The Books of 2018 You Must Read

September 7, 2017 9:30 am | | No Comments

How do you decide what book to buy and read? There might be two separate questions and two separate answers in there. I have a great many books on my bookshelves that I have bought and never read. Some of them will get read eventually. Some will be gifted away or donated. Some will never get read. I don’t entirely know why, but that’s okay. In short, we often need several reminders to pick up a book. Sure, we might be excited about the newest Zadie Smith, but for the vast majority of authors, we have to remind readers over and over again to pick up a copy of our book (and probably Zadie’s, too). Which is fine: there are so many books published every week so it is very difficult to keep track.

Since I have a novel coming out in 2018 and have learned how important it is to make your readership aware as early and often as possible, I want to do the same for other authors. Help people find even more great books to read. More the merry and all that. So I just asked Literary Twitter for help:

I received dozens of responses. To each and everyone that shared my tweet and suggested additions: thank you! Keep ’em coming, folks: I plan on updating this post throughout the year. If you can do so, please do pre-order these books: it’s a long story, but it really does a tremendous amount of good for helping each author find a wider readership. Without further ado, here’s the list:

January

January 9th
HEART SPRING MOUNTAIN by Robin MacArthur
THE AFTERLIVES by Thomas Pierce
THE JOB OF THE WASP by Colin Winnette
FIRE SERMON by Jamie Quatro

January 16th
EVERYTHING HERE IS BEAUTIFUL by Mira T. Lee

January 30th
BRASS by Xhenet Aliu

February

February 6th
DAPHNE by Will Boast
AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones
THE HUMMINGBIRDS by Ross McMeekin
BACK TALK by Danielle Lazarin
FEEL FREE: ESSAYS by Zadie Smith

February 13th
THE DRIEST SEASON by Meghan Kenny
ALL THE CASTLES BURNED by Michael Nye

February 20th
WHERE THE DEAD SIT TALKING by Brandon Hobson
SOME HELL by Patrick Nathan

February 27th
SILVER GIRL by Leslie Pietryzk

March

March 1st
YA TE VEO by P. Scott Cunningham

March 8th
WHISKEY & RIBBONS by Leesa Cross-Smith

March 13th
THE LAST WATCHMAN OF OLD CAIRO by Michael David Lukas
PAPER IS WHITE by Hilary Zaid

March 20th
BURY WHAT WE CANNOT TAKE by Kirstin Chen
THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER by Emily X.R. Pan

Spring

MORE THAN MERE LIGHT by Jason Koo

April

April 17th
THE COMEDOWN by Rebekah Frumkin

April 24th
HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL: ESSAYS by Alexander Chee
RAIL: POEMS by Kai Carlson-Wee

May

May 1st
A LUCKY MAN: STORIES by Jamel Brinkley

May 18th
BELLY UP by Rita Bullwinkel
THE ENSEMBLE by Aja Gabel

June

June 5th
SICK: A LIFE OF LYME, LOVE, ILLNESS, AND ADDICTION by Porochista Khakpour
INVITATION TO A BONFIRE by Adrienne Celt

June 18th
NUMBER ONE CHINESE RESTAURANT by Lillian Li

July

WHAT WE WERE PROMISED by Lucy Tan

August

August 18th
THE THIRD HOTEL by Laura van den Berg

Summer

THE INCENDIARIES by Reese Okyong Kwon
IF YOU LEAVE ME by Crystal Hanak
FLORIDA by Lauren Groff
A RIVER OF STARS by Vanessa Hua
THE COLLECTED SCHIZOPHRENIAS by Esmé Weijun Wang

September

September
ANAGNORISIS: POEMS by Kyle Dargan

October

October
AND IT BEGINS LIKE THIS by LaTanya McQueen

October 18th
THE GOLDEN STATE by Lydia Kiesling

October 31st
THIRD BANK OF THE RIVER: POWER AND SURVIVAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY AMAZON by Chris Arnold

TBD

USEFUL PHRASES FOR IMMIGRANTS by May-Lee Chai
MY OLD FAITHFUL My Old Faithful by Yang Huang
THE BODY PAPERS by Grace Talusan
OHIO by Stephen Markley
THE FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE by Ingrid Rojas
NIGHT BEAST by Ruth Joffre

Follow me on Twitter @mpnye and subscribe to my TinyLetter “Until We Have Faces”. You can also pre-order my novel ALL THE CASTLES BURNED, which will be available everywhere on February 13th.

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