Today in Bookish and Literary History, January 28

1813 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - UK

2014 Red Rising by Pierce Brown - US

A 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown. It is the first book and eponym of the series. The novel, set in the future on Mars, follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Golds.

2020 A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bollen - US

A Beautiful Crime is a twisty grifter novel with a thriller running through its veins. But it is also a meditation on love, class, race, sexuality, and the legacy of bohemian culture. Tacking between Venice’s soaring aesthetic beauty and its imminent tourist-riddled collapse, Bollen delivers a "brilliantly conceived international crime story" (Good Morning America).

2020 Obsidian by Thomas King - US/CAN

When relics of the mysterious Obsidian murders resurface in Chinook, Thumps DreadfulWater is determined to close this case once and for all.

2020 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu - US

“A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood” (Vanity Fair) and adeeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

• NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

2020 Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo - Mexico/US

This unforgettable memoir from a prize-winning poet about growing up undocumented in the United States recounts the sorrows and joys of a family torn apart by draconian policies and chronicles one young man’s attempt to build a future in a nation that denies his existence.

• A 2020 International Latino Book Award Finalist

2020 The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi - Palestine/US

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history

2020 Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon - US

From award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a beautiful, aching novel about three kids orphaned in 1960s Laos—and how their destinies are entwined across decades, anointed by Hernan Diaz as “one of those rare novels that stays with us to become a standard with which we measure other books.”

2025 Sweat by Emma Healey - UK

All Liam ever wanted was to help me reach my full potential. And he always knew what was best. Until the day he pushed me far beyond my limits, and I walked out of our flat and away from our relationship to good.

2025 The Vanishing Point: Stories by Paul Theroux - US

The stories in Paul Theroux’s fascinating new collection are both exotic and domestic, their settings ranging from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each focuses on life’s vanishing points―a moment when seemingly all lines running through one’s life converge, and one can see no farther, yet must deal with the implications. With the insight, subtlety, and empathy that has long characterized his work, Theroux has written deeply moving, character-driven stories about memory, longing, and the passing of time, reclaiming his status, once again, as a master of the form.

2025 We Could Be Rats by Emily R. Austin - CAN

“A must read” (Haley Jakobson, New York Times Editor’s Choice author), We Could Be Rats is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.

2025 Bronshtein in the Bronx by Robert Littell - US

A wry, thought-provoking fictional portrayal of ten pivotal weeks in the life of Leon Trotsky, inspired by the Russian revolutionary's exile in New York City in 1917, by the New York Times bestselling author of The Company

2025 Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids: Stories by Leyna Krow - US

With Krow’s signature blend of sardonic whimsy and unsettling insight, Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids imagines the rules to be broken, choices to be made, and even crimes to be had for the sake of the people, and places, we love.

2025 Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su - Taiwan/US

A humorous and deeply moving debut novel in the vein of Bunny and Convenience Store Woman about a young woman who tries to shape a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend.