Today in Bookish and Literary History, January 30

 1818 When I Have Fears by John Keats - UK

1873 Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne - FR

In "Around the World in Eighty Days", Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions GBP20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days - and he is determined not to lose.

1928 Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill - US

Shattered when the love of her life is killed in the war and haunted by their unconsummated passion, Nina escapes her jealous Ivy League father and embarks on a series of tawdry sexual escapades until, cajoled by her appalled, long-suffering suitor Charles, she marries the amiable young Sam. But while pregnant, Nina learns a horrifying secret that precipitates a desperate, life-changing decision and propels her fatally into the arms of another.Following a family from the aftermath of World War One until the late 1940s, Eugene O'Neill's audacious epic is one of the great masterpieces of American theatre. This edition - part of the NHB O'Neill collection - contains the full text with an extensive bibliography, biography of the playwright and illuminating introduction to the play.

1980 Lady from Dubuque by Edward Albee - US

Albee's first full-length play since Seascape examines four sets of people who, caught in situations they cannot grasp or understand, are bound by shared experience yet estranged by bitterness and mistrust

2020 Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara - IND

Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is extraordinarily moving, flawlessly imagined, and a triumph of suspense. It captures the fierce warmth, resilience, and bravery that can emerge in times of trouble and carries the reader headlong into a community that, once encountered, is impossible to forget.

• WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD
• LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE

2024 Interesting Facts about Space by Emily R. Austin - CAN ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A fast-paced, hilarious, and ultimately hopeful novel for anyone who has ever worried they might be a terrible person—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.

2024 Come and Get It by Kiley Reid - US

Sharp and intimate, Come and Get It, the new thought-provoking, singular novel by the bestselling and critically acclaimed author Kiley Reid, explores the choices we make, particularly for the things that can and cannot be paid for.

2024 Spectral Evidence by Gregory Pardlo - US

A powerful meditation on Blackness, beauty, faith, and the force of law, from the beloved award-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic

• LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY
• FINALIST FOR THE KINGSLEY TUFTS POETRY AWARD

2024 Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories by Elizabeth Bruce - US

In Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories, Elizabeth Bruce gives readers 33 ways of looking at a dollar. Her empathetic, humorous, and disarming embrace of plain-spoken people searching for a way out, charms and provokes. These are bittersweet stories of resilience and defiance.

2025 The Artist by Lucy Steeds - UK

PROVENCE, 1920

Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle''s artistic genius possible.

Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he''ll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe.

But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers.

Over this sweltering summer, everyone''s true colours will be revealed.

• SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT PRIZE 2025
• LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025

2025 Nesting by Roisín O'Donnell - Ireland

In this beautiful, urgent, and ultimately uplifting novel by a rising Irish literary star comes a heart-pounding, life-affirming story about one woman trying to leave her marriage and start over.

2025 Homesick by Silvia Saunders - UK/Italy

MOVING IN. GROWING UP. FALLING OUT OF LOVE.

Mara’s first year in London hasn’t gone to plan. A hostile housemate and endless tube journeys to see her elusive boyfriend, Tom, weren’t on her vision board.

So when the chance to find her own place arises, Mara is hopeful. She’s desperate for somewhere to start her ‘real life’ – with linen bedding, fresh flowers on the table, and Tom.

But between noisy new neighbours and Tom pushing her away, Mara is about to discover that things aren’t going to be quite so easy to fix.

• Shortlisted for the New Adult Book Prize