With so many great books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority by Anne Anlin Cheng and Sonnets for a Missing Key by Percival Everett.
“I know the smell of corn like a little sister sleeping beside me, wearing my clothes, and stealing my hairbrush.” The Molino (University of Arizona Press, September 2024) by Melani Martinez. First book, memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Elizabeth Wilder. Publicist: Mary Reynolds.
“There’s this myth I love most about fire.” Yr Dead (McSweeney’s, August 2024) by Sam Sax. Fourth book, first novel. Agent: Rob McQuilkin. Editor: Rita Bullwinkel. Publicist: Raj Tawney.
“Of Glory not a Beam is left” The Murmuring Grief of the Americas (Coffee House Press, August 2024) by Daniel Borzutzky. Seventh book, poetry collection. Agent: Jacqueline Ko. Editor: Erika Stevens. Publicist: Laura Graveline.
“It was a strange, sultry summer, the summer of the Subway Pricker, but Brooke Orr had decided not to let that interfere with the business of life in New York.” Entitlement (Riverhead Books, September 2024) by Rumaan Alam. Fourth book, novel. Agent: Julie Barer. Editor: Sarah McGrath. Publicists: Bianca Flores and Glory Anne Plata.
“As I took off / my clothes, I / watched him taking // his own off.” Scattered Snows, to the North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2024) by Carl Phillips. Twentieth book, seventeenth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Rose Sheehan.
“Let’s go to the baths today, Miss Ikuko said, so we all got ready.” Under the Eye of the Big Bird (Soft Skull Press, September 2024) by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda. Thirty-fifth of forty-three books, twenty-eighth of thirty-five books of fiction. Agent: Jacqueline Ko. Editor: Mensah Demary. Publicist: Andrea Córdova.
“As we walk, I ask my father why the lake is called lost.” The Age of Loneliness (Graywolf Press, August 2024) by Laura Marris. First book, essay collection. Agent: Ian Bonaparte. Editor: Anni Liu. Publicist: Claire Laine.
“Knock, bang, clang against / the retentive stillness of the wood.” Sonnets for a Missing Key (Red Hen Press, August 2024) by Percival Everett. Thirty-fifth book, sixth poetry collection. Agent: Melanie Jackson. Editor: Kate Gale. Publicist: Monica Fernandez.
“I pictured butterflies each time the boy was hurting me.” What if the Invader Is Beautiful (Four Way Books, September 2024) by Louise Mathias. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Ryan Murphy. Publicist: Trish Marshall.
“When I shaved my head in anticipation of chemotherapy, two things happened.” Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority (Pantheon, September 2024) by Anne Anlin Cheng. Fourth book, first essay collection. Agent: Tanya McKinnon. Editor: Anna Kaufman. Publicist: Ciara Tomlinson.
“The needle inched closer to her eye, and she tried not to flinch.” Hum (Marysue Rucci Books, August 2024) by Helen Phillips. Sixth book, third novel. Agent: Faye Bender. Editor: Marysue Rucci. Publicist: Clare Maurer.
“One summer, I promised myself that I wouldn’t miss a sunset.” Once Out of Nature: Selected Essays on the Transformation of Gender (Persea Books, September 2024) by Joy Ladin. Fifteenth book, first essay collection. Agent: None. Editor: Gabriel Fried. Publicist: Jonah Fried.
