This week is on the lighter side with 26 books on our shortlist, including one that features a well known cultural icon.
Let's Call Her Barbie by Renée Rosen is a fictionalized retelling of how the doll came to fame. "Rosen vividly portrays her characters and deftly balances covering both the highs and lows of their personal lives and the professional challenges that arise along the way, from designing the first Dreamhouse to responding to criticism…With cultural interest in Barbie still sky high, this novel is a great choice for historical fiction readers interested in strong, complex women, both in and out of the toy aisle" (Library Journal).
You'll find brief information on 10 titles below, and descriptions and reviews for all of them in our New This Week section. For more soon to publish books including paperbacks, check out BookBrowse's "What's New" section.
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.
Let's Call Her Barbie
by Renée Rosen
On sale Jan 21 from Berkley Books
Genre: Historical Fiction. 432 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen. | |
A Gorgeous Excitement: A Novel
by Cynthia Weiner
Debut Author
On sale Jan 21 from Crown
Genre: Literary Fiction. 368 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
A dazzling novel about one young woman's summer of infinite possibility... | |
Ballerina
by Patrick Modiano
On sale Jan 21 from Yale University Press
Genre: Literary Fiction. 112 pages
Critics' Consensus: 5/5
A critically acclaimed #1 bestseller in France—a novel of art, desire, and time lost and regained, from Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano. | |
Mona Acts Out: A Novel
by Mischa Berlinski
On sale Jan 21 from Liveright/W.W. Norton
Genre: Literary Fiction. 320 pages
Critics' Consensus: 5/5
An exuberant, darkly humorous novel by the National Book Award–nominated author of Fieldwork. | |
The New Internationals
by David Wright Falade
On sale Jan 21 from Atlantic Monthly Press
Genre: Historical Fiction. 304 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
A stunning novel of post-war Paris that interweaves a coming-of-age story, a cross-cultural romance, and a portrait of the international youth at a definitive moment in contemporary history. | |
Save Me, Stranger: Stories
by Erika Krouse
On sale Jan 21 from Flatiron Books
Genre: Short Stories. 224 pages
Critics' Consensus: 5/5
From Edgar Award-winning author Erika Krouse, a visceral, dazzling collection of stories set across the globe about characters desperate for salvation. | |
Mask of the Deer Woman
by Laurie L. Dove
On sale Jan 21 from Berkley Books
Genre: Thrillers. 336 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. | |
Boudicca: A Novel
by P. C. Cast
On sale Jan 21 from William Morrow
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History. 480 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
From P. C. Cast, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the landmark House of Night urban fantasy series, comes an epic, lusty, magic-filled romantasy about British warrior queen Boudicca. Perfect for fans of Sue Lynn Tan and Madeline Miller! | |
No Human Involved: The Serial Murder of Black Women and Girls and the Deadly Cost of Police Indifference
by Cheryl L. Neely
On sale Jan 21 from Beacon Press
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion. 264 pages
Critics' Consensus: 5/5
An urgent examination of the invisibility of Black women and girls as victims of targeted killings, and the lack of police intervention and media coverage. | |
Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
by Tao Leigh Goffe
Debut Author
On sale Jan 21 from Doubleday
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment. 384 pages
Critics' Consensus: 4/5
A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today. | |
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