The
approach of a new year fills us with rosy excitement for
several reasons: the
new destinations on our radar, some
conscious travel resolutions we’re vowing to keep, and now,
brand-new books. Our paperback friends have kept us afloat through
yet another uncertain year, and we’ve been on the hunt for some
hot-off-the-press literature to stuff into our carry-on in
2022.

From debut novels to a collection of poems, these titles muse on
themes spanning life in postcolonial Portugal to
love after death, and the tensions and nuances of the great
American dream.

Seven great new reads to bookmark for 2022

Olga Dies Dreaming By Xochitl Gonzalez

4th January

Xochitl Gonzalez’ debut novel tells the story of Olga Acevedo’s
life as a Manhattan party planner – a job which has her running
ludicrous errands for the luxe-seeking New York elite, and one
which seems to be putting her at uncomfortable odds with her Puerto
Rican roots. Dissecting familial strife and political corruption
against the backdrop of Puerto Rican Brooklyn, Gonzalez chronicles
the American Dream with zealous energy, honesty and wit.

Pre-order now

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

11th January

We’re still recovering from reading T Magazine’s editor-in-chief
and author Hanya Yanagihara’s gut-wrenching debut novel A Little
Life (you’ll get no spoilers from us). Delving into the nuances of
the American dream, Yanagihara’s second novel, To Paradise,
explores the grand experiment that is the United States over the
course of three centuries. If the beautifully wrought characters
and visceral emotion of the author’s first novel are anything to go
by, then this new work is bound to keep us all up reading well past
witching hour.

Pre-order
now

The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud

10th March

Clover Stroud’s writing explores the human heart with such
razor-sharp honesty that her books often leave us gasping for air
between chapters. Her first work, The Wild Other, is a memoir of
her childhood spent in rural Wiltshire – an idyllic existence that
was shattered when her mother was left permanently brain-damaged
after a horrific riding accident, when Stroud was 16. Her third
book, The Red of My Blood, explores yet another gut-punching loss
in the writer’s life: the sudden death of her sister from breast
cancer, days after she’d been told she had years to live. Charting
the year after her sister’s death with the same emotional clarity
as seen in her previous two books, Stroud’s love letter to her
sibling is an enduring, hopeful and transcendent story of life
after death.

Pre-order now

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho

4th January

The complexities and depth of female friendships have long been
a source of creative inspiration for writers. Jean Chen Ho plucks
from this source in her debut novel Fiona and Jane, a witty and
unsentimental book that traces the lives of two Taiwanese-American
women across two decades, as they encounter love, heartbreak, loss
and joy along the way.

Pre-order
now

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

5th April

From the author of the acclaimed 2019 novel On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous comes this heartfelt poetry collection from Ocean
Vuong, written after his mother died following a battle with breast
cancer. Sitting at the paradoxical edges between grief and
survival, Vuong’s intimate second collection of poems searches for
life in the aftermath of his mother’s passing, moving through his
own vivid memory to find restoration from loss.

Pre-order
now

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

22nd February

For Alice, the underground pool in the unnamed city in which she
swims provides a stabilising force against the dementia she battles
with on a daily basis, and a comforting balm for the strained
relationships of her life on land. Until one day, when a crack
beneath the surface of the pool forces its closure, and Alice must
navigate the fractures of her own memory and the troubles this
begins to cause for her husband and daughter.

Pre-order now

The Wind Whistling in the Cranes by Lídia Jorge

8th February

Set in the wake of the Portuguese Colonial War, this novel by
celebrated septuagenarian author Lídia Jorge has finally been
translated into English 20 years after its original release in
Portuguese. The story of two families brought together and then
wrenched apart, the saga vividly brings to life a country
politically altered by postcolonial migration, set against a
backdrop of a Romeo and Juliet-style love story.

Pre-order now

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