New Arrivals: The Best Recent Book Releases

Elaine Castillo—known for her sharp cultural criticism and formally inventive fiction—returns with a satirical love story set in the virtual workplace. When a star content moderator rises into the elite world of VR surveillance, a guarded romance begins to upend her tightly managed world. “Castillo’s flinty satire of the tech industry [transforms] into a sultry romance novel,” writes The Atlantic, “as we watch Girlie’s defenses melt.”

Jason Mott, whose Hell of a Book won the National Book Award, returns with a novel that follows two Black writers, one traveling the country on a book tour, the other facing a school community still reeling from a shooting. "A book that begs for an immediate reread, People Like Us hits the soul hard," raved BookPage. "It is haunting, vivid literary fiction at its finest."

Drawing on newly uncovered correspondence, the acclaimed Elvis biographer offers a fresh portrait of the bond between Presley and Colonel Tom Parker—one built on strategy, loyalty, and ambition. "A new entry in Guralnick's Presley chronicles is practically the equivalent of an update to Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson," writes The New York Times

This selection brings together Kincaid’s essays, reportage, and criticism from The Village Voice, Ms., and The New Yorker. From her early reflections on leaving Antigua to her writing on gardens, and language, the pieces trace five decades of clear-eyed, incisive observation.

A millennial drifter leaves a crumbling New York for a mythic Texas town where shoemakers speak in riddles and miracles might still happen. "Dwelling is social commentary wrapped into a delightful allegory about identity, work, ritual and tradecraft," raved Los Angeles Times.

Marking the 50th anniversary of Born to Run, this behind-the-scenes chronicle revisits the album that launched Springsteen into legend. Carlin—author of Bruce and definitive biographies of Paul Simon and R.E.M.—draws on rare access to reveal how pressure, ambition, and vision converged in a studio-bound crucible. A song-by-song portrait of a record that reshaped American rock.

Jerry Garcia’s life and music shaped a generation. This sweeping biography traces his journey from the California folk scene to global icon, placing the Grateful Dead at the center of a shifting American counterculture—one that embraced community, improvisation, and the pursuit of freedom.

This sharp, provocative memoir follows a woman who leaves behind corporate life to chase her culinary dreams—only to land in the punishing, male-dominated world of fine dining. “Tart is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential meets Lena Dunham's Girls, steaming with sweaty double shifts (in the kitchen and bedroom), devouring the city of London with a belly-deep sense of hunger,” writes Vogue.

Thomas Chatterton Williams, a staff writer at The Atlantic, examines the cultural and political forces that have transformed how we talk about race, identity, and power. Drawing on recent history and public debate, he considers the impact of social media, shifting liberal ideals, and the rise of new social orthodoxies.

Set in the heat and haze of 1960s Laurel Canyon, this stylish novel follows two young writers whose uneasy friendship ends in a stunning betrayal—one disappears, and the other turns her life into a novel. Loosely inspired by the real lives of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, Ella Berman’s follow-up to her Reese’s Book Club pick Before We Were Innocent explores the tensions between art and intimacy, ambition and loyalty.