Happy New Year! Here are January's 20 must-read books

01 of 21

New decade, new books

jan-books — Simon & Schuster; Graydon House; Wattpad Books; HarperCollins; Knopf Doubleday; Random House; Penguin; Algonquin Books; Riverhead; Ballantine; Knopf

If the books kicking off the new decade are any indication, it should be a very good few years of reading. Here are our picks for this month's 20 new books most worth your time.

02 of 21

Creatures, by Crissy Van Meter

A dead whale. A missing groom-to-be. An absent mother's sudden reemergence. Crissy Van Meter's debut novel interrogates young woman's chaotic upbringing, tracing it through to the eve of her wedding as things start coming to a head. (Jan. 7)

03 of 21

Long Bright River, by Liz Moore

Moore's confident Philadelphia-set police procedural — set to flood bookstores with a huge print run and press campaign behind it — lives up to the hype, evolving from its genre-heavy introduction into a compelling portrayal of two siblings on different sides of the law. (Jan. 7)

04 of 21

Topics of Conversation, by Miranda Popkey

This provocative debut, consisting almost entirely of conversations between women, is threaded by an unnamed narrator meditating on desire, transformation, and yearning over 20 years of her life. (Jan. 7)

05 of 21

The Night Country, by Melissa Albert

One of 2017's very best YA novels, The Hazel Wood, ended with a cliffhanger that we've been dying to see resolved ever since. At last, here comes the sequel. (Jan. 7)

06 of 21

The Better Liar, by Tanen Jones

A woman conscripts a stranger to impersonate her dead sister; what could go wrong? Jones’ sensational debut has the bones of a thriller but reads like literary fiction: lean, shrewd, and gratifyingly real. (Jan. 14)

07 of 21

Oligarchy, by Scarlett Thomas

The latest dark comedy from the Seed collectors author immerses readers in an English boarding school, where the daughter of a Russian oligarch has arrived and quickly notices that the thinner the woman, the more special the treatment they receive. And things get weirder from there. (Jan. 14)

08 of 21

Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell

Greenwell's long-awaited follow-up to What Belongs to You expands on the world of his lauded debut, following a queer American teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria preparing to leave his time abroad, as he reflects on the various intimate, haunting encounters — sexual and otherwise — that have characterized his time away. (Jan. 14)

09 of 21

Followers, by Megan Angelo

This hot futuristic debut already has Hollywood circling (Abbi Jacobson calls it "pure gold"), and with good reason. Angelo casts a brutally satirical eye on internet fame and corporate power, following two ambitious friends (one a novelist, the other an actress) as they plot toward the success — or, more accurately, popularity — they've long aspired to. (Jan. 14)

10 of 21

Uncanny Valley, by Anna Wiener

Author Rebecca Solnit calls Wiener's memoir, about a young woman thrust into the world of Big Tech at a time of reckless and deceptive growth, "like Joan Didion at a startup." We're sold. (Jan. 14)

11 of 21

The Vanished Birds, by Simon Jimenez

A time-traveling woman feeling adrift finds a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky, who does not speak, and the two discover in each other what's missing from their own lives. But as she learns more about the boy and an urgent mission across space presents itself, it becomes clear that time is not on their side. (Jan. 14)

12 of 21

Zed, by Joanna Kavenna

Zed: A Novel by Joanna KavennaCR: Knopf Doubleday — Knopf Doubleday

It may be a new decade, but the eerie dystopia speaking to contemporary anxieties is still running strong. In this chilling effort from Kavenna, a corporation has made a perfect world based on a perfect algorithm -- that is, until it starts showing some cracks. (Jan. 14)

13 of 21

Agency, by William Gibson

The new sci-fi thriller from the mind behind Neuromancer weaves between two timelines a century apart: the first basking in the promise of a tech-heavy future, the second stuck in the fallout of an apocalypse. (Jan. 21)

14 of 21

American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins

Described as a modern-day Grapes of Wrath, Cummins' sweeping new novel tells the story of Lydia and Luca, a mother and son forced to flee their middle-class lives in Mexico for the uncertainty of the United States. (Jan. 21)

15 of 21

Follow Me to Ground, by Sue Rainsford

Rainsford's protagonists, beings of the "Ground," live in isolation in the woods, tolerated by nearby villagers for their magical healing powers. Underworld elements keep creeping into this moody fairy tale, but a young woman's liberation is the main, intriguing attraction. (Jan. 21)

16 of 21

Given, by Nandi Taylor

This Afrofuturist YA fantasy follows a young warrior who embarks on a quest to save her father's life, only to encounter everything from culture shock to shape-shifting dragons to potential romance. (Jan. 21)

17 of 21

Children of the Land, by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

The award-winning poet turns to memoir with the devastating account of his family's immigration to the U.S., from terrifying encounters with ICE offers to his father's ultimate deportation. (Jan. 28)

18 of 21

Highfire, by Eoin Colfer

The anticipated adult novel from Colfer, best known for the Artemis Fowl series, features more of that wild imagination that loyal readers have come to love (in this case, a dragon who loves vodka, Flashdance, and his Laz-Z-Boy recliner crossing paths with a troublemaking swamp rat). (Jan. 28)

19 of 21

Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu

This formally innovative new work from Yu, an acclaimed novelist as well as a writer on hit shows including Westworld, investigates Asian-American identity and Hollywood conventions through a witty, heartfelt lens. (Jan. 28)

20 of 21

Show Them a Good Time, by Nicole Flattery

Plenty of big short-story collections are coming in 2020, but few that have such strong advance endorsements. Indeed, this book about female identity already boasts raves from Sally Rooney, Melissa Broder, and more. (Jan. 28)

21 of 21

The Truants, by Kate Weinberg

A naive undergrad falls under the thrall of her sophisticated new classmates and a charismatic professor in Weinberg's moody, well-wrought debut, heavy on shades of Donna Tartt's The Secret History. (Jan. 28)