May 16, 2026
Irish noir, Danish divorce, Nigerian hauntings, a Bible-based female empowerment story, and women in Depression-era Mississippi fighting against the male establishment await you this week. Debuts and seasoned authors intermingle in this irresistible mix of writers who will astound you with their literary range, from the mythic to the gritty. Hard to pick what to read first.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Vilhelm’s Room
By Tove Ditlevsen
Published by FSG
Translated by Sophie Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell
If you’ve read the memoirs that make up the haunting Copenhagen Trilogy, you’ll be eager to discover this publication. Ditlevsen had an uncanny ability to write about misery while making it fascinatingly palatable. This was her last book before her death in 1976 and, as with all her work, it is indomitably self-referential. Most everything in the novel happened to her, including the unhappy marriage to Victor Andreasen, who sexually abused Helle, her 15-year-old daughter by a previous husband. As in all her work, she gives evidence of how literature can help one work through trauma. You can also catch up with Ditlevsen’s poetry in a newly released selection.
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Canon
By Paige Lewis
Published by Viking
This sizzling novel will have wide appeal, especially for readers who love inventive queer feminist quest stories. Lewis mixes genres in surprising ways and throws in poems to guide the narrative. Yara meets a very earthly God as she is about to jump in the holy Spring River to cleanse herself of a man’s touch. When God chooses her to kill the leader of the Bad Guys, she teams up with the prophet, Adrena, who is eager to please God through her work with the Good Guys. These two improbable protagonists determine to make God’s wishes come true. Never has the old-fashioned ‘hero’s journey’ been such fun. Paige’s outstanding, unconventional debut is fresh, funny, and smart.
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The Calamity Club
By Kathryn Stockett
Published by Spiegel & Grau
Seventeen years after the memorable bestseller, The Help, Stockett returns with a deep dive into the dark history of the American South. Her research in Mississippi, and then Bali, led her to the subject of eugenics and jumpstarted her new novel. Meg, abandoned by her mother, is an “unadoptable” orphan in 1933 Oxford. Birdie’s path converges with Meg’s when she comes to Oxford in hopes that her wealthy sister will give her money and she becomes a bookkeeper at the asylum. Meg and Birdie will band together to fight for the rights of women to take control of their own bodies. This enticing novel has a singular resonance today—almost a hundred years later.
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One Leg on Earth
By 'Pemi Aguda
Published by Norton
Aguda’s 2024 collection, Ghostroots, was a critical success. Her first novel mixes the supernatural with horror, all wrapped up in radiant prose. In the city of Lagos, there is an epidemic of pregnant women drowning themselves. Yosoye, a shy young architect, has come to work on an exciting new project, Omi City. She is ready to reinvent herself. At a local food joint, she is approached by a smooth-talking man and, well, you know the rest. Something is rotten in Omi City—and now Yosoye discovers she is pregnant. Aguda’s agile handling of themes, from Yosoye’s personal transformation to the changes around her, proves her to be the real deal.
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All Them Dogs
By Djamel White
Published by Riverhead
White channels childhood memories of being a misfit to create an intricate world of West Dublin’s gangsters in his debut novel. Tony is recently back from England, where he fled after killing a mob boss. His new boss, Flute, is “stony and quiet.” It is not long before an ill-fated attraction arises. The entire cast of underworld characters reminds one of The Wire or The Sopranos, transplanted to Ireland. Amid this violent, perilous environment, desires come into conflict with what is expected. And here, love and death are not mutually exclusive. If you like propellant crime stories by fresh, young voices, rejoice: Djamel White, just 28, is a welcome addition to the throngs of neo-noir authors.
