Yong, who has become known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The Atlantic helping to understand the pandemic, here turns his attention to sensory experiences in the animal kingdom. All creatures, from ticks to elephants, perceive the world in different ways. Yong does his best to put the readers in those bubbles of perception.
Random House, June 21
Picking up where Gurnah’s 1994 novel “Paradise” left off, on the eve of the Great War in German East Africa, “Afterlives” is another multigenerational, character-driven saga of a modern Tanzania under European imperialism.
Riverhead, August 23
Pasulka, a journalist, spent a decade following Brooklyn drag culture, which she says contains “the most experimental corners of the drag world as well as the most professional” and is “more messy, free-spirited and avant-garde” than how the art form appears. in his increasingly mainstream appearances on TV and elsewhere.
Simon & Schuster, June 7
These 12 linked stories are set in a native Maine community where Talty grew up as a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation. His debut collection, full of surprising drama, offers a fresh look at the precarious lives of marginalized people in the 21st century.
Tin House, July 5
The English novelist Pym (“Excellent Women”, “Quartet in Autumn”) went in and out of fashion during her lifetime and beyond. Byrne’s biography comes at a time of renewed interest. Rhys is best known for ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, her feminist prequel to ‘Jane Eyre’. Seymour records her childhood on the Caribbean island of Dominica and the rest of her often turbulent and challenging life.
“The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym” (William Collins, June 7)
“I Once Lived Here: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys” (Norton, June 28)
This chameleon of a book was inspired by the author’s discovery of taped interviews between the poet Frank O’Hara and her father, the art critic Peter Schjeldahl. Calhoun’s father idolized the poet and had hoped to complete a biography; this book tells of Calhoun’s attempt to finish it himself. Even if you’re not familiar with O’Hara’s poetry (you might start with “Having a Coke With You”), there’s plenty to like in this memoir.
Grove, June 14
Stodola’s sobering examination of the seaside resort economy jumps from Thailand to Cap d’Antibes to Senegal, looking at why these manufactured environments became the vacation ideal and how climate change threatens them all.
Ecco, June 28
Kiki has become known to her university for giving her classmates romantic advice and helping members of the school’s Afro-Caribbean Society avoid heartbreak. But her judgment is called into question after she kisses a man she called unfit; to save face, she and the man build a fake relationship that becomes very real.
William Morrow, July 5
this debut drop readers into the early 2000s in the Canary Islands. The narrator is a 10-year-old who adores her best friend, Isora, who is brash and fearless. Over the summer, their relationship comes to a head when every girl comes into her own. Read this coming-of-age story for its relentless language and vibrant sense of place.
Astra House, Aug 2
No stranger to eccentric obsessions in his acclaimed films, such as ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and ‘Grizzly Man’, Herzog was inspired to write his first novel about Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier living on a small island nearly 30 years after the end of World War II. in the Philippines, unwilling to believe the war was over. Herzog developed a friendship with Onoda before the ex-soldier died in 2014.
Penguin Press, June 14
