Today in Bookish and Literary History, November 4

1659 Crusoe starts his a daily routine on the island

2021 The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

2025 Only Son by Kevin Moffett

Florida, 1982. A nine-year-old watches as his dead father's possessions are hauled away: his clothes and tools, his faux-leather recliner. His sensei says it's a perfect time to turn his weaknesses into weapons. His PE teacher says he runs like a pregnant ostrich. His mother takes out a personal ad. Everyone is trying to teach him a lesson but he is, it seems, a slow learner. Meanwhile, with each passing day, his father recedes, growing less and less plausible, almost a myth.

• Longlisted for The National Book Award

2025 Palaver by Bryan Washington

A life-affirming novel of family, mending, and how we learn to love, from the award-winning Bryan Washington.

2025 The Writing Room by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

Immediately after high school graduation, eighteen-year-old Maya is kicked out of her wealthy dad's NYC home; he prides himself on forcing his kids to "make their own way in the world." Maya's mom lives in Guatemala, so Maya crashes with friends while working and trying to land freelance writing gigs.

2025 The Ivory City by Emily Bain Murphy

The Devil in the White City meets Pride and Prejudice in this romantic historical murder mystery set at the 1904 World’s Fair.

2025 Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK)

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition from the author of the smash hit My Sister, the Serial Killer (“A bombshell of a book... Sharp, explosive, hilarious'—New York Times)

2025 Simone in Pieces by Janet Burroway

Readers first meet Simone Lerrante, a Belgian war orphan, as a child refugee in Sussex, England, her memory damaged by trauma. This novel offers a kaleidoscopic vision of her fractured life and piecemeal understanding of self across multiple points of view. Following her from Cambridge to New York City and across the United States—through a disastrous marriage, thwarted desire, and the purgatory of academic backwaters—the novel charts Simone’s unexpected reconnection with her past, which provides both autonomy and inspiration for her future. Janet Burroway slowly reveals a multifaceted, fascinating protagonist, who observes her own life without always allowing herself to be immersed in it. Spanning seven decades, this story is both epic and contained, rewarding readers at every turn.

2025 Last Call at the Savoy by Brisa Carleton

Set amongst the glittering backdrop of London's iconic Savoy hotel, a young woman is forced to confront her troubled past as she uncovers the story of the hotel’s first female bartender who has been erased from the history books—"an exhilarating, tender read that will leave you smiling" (Fiona Davis, bestselling author).

2025 Murder at the Christmas Emporium by Andreina Cordani (UK)

The brand new Christmas murder mystery from the author of The Twelve Days of Murder. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Alexandra Benedict and Janice Hallett's The Christmas Appeal.

• Shortlisted for The 2025 CWA Whodunnit Dagger Award

2025 The Tortoise's Tale by Kendra Coulter

A century of American history unfolds through the eyes of a giant tortoise with a heightened awareness for live music, the location of edible flowers, and the nuances of human behavior in this spellbinding debut novel.

2025 Her One Regret by Donna Freitas

From the author of the book club favorite The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano comes a riveting feminist thriller that tackles an unspeakable taboo: regretting motherhood.

2025 Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

What would you give to relive the past?

Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over it: Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four.

2025 Seven Deadly Thorns by Amber Hamilton

The Cruel Prince meets Powerless in this dark academia romantasy that will tattoo itself onto your heart.

2025 Other People's Fun by Harriet Lane

A chance encounter draws two old classmates toward an unforgettable reckoning in this "very smart and darkly funny" novel exploring power—and how it tangles with privilege, marriage, motherhood, and midlife—from the acclaimed author of Alys, Always, and Her (Flynn Berry, author of Northern Spy).

2025 With Friends Like These by Alissa Lee

A group of Harvard alums have played a secret game for decades but as the stakes rise, deadly consequences emerge from old lies. An unputdownable debut thriller for readers of the suspenseful novels of Julia Bartz and Katy Hays.

2025 A Complete Fiction by R.L. Maizes

With little evidence, would-be author P.J. Larkin serves a "nibble" on the trendy new social-media app Crave, accusing editor George Dunn of stealing the novel she submitted to him for publication

2025 Under a Fire-Red Sky by Geraldine McCaughrean (UK)

With World War II on their doorstep, the children of Greenwich, England, are being evacuated. But on the train meant to take them to safety, four of them decide they aren’t ready to leave home. They climb out the carriage window just in time, forging an unlikely friendship.

2025 The Great Forgotten by K. L. Murphy

One War. Two Loves. A Lifetime to Remember.

2025 Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen's Unsung Characters

Celebrate Jane Austen’s classic novels with this short story anthology starring forgotten characters as they experience their own happy endings.

2025 The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie (UK)

From internationally renowned, award-winning author Salman Rushdie, a spellbinding exploration of life, death, and what comes into focus at the proverbial eleventh hour of life.

2025 That's Not How It Happened by Craig Thomas

From the Emmy-nominated co-creator and Executive Producer of How I Met Your Mother, this smart, funny, bighearted novel for fans of Kevin Wilson and Monica Heisey, follows a family turned upside down after Hollywood decides to make a movie version of their lives.

With Audiobook narration by Cobie Smulders and Josh Radnor

2025 Estate by Cynthia Zarin

Caroline, separated from her husband, finds herself drawn to Lorenzo, who has not one but two other lovers. In these propulsive pages, Caroline herself speaks during a summer of erotic intensity and crisis, recording the stories of seduction, deception, and make-believe she and Lorenzo tell each other―but how true are any of them? Not a sequel to Cynthia Zarin's Inverno but an astounding mirror image in which revelations and responsibilities collide, Estate is a tight, compressed tour de force that sweeps across time and space, from New Guinea to word games, Italian cinema to communication theory, bringing to mind Annie Ernaux and Elena Ferrante, charting the exigencies of desire―and asking how can a person disappear in a hall of stories and reflections?Many of your stories are about this, how you acquired the last thing you wanted, says Caroline to Lorenzo. But what does Caroline want? How elastic is love? Of Inverno, Sigrid Nunez wrote in The New York Times, “To see the chaos of suffering shaped into something beautiful is one of the main reasons we turn to art.” In Estate, a summer counterpart to wintry Inverno, Caroline reassembles her field of vision from a trove of gleaming shards.

2025 False War by Carlos Manuel Álvarez

The characters in False War are ambivalent castaways living lives of deep estrangement from their home country, stranded in an existential no-man’s land. Some of them want to leave and can’t, others do leave but never quite get anywhere.