This is a list of the upcoming 2021 Most Anticipated Literary Fiction Books, limited to hardcover new releases. I’ll be updating this list as more titles are announced, so stay tuned for more!
If there’s a book you think belongs on this list, please do drop me a line!
For more books coming soon, see the list of Upcoming New Release Books.
Whereabouts
What It's About: Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars...Publication Date: August 30, 2018
What It's About: Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars...Publication Date: August 30, 2018
How Beautiful We Were
What It's About: From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an America oil company.
"We should have known the end was near."
So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were...Publication Date: March 9, 2021
What It's About: From the celebrated author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, comes a sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an America oil company.
"We should have known the end was near."
So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were...Publication Date: March 9, 2021
Klara and the Sun
What It's About: From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans...Publication Date: March 2, 2021
What It's About: From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans...Publication Date: March 2, 2021
My Year Abroad
What It's About: Librarian note: Please see alternate cover edition for Powells Indiespensable here:
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection...Publication Date: February 2, 2021
What It's About: Librarian note: Please see alternate cover edition for Powells Indiespensable here:
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection...Publication Date: February 2, 2021
Peaces
What It's About: When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment--and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive...Publication Date: April 6, 2021
What It's About: When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment--and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive...Publication Date: April 6, 2021
The Kindest Lie
What It's About: A promise could betray you.
It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager...Publication Date: February 2, 2021
What It's About: A promise could betray you.
It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager...Publication Date: February 2, 2021
The Upstairs House
What It's About: “Formidable new talent” (San Francisco Chronicle) Julia Fine, author of the “surreally feministic tale” (Family Circle) What Should Be Wild, returns with a provocative meditation on new motherhood—Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening—in which a postpartum woman’s psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown...Publication Date: February 23, 2021
What It's About: “Formidable new talent” (San Francisco Chronicle) Julia Fine, author of the “surreally feministic tale” (Family Circle) What Should Be Wild, returns with a provocative meditation on new motherhood—Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening—in which a postpartum woman’s psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children’s book writer Margaret Wise Brown...Publication Date: February 23, 2021
First Person Singular: Stories
What It's About: A riveting new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami.
The eight masterful stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator: a lonely man. Some of them (like With the Beatles, Cream and On a Stone Pillow ) are nostalgic looks back at youth...Publication Date: April 6, 2021
What It's About: A riveting new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami.
The eight masterful stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator: a lonely man. Some of them (like With the Beatles, Cream and On a Stone Pillow ) are nostalgic looks back at youth...Publication Date: April 6, 2021
Of Women and Salt
What It's About: In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette...Publication Date: March 30, 2021
What It's About: In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette...Publication Date: March 30, 2021
Hamlet Retelling (Hogarth Shakespeare)
What It's About: Coming in 2021. Gillian Flynn, author of the bestseller Gone Girl, is to write a new twist on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Flynn is the latest author to be commissioned by the Hogarth Shakespeare project to rewrite the Bard's works. The series launches in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.Publication Date: Not Available
What It's About: Coming in 2021. Gillian Flynn, author of the bestseller Gone Girl, is to write a new twist on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Flynn is the latest author to be commissioned by the Hogarth Shakespeare project to rewrite the Bard's works. The series launches in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.Publication Date: Not Available
Harlem Shuffle
What It's About: Not a lot is known about this upcoming release yet, but it's tentatively planned for Fall 2021. Whitehead has described it as a 'lively heist' novel that a bit lighter in tone. It's set in Harlem in the 1960's.Publication Date: Not Available
What It's About: Not a lot is known about this upcoming release yet, but it's tentatively planned for Fall 2021. Whitehead has described it as a 'lively heist' novel that a bit lighter in tone. It's set in Harlem in the 1960's.Publication Date: Not Available
I am so excited for Klara and the Sun! I have not seen this cover before – intriguing!
me too! it’s on my shortlist of must reads for when it comes out! :)
I recently requested The Upstairs House on NetGalley and am dying to start reading :) Great list!
ooo happy reading, and thank you! :)
Omg thank you so much for this list. I have been waiting forever for Imbolo to write another book. I loved Behold the Dreamers. You just made my day 😀
That’s great to hear, thank you for dropping by! :)
Very excited to get to Klara and the Sun!