You are crossing the border—to where, you’re no longer sure. You’ve been walking and walking and you are no longer aware of your body. The man at the gate has a familiar face. This month’s genre-bending releases are full of important conversations and questions of identity. Get a visitor from an alternative future in They Will Drown in Their Mother’s Tears by Johannes Anyuru; join the Herons, an elite group of warriors in A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price; and examine identity with a new collection of stories from Dr. Malka Older!
Head below for the full list of genre-bending titles heading your way in November!
Keep track of all the new releases here. Note: All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher.
WEEK ONE (November 5)
They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears—Johannes Anyuru, translated by Saskia Vogel (Two Lines)
In the midst of a terrorist attack on a bookstore reading by Göran Loberg, a comic book artist famous for demeaning drawings of the prophet Mohammed, one of the attackers, a young woman, has a sudden premonition that something is wrong, changing the course of history. Two years later, this unnamed woman invites a famous writer to visit her in the criminal psychiatric clinic where she’s living. She then shares with him an incredible story—she is a visitor from an alternate future. Despite discrepancies that make the writer highly skeptical, he becomes increasingly fascinated by her amazing tale: in her dystopian future, any so-called “anti-Swedish” citizens are forced into a horrific ghetto called The Rabbit Yard. As events begin to spiral and the author becomes more and more implicated in this woman’s tale, he comes to believe the unbelievable: she’s telling the truth.
Skein Island—Aliya Whitely (Titan)
Skein Island, a private refuge twelve miles off the coast of Devon, lies in turbulent waters. Few receive the invitation to stay for one week, free of charge. If you are chosen, you must pay for your stay with a story from your past; a Declaration for the Island’s vast library. What happens to your Declaration after you leave the island is none of your concern. From the monsters of Ancient Greece to the atrocities of World War II, from heroes to villains with their seers and sidekicks by their sides, Skein Island looks through the roles we play, and how they form and divide us. Powerful and disturbing, it is a story over which the characters will fight for control. Until they realise the true enemy is the story itself.
A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee— Danny Fingeroth (St Martins)
Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived. But Lee’s career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others’ work? Or was he something else altogether? With exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends—and detractors—Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee’s achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life—and even past his death. With unique access to Lee’s personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee’s life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him.
WEEK TWO (November 12)
The Pursuit of William Abbey—Claire North (Orbit)
South Africa in the 1880s. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William. William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die.
WEEK THREE (November 19)
…And Other Disasters—Malka Older (Mason JarPress)
…AND OTHER DISASTERS, the smart and moving collection of short fiction and poetry from acclaimed author Malka Older, examines otherness, identity and compassion across a spectrum of possible existence. In stories about an AI built for empathy, a corps of fighting midwives traveling to a new planet, and a young anthropologist who returns to study the cultures of a dying Earth, Older’s characters grapple with what it means to belong and be othered, to cling to the past and face the future, all while navigating a precarious world, riddled with natural and man-made disasters.
WEEK FOUR (November 26)
No new titles.
