Switch out TikTok for one of these book releases this month. Below, our pick of the best books arriving in February 2024.
POVO, Sweatshop
Release date: January 18
In this Sweatshop anthology, Adam Novaldy Anderson has assembled over 20 writers who offer a glimpse beneath the hood of Australia's reputation as The Lucky Country. Through a series of eclectic essays and short stories, Povo gives voice to writers from First Nations, migrant and refugee backgrounds to "reveal the true wealth and beauty of Australia’s cultural melting pots".
Alphabetical Diaries, Sheila Heti
Release date: February 4
Sheila Heti entered 500,000 sentences from a decade's worth of journal entries into Excel and sorted them alphabetically. This is the result. Through extensive edits, Heti has crafted a skeleton of her preoccupations: writing, work, sex, where to live and who with. Intimate and innovating, the exercise displays Heti at her most curious and thought-provoking self.
Ordinary Human Failings, Megan Nolan
Release date: February 6
The Waterford-born author behind Acts of Desperation is set to debut her second work of fiction, this time set in 90s London. It follows a tabloid journalist who, desperate to land a career-making scoop, learns of a dead child on a council estate, with the fingers of blame pointed at the 10-year-old child of reclusive Irish immigrants. A family drama that deals in themes of generational trauma, class, and moral grey areas.
Fourteen Days, Douglas Preston
Release date: February 6
Writers from The Authors Guild have collaborated on this experimental novel set in Lower East Side residential building during the early days of Covid-19 lockdowns. As each night passes, more tenants gather on the building's rooftop to tell stories and escape their forced solitude, forging community in the bleakest of circumstances. Each character has been secretly written by one of the contributing authors, which includes names like Meg Wolitzer, Celeste Ng, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Margaret Atwood and more, to create a lived-in cast of personalities we all encountered during this global moment of strife.
I Heard Her Call My Name, Lucy Santé
Release date: February 13
In her memoir, the Belgian-American critic and writer Lucy Santé recounts her move to New York City in the 70s, and the bohemian world she inhabited, the friends she made, and those she lost to the AIDS crisis. But the story gains traction when Santé confronts with grace and wit her transition later in life – the missing piece that when secured tied everything in place.
Neighbours and Other Stories, Diane Oliver
Release date: February 14
Diane Oliver was a month-out from graduating from the Iowa Writer's Workshop when she was killed in a motorcycle accident aged only 22. In 1966, she was far ahead of her time, with her only published works comprising six short stories about living under Jim Crow racism in America.
Thora, Tilly Lawless
Release date: February 15
A while back Tilly Lawless confirmed she had two books in the works, a genre-bending memoir and a novel. The former debuted in 2021, and the latter, Thora, will land on bookshelves from February 2024. Set in 2009 in the familiar Mid North Coast setting of Lawless' Instagram captions, Thora follows Rhiannon, who is forced from her local high school to one in Coffs Harbour. Separated from her best friend Ellie, the teenager quickly becomes obsessed by Vanora, a student at her new high school who shares her dysfunctional home life.
Grief is for People, Sloane Crosley
Release date: February 27
I first encountered Sloane Crosley through her acclaimed novel Cult Classic, a witty and wry tale about the absurdities of modern dating. Now, in her first memoir, Crosley turns her razor-sharp observational skills on grief, unpicking a period in which her home was burglarised and, exactly a month later, her closest friend Richard died by suicide.
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