New month, new books! Book Light is our Dandelion Chandelier curated list of the most-anticipated new book releases every month, and next up is November 2023. We think the perfect November reading list should be a cornucopia: overflowing with ideas, laughter, stories, tears, provocations and surprises. Feeling like almost too much, and then turning out to be just enough. So what are the best new book releases of November 2023? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found: the best, most anticipated new novels, poetry, essay collections, memoirs and other nonfiction books coming out in November 2023.
what are the most anticipated new book releases coming in November 2023?
Wondering what to read in November 2023? We’ve surveyed the landscape, and rounded up a list of the best new books coming this November.
new novels and poetry in November 2023
In the world of fiction, there are new novels from luminaries including Michael Cunningham, Sigrid Nunez and Ed Park. Gabriel Bump and Naomi Alderman are back with new novels. Ad Claire Keegan returns with a trio of intertwined stories about the complexities of relationships between men and women.
new nonfiction in November 2023
The big news in the nonfiction aisle is the release of the long-awaited memoir from Barbra Streisand, My Name is Barbra. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore has penned a memoir about life as an artist. We’ll also see a new collection of essays from poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracey K. Smith. A biography of Willa Cather. And a sweeping cultural history of eyeliner.
Here’s our take on the best new novels and nonfiction books coming in November 2023. You can pre-order them now.
new book releases November 7, 2023
1. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez.
The Vulnerables is the long-awaited next work from the author of some of our favorite novels, including The Friend and What Are You Going Through. In it, “a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.”
2. Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park.
The alternative history Same Bed Different Dreams is already garnering rave reviews and buzz. In this imagined secret history of Korea, the author muses on the traces history leaves on the present. A present “loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media.”
3. The Future by Naomi Alderman.
The author of The Power returns with The Future, another wish-fulfillment/dream-of-revenge novel. In it, “a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.”
4. To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul by Tracy K. Smith.
In To Free the Captives, the Pulitzer Prize winner and former poet laureate of the United States “draws on several avenues of thinking—personal, documentary, and spiritual—to understand who we are as a nation and what we might hope to mean to one another.”
5. My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand.
My Name is Barbra is the long-awaited memoir from the legendary singer songwriter. An EGOT winner (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), this is the first time Streisand has told her own story in her own words. With a voice like no other (she’s been nominated for a Grammy 46 times), we can’t wait to read what she has to say.
6. Touching the Art by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.
Touching the Art is “a mixture of memoir, biography, criticism, and social history, and an interrogation of the possibilities of artistic striving, the limits of the middle-class mindset, the legacy of familial abandonment, and what art can and cannot do.”
7. The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture by Courtney Thorsson.
The Sisterhood is a powerful account of how a group of Black women writers came together to nurture and support each other, and ultimately transformed the literary landscape in America. “One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves “The Sisterhood,” the group―which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others―would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.”
8. Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land.
The author of the groundbreaking nonfiction book Maid, a wrenching personal account of life at the margins of the working class in America, returns with Class. In it, we follow the next chapter of her story “as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn’t understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line,” this is an up-close view of how even a big break doesn’t solve all problems – financially or otherwise.
9. World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music by Jeff Tweedy.
In World Within a Song, the “Wilco front man and New York Times bestselling author shares fifty songs that changed his life. We learn about the real-life experiences behind each one, as well as what he’s learned about how music and life intertwine and enhance each other.”
new book releases November 14, 2023
10. Day: A Novel by Michael Cunningham.
Post-pandemic, there has been a wave of fiction meditating or elaborating on the experience of isolation, fear of contagion and how one reacts under immense pressure. Day is in that genre, and many are proclaiming it the best of its kind. The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours tells a new tale set in a brownstone in Brooklyn on three dates: April 5, 2019; April 5, 2020; and April 5, 2021.
11. The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump.
The New Naturals is the latest from the author of Everywhere You Don’t Belong. In it, we follow the story of a bereaved young Black mother who flees with her husband to Western Massachusetts to “attempt to found an underground utopia.” Several unlikely characters are drawn to this place of grief and solace. “But no matter how much these people all yearn for meaning and a sanctuary from the existential dread of life above the surface, what happens if this new society can’t actually work? What then?”
12. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan.
The acclaimed author of Small Things Like These and Foster returns with So Late in the Day, a collection of three short stories that together examine the complexities, challenges and potential menace of gender dynamics, and provide a logical arc with her prior works.
13. Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather by Benjamin Taylor.
The new biography Chasing Bright Medusas is “a tender biography of one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century and an elegant exploration of artistic endurance, as told by a lifelong lover of Willa Cather’s work.”
14. Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir.
Who knew that eyeliner has such a rich heritage and such explanatory power? We’re keen to read this new work about how the “ubiquitous but seldom-examined product becomes a portal to history, proof both of the stunning variety among cultures across time and space and of our shared humanity. ”
15. Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin.
We read the publisher’s description of Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs & Juice, and we’re all in. “Discover the fascinating history of Black mixology and its enduring influence on American cocktail culture through 70 rediscovered, modernized, or celebrated recipes, by the James Beard Award–winning author of Jubilee.” Just in time for holiday entertaining season!
new book releases November 28, 2023
16. The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel by Nita Prose.
Fans of the gentle mystery novel The Maid, set in a 5-star Manhattan hotel, will be pleased to know that Molly Gray is back in The Mystery Guest, dealing with “a new mess. And a new mystery.”
most anticipated releases of new novels and nonfiction books in November 2023
Those are our picks for what to read this month: 16 of the best and most anticipated new book releases coming in November 2023. What’s at the top of your list? Whatever you decide, stay safe and strong and have a great month, dear reader.
