanya Yanagihara is notorious for writing books that rip your heart out. To Paradise contains all of the familiar beautiful themes in life. Shame! Fear! Loneliness! And love!!! They're all pouring out of this beautiful brick of a book! A biggie, but a goodie. — Natalie

Perpetual West by Mesha Maren (January 25)

Maren's debut, Sugar Run, was one of my favorites of 2019. In it, 35 year old Jodi Mccarthy attempts to rebuild her life on her family's land in the Appalachian Mountains after she’s released from prison. Maren's first book was atmospheric, romantic, grim and unforgettable. Perpetual West promises more sensuous and suspenseful adventures, following a young couple who move from Virginia to Texas in search of family connections. I'm here for the gay stuff, I'm here for a tense and emotional love story. — Aatia

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (February 1)

Dark Academia! We love it! This novel revolves around a married couple who both teach at a small liberal arts college. The husband gets accused of having inappropriate relations with his students and, while the wife is struggling with this knowledge circling around campus, she becomes obsessed with a new, young (married) author who has arrived as a new professor. — Lindsay

The Nineties: A Book by Chuck Klosterman (February 8)

If anyone can write an expansive, funny, interesting history of 90’s pop culture, it’s Chuck Klosterman. This is the book Chuck was always meant to write and I loved every page. — Mike

Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem (February 15)

This story moves like lightning and fuels me with the same powerful energy androgynous Stance, aka Ironhead, catalyzes. 1800s teen forced to marry, escapes, then a Mulan-esque story unfolds. If you’re in need of adventure, I for sure recommend! — Jacque

Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (February 15)

This book is pure art. It’s a little kooky, a little out there, but also incredibly grounded, the way most good art is. Pure Colour, set in a world that is God’s first draft, calls into question the way we know everything to work. “An atlas of feeling,” as the jacket copy reads, it left me underlining line after line and, with a twist ending, flipping back to the beginning as soon as I finished. I think Sheila Heti is a master of the internal and this is just further proof of her genius. — Colleen

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len (February 22)

Vanessa Len gets just about everything right in this time-traveling adventure, complete with monster dynasties, family rivalries, daring escapes, and so much more. Asking big questions about legacy, fate, and what it means to be heroic or monstrous, Len crafts a fascinating and inventive world unlike anything else in YA right now. This is easily the book I am most excited to get to hold in my hands this year! — Julia

Customs by Solmaz Sharif (March 1)

As a co-chair of the Solmaz Sharif stan club, I present to you the latest searing work of one of the most dauntless poets of our time. Here, Sharif’s signature incisiveness foregrounds queries around alienation and belonging, liberation and confinement, as well as the American imagination and lack thereof. Not to be missed! — Serena

Owning the Sun by Alexander Zaitchik (March 1)

This is the book I’ve been waiting for for such a long time! An in-depth exploration of the perils of medical monopoly and the ways that Big Pharma and intellectual property law work together to exacerbate public health crises. I know this sounds niche, but this is essential reading for understanding the deep consequences of profit-motivated healthcare and its integral role in the current pandemic. Also it just looks like a great read! — Isabel

In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet (March 8)

I’m sure absolutely nobody is shocked that yet another witch book has made it onto my most anticipated reads list. But “the witch” as a concept is one that we never seem to get tired of, and I am always interested in new interpretations of our obsessions with these women. In this book, Chollet focuses on witches as three main groups—the independent woman, the childless woman, and the elderly woman—and how these groups have been targeted throughout history, but also into our modern day. — Lindsay

The Ogress & the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill (March 8)

The Ogress and the Orphans fed my soul with unconditional love! The endearing, truehearted Ogress is my honorary neighbor for life. This is the sort of book I'll turn to again for comfort and joy. — Jacque

The Way Spring Arrives by Yu Chen (March 8)

The Way Spring Arrives collects speculative fiction from Chinese writers, and it’s completely written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary authors. Everything about this collection sounds fantastic, and I can’t wait for it — both for its representation of contemporary Chinese science fiction and fantasy, and also for how this will (hopefully) influence the future of the genre at large. —Michael Chin

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou (March 22)

This novel about a struggling Taiwanese PhD student whose world is turned upside down in the 8th year of her degree, is satirical, biting, hilarious, and wild from start to finish. This book was twist after twist, none of which I saw coming, and was hard to put down! Ingrid is an unlikely and flawed hero who you can't help but root for, and this book's exploration of being Asian American is so wonderfully honest. I absolutely loved it and can't wait for others to get their hands on it! — Jacs

Ancestor Trouble by Maud Newton

Sometimes nonfiction is wilder than fiction could ever be. I love a good family history and this one sounds downright fascinating. Excavating the roots of her ancestors’ genealogy, Newton confronts the contradictions and problematic pieces of who she came from. It’s something I think more of us – especially white people– will need to do as we reckon with our pasts as individuals and in the context of larger communities in order to move forward in creating informed, healthy, and more equitable futures. — Colleen

Revenge of the Scapegoat by Caren Belin (April 5)

I’m beyond excited for anything new from one of my favorite graphic novelists, Hannah Templer (of Cosmoknights fame!) and this fictionalized work about the life of Patricia Highsmith doesn’t disappoint! Queer history, beautiful storytelling, dream-team graphic collaboration – this is gonna be awesome! — Isabel

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li

I love a good heist story and this one looks absolutely incredible. A group of Harvard students teams up to steal back Chinese cultural artifacts from Western museums across the world—count me in! — Julia

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (April 5)

I’m lowkey crying in the Books Are Magic office right now because I made the very human mistake of reading a piece from this collection outside of the privacy of my home, despite the fact that I should know better (re public vulnerability), having read all of Vuong’s previous works. This is all to say that, yes, Reader, it is as piercing and probing and MacArthur-genius level brilliant as you would expect. Brb, soothing my heart. — Serena

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor (April 26)

One of the most exciting authors around is back baby! Remember Hurricane Season??? 👀 Fernanda Melchor's writing is brutal and visceral and full of intense and immoral characters. This new book is sweet and short and I can't wait to get wrecked! — Natalie

Trust by Hernan Diaz (May 3)

Absolutely magnificent. A matryoshka doll of a novel, an onion of a novel! Each layer exposes a more urgent truth. — Emma

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Trans. by Ros Schwartz) (May 10)

The description on the back of this book starts with, “Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage.” I’m in. I love short, translated literature and Transit Books never disappoints. This novel is translated from the French and I can’t wait to jump in to what seems like a very dark but fun novel. — Nick

The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon (May 10)

From the newest The Slowdown host comes this tender and intimate new collection, in which Limon asks what it means to be “the hurting kind”…to be both perceptive and permeable to the delicate strings that connect us to each other and to the world around us. All I can say is Ada Limon never misses! Each poem is a stone in the poet’s hand being turned over and over to reveal its quartz-qualities, its secret radiances, its prismatic reflections. Lucid, as ever. — Serena

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (May 17)

This book is by far my most personal, my most autobiographical, and my most speculative. Weird! Time travel! The 90s! But mostly just me and my dad and Gray’s Papaya and the whale at the Natural History Museum and the whole goshdarn Upper West Side. It’s a book for people who want to fix things, and people who like to cry. I hope you like it. — Emma

Fine, call me biased. Whatever. But, let me tell you anyway: this is Emma’s best book. It’s fun and has her signature charm and wit, but this one packs an emotional punch that is going to make you want to hug your parents and think about all the time you’ve lost. Plus, it’s got time travel and some awesome NYC in the 90’s content! — Mike

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (May 24)

Everything Akwaeke Emezi writes is an instant favorite of mine, and though I'm not a romance person I am so excited to read this book! Wrapped up in a steamy vacation romance, Emezi gives readers another beautiful exploration of queerness, trauma, and love. Emezi's new YA novel, Bitter, and poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything, also come out this year, and I can't wait to read all three! — Jacs

Rainbow, Rainbow by Laura Conklin (May 31)

The case for this short story collection is clear. With each story contained in a few pages, and every one following a new queer character to cry, sigh or cringe at, there’s so much to get excited about! Rainbow, Rainbow promises a thoughtful examination of human experience, its passions, its anxieties and its humor. This is also Conklin’s debut, and I’m all in for a new voice in fiction. — Aatia

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (June 7)

This novel is indelible, and shines its big light on this family so brightly that I could draw a map of their breath. An absolutely glorious debut novel from the beloved author of Sabrina and Corina. — Emma