BookBrowse Logo


Publishing This Week
Hello,

Among this week's 32 new and notable books are three novels BookBrowse members reviewed for our early reader program First Impressions: Paper Names by Susie Luo, a story of family, identity and the American experience; Hotel Cuba by Aaron Hamburger, about two Russian Jewish sisters trying to get to America but instead stuck in 1920s Havana; and Costanza Casati's debut Clytemnestra, giving voice to the wife of Agamemnon, legendary queen of Mycenae.

Also, look out for new books from Dave Barry, Edmund White, Justin Cronin, Hannah Pittard, Jeffrey Toobin, and Abraham Verghese—his first book since Cutting for Stone, and it's wonderful!

I've included brief details on 10 books below, and you'll find more information on all of them (including early reviews) in our New This Week section (under the "New" tab in our main menu). The "New" section is also home to our Publishing by Month lists. So, this is the place to be if you want to see what's coming soon or look back to previous months; you can sort each month by publication date, genre and title.

Enjoy!

Davina, BookBrowse Publisher
This Week's New and Notable Books
There are too many books published each week for you to read about them all, let alone read them all. So we do the legwork for you, scouring the publishers' catalogs and the pre-publication reviews to pick out what we believe to be among the best and most interesting. You can see them all in our “What’s New” section.

More about how we pick and rate books.
Paper Names book jacket
Paper Names: A Novel
by Susie Luo

Debut Author
On sale May 2 from Hanover Square Press
Genre: Literary Fiction. 288 pages
Critics' Opinion:
Members' Rating: 4.1/5

An unexpected act of violence brings together a Chinese-American family and a wealthy white lawyer in this propulsive and sweeping story of family, identity and the American experience—for fans of Jean Kwok, Mary Beth Keane and Naima Coster.

Read More
Reader Reviews
Clytemnestra book jacket
Clytemnestra: A Novel
by Costanza Casati

Debut Author
On sale May 2 from Sourcebooks
Genre: Historical Fiction. 448 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5
Members' Rating: 4.7/5

Madeline Miller's Circe meets Cersei Lannister in a stunning debut following Clytemnestra, the most notorious heroine of the ancient world and the events that forged her into the legendary queen.

Read More
Reader Reviews
Hotel Cuba book jacket
Hotel Cuba: A Novel
by Aaron Hamburger

On sale May 2 from Harper
Genre: Historical Fiction. 400 pages
Critics' Opinion:
Members' Rating: 3.9/5

From the award-winning author of The View from Stalin's Head, a stunning novel about two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to get to America to make a new life, who find themselves trapped in the sultry, hedonistic world of 1920s Havana.

Read More
Reader Reviews
Honeybees and Distant Thunder book jacket
Honeybees and Distant Thunder: A Novel
by Riku Onda

On sale May 2 from Pegasus Books
Genre: Literary Fiction. 432 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

Tender and intense, Honeybees and Distant Thunder is the unflinching story of love, courage and rivalry as three young people come to understand what it means to truly be a friend.

Read More
Swamp Story book jacket
Swamp Story: A Novel
by Dave Barry

On sale May 2 from Simon & Schuster
Genre: Literary Fiction. 320 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times bestselling author and actual Florida Man Dave Barry returns with a Florida caper full of oddballs and more twists and turns than a snake slithering away from a gator.

Read More
The Covenant of Water book jacket
The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese

On sale May 2 from Grove Press
Genre: Historical Fiction. 736 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Read More

See member benefits

Chain Gang All Stars book jacket
Chain Gang All Stars: A Novel
by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Debut Author
On sale May 2 from Pantheon Books
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History. 384 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own.

Read More
The Ferryman book jacket
The Ferryman: A Novel
by Justin Cronin

On sale May 2 from Ballantine Books
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History. 560 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia—where the truth isn't what it seems.

Read More
Fatherland book jacket
Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets
by Burkhard Bilger

On sale May 2 from Random House
Genre: Biography/Memoir. 336 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

A New Yorker staff writer investigates his grandfather, a Nazi Party Chief, in this "unflinching, gorgeously written, and deeply moving exploration of morality, family, and war" (Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain).

Read More
The Experience Machine book jacket
The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality
by Andy Clark

On sale May 2 from Pantheon Books
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment. 304 pages
Critics' Opinion: 5/5

A brilliant new theory of the mind that upends our understanding of how the brain interacts with the world

Read More
View all 32 new and notable books publishing this week
Publishing This Week is one of BookBrowse's four free newsletters. We also publish BookBrowse Highlights every Thursday; and Book Club News and Librarian News monthly.

Change settings and/or update your email address
1-408-867-6500
1-800-745-5306
Copyright 2023