The Millions looks at the year ahead in books
The year 2014 is a banner one for big readers. That’s according to the readers at the Millions, whose editors have compiled a list of the books they’re looking forward to -- 89 titles in all.
Think about that for a moment: 89 titles. I bet you didn’t read 89 books last year -- I’m a professional and I didn’t -- and the Millions is telling us there will be 89 excellent books to read in the year ahead. And their list only goes to August.
The list includes novels and short story collections, memoirs and criticism. It’s a little light on the heavy-duty nonfiction, the histories, economic exposés, the explorations of health and poverty and urbanism and war -- so if those are the type of books you might like to read, well, there are more than 89 books in store for you.
What the Millions is particularly good at is new fiction, interesting work from independent presses and emerging writers. In this category are Kyle Minor’s short story collection “Praying Drunk” from Sarabande Books, the novel “A Life in Men” by Gina Frangello from Algonquin, Roundabout Press’ debut, “Vernon Downs” by Jaime Clarke, and “California” by Edan Lepucki, a regular contributor at the Millions and one of our Faces to Watch in 2014.
That doesn’t mean the site has ignored the major works of the year. National Book Award winners Richard Powers, William T. Vollmann and Peter Mathiessen all have new works of fiction coming out this year. There are new short fiction collections from MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Dinaw Mengestu and Stuart Dybek. Literary favorite Haruki Murakami will publish a new novel, as will Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham.
Los Angeles readers take note: New novels are coming from two stellar writers who call the city home. April brings both Michelle Huneven’s “Off Course” and Mona Simpson’s “Casebook.”
The Millions has provided a sentence or two of context for each of its picks. It took 9,100 words to describe the 89 titles -- a reader’s head start on the new year.
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