Culture
11 Must-Read February 2023 Books
Featuring Jen Beagin's Big Swiss, a collection of surreal short stories, Patricia Field's memoir, and more.
Couplets by Maggie Millner - Macmillan, February 7
Maggie Millner’s debut genre-bending work is a romance written in verse, following a woman who leaves her stable relationship with a man to begin an intoxicating affair with a woman that opens a portal to queerness, kink, and an unprecedented level of desire (a Saturn Return book if we’re ever seen one!)
Macmillan
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin - Scribner, February 7
In this tantalizing novel, a woman working as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. When she recognizes her at a dog park, the two becomes enmeshed in a hot love affair undermined by one big secret.
Scribner
Brutes by Dizz Tate - Catapult, February 7
In this debut coming-of-age novel that brings to mind Virgin Suicides if it were set in Florida, the preacher’s daughter goes missing, and a group of thirteen-year-old girls become obsessed with the mystery — uncovering a dark secret about their town that will haunt them forever.
Catapult
Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation by Camonghne Felix - Penguin Random House, February 14
“Dyscalculia” is a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math (raise your hand if you also have this!), but that childhood diagnosis becomes a useful framework for Camonghne Felix in her adulthood — particularly after she goes through an earth-shattering breakup that lands her in the hospital. It’s there that she unwinds childhood trauma and past heartbreak through the lens dyscalculia, making her ponder what else she’s miscalculated in her life.
Penguin Random House
Sad Sexy Catholic by Lauren Milici - CLASH Books, February 14
God bless this poetry collection that follows a twenty-something navigating the annoying at best — and traumatizing at worse — emotional runoff that comes from a religious upbringing.
CLASH Books
Evil Flowers by Gunnhild Øyehaug - Macmillan, February 14
In this collection of 25 short stories inspired by our favorite queen of brevity Lydia Davis, Gunnhild Øyehaug tells strange webs of surprising stories. In one, a section of an ornithologist’s brain slips into the toilet bowl, removing her ability to remember or recognize types of birds; in another, a museum sinks into the ground.
Macmillan
Users by Colin Winnette - Soft Skull, February 21
For fans of Severance — both Ling Ma’s pivotal novel and the Apple+ series starring Adam Scott — as well Sloane Crosley’s sci-fi novel Cult Classic, about running into all your exes, comes Users. Miles is a lead creative at a VR company that allows users to be haunted by the ghost of an ex-lover. Things are going well until Miles becomes the target of a series of death threats, blurring his own sense of reality and threatening to collapse his whole life.
Soft Skull
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris - Little, Brown, and Company, February 14
Palo Alto is synonymous with Allbirds and Big Tech now, but it wasn’t always. In his new book, Malcolm Harris traces exactly how Silicon Valley was built — from its origin as as a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Native burial grounds to the powerful and often disastrous tech engine it is today.
Little, Brown, and Company
Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All The Rules by Patricia Field - HarperCollins, February 14
We can’t wait for this memoir from the legendary costume designer for Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada and Emily in Paris — as well as famous BFF of the one and only Kim Cattrall. But before all of that, Field was the owner of Pat Field, the longtime East Village haven for outcasts and party kids, serving as a rock ’n’ roll mother to everyone from Amanda Lepore to Patti Smith.
HarperCollins
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai - Viking, February 23
From the author of the devastatingly beautiful The Great Believers comes a new novel about a professor-slash-podcaster who returns to her old boarding school to investigate the 1995 murder of her former roommate. As she reflects on her life from that era, she wonders if she may have overlooked a clue key to solving the crime.
Viking
Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns - Penguin Random House, February 28
A genre-flipped reboot of the 1970s film Taxi Driver, Priya Guns’ fiercely satirical dark comedic novel is about a ride share driver barely holding it together. Broke, alone, and on the hunt for love and financial security, she finally lets down her guard in love, only to have her girlfriend do something unforgivable — and everything explodes.
Penguin Random House