Strand Buyer’s Preview
Our most anticipated books of 2019
Every year, we ask our expert book buyers what titles they are looking forward to in the new year. This year, our buyers chose 5–7 exceptional upcoming books they’ve read and loved from different genres, for you to be ready to snatch up at your local indie when the pub dates arrive. Get your pens and planners ready, and clear some space on the shelf!
Carson is the guy to know in the NYC book world, with a skill for predicting bestsellers that is practically premonition. Bouncing around the Strand since 2001 has had its influence: he has built up 1 mile of books at his apartment without anywhere to put them.
Corregidora by Gayl Jones
Pub Date: Jan 29, 2019
Here is Gayl Jones’s classic novel, the tale of blues singer Ursa, consumed by her hatred of the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her grandmother and mother.
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
Pub Date: Feb 12, 2019
From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth.
Lot by Bryan Washington
Pub Date: Mar 19, 2019
In the city of Houston — a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America — the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He’s working at his family’s restaurant, weathering his brother’s blows, resenting his older sister’s absence. And discovering he likes boys.
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Pub Date: Apr 2, 2019
Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.
Vibrate Higher by Talib Kweli
Pub Date: May 7, 2019
From one of the most lyrically gifted, socially conscious rappers of the past twenty years, Vibrate Higher is a firsthand account of hip-hop as a political force.
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin
Pub Date: Jan 8, 2019
A powerful, eerily unsettling story collection from a major international literary star.
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Pub Date: Feb 12, 2019
From the two-time NBCC Finalist, an emotionally resonant, fiercely imaginative new novel about a family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border — an indelible journey told with breathtaking imagery, spare lyricism, and profound humanity.
Lila is a book buyer with Strand. Starting her career on the Visual Merchandise Team a.k.a. “Tables,” she’s got an eye for books that are beautiful inside and out.
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
Pub Date: Aug 6, 2019
A breakout writer at The New Yorker examines the fractures at the center of contemporary culture and identity with verve, deftness, and intellectual ferocity, for readers who’ve wondered what Susan Sontag would have been like if she had brain damage from the Internet.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Pub Date: Jul 16, 2019
In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Normal People: A Novel by Sally Rooney
Pub Date: Apr 16, 2019
A wondrous and wise coming-of-age love story from the celebrated author of Conversations with Friends.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Pub Date: Jun 4, 2019
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
Look How Happy I’m Making You by Polly Rosenwaike
Pub Date: Mar 19, 2019
A candid, ultimately buoyant debut story collection about the realities of the “baby years,” whether you’re having one or not.
Coventry by Rachel Cusk
Pub Date: Aug 20, 2019
From Rachel Cusk, her first collection of essays about motherhood, marriage, feminism, and art.
The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells
Pub Date: Jan 29, 2019
From internationally bestselling author Benedict Wells, a sweeping novel of love and loss, and of the lives we never get to live.
Sean has been working in bookstores for 23 years! He is a buyer as well as a manager in the Strand underground. He loves to read fiction translated from other languages, with a focus on the more complicated, abstruse works.
Memories of the Future by Siri Hustvedt
Pub Date: Mar 19, 2019
A provocative, exuberant novel about time, memory, desire, and the imagination from the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of The Blazing World, Memories of the Future tells the story of a young Midwestern woman’s first year in New York City in the late 1970s and her obsession with her mysterious neighbor, Lucy Brite.
Writing, Written by Stephen Dixon
Pub Date: Mar 19, 2019
Through vignettes that zip forward and backward in time, Dixon weaves together a complex portrait of the man’s life, from the moments of his marriage to his later days where, struggling with his loss, he fumbles to find clarity and certainty in his writing.
Night School: A Reader for Grown-Ups by Zsofia Ban
Pub Date: Jan 15, 2019
Zsófia Ban’s Night School: A Reader for Adults uses a textbook format to build an encyclopedia of life — subject by subject, from self-help to geography to chemistry to French.
Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad
Pub Date: Jul 30, 2019
A dark and moving examination of one man’s derailed life, by the Norwegian master who is “without question, Norway’s bravest, most intelligent novelist” (Per Petterson)
Childhood by Gerard Reve
Pub Date: Mar 12, 2019
From the author of the hit The Evenings — two classic novellas that are considered among Gerard Reve’s best work.
Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis
Pub Date: Feb 5, 2019
Sea Monsters is an intoxicating evocation of past selves and buried histories, the pull of fantasy colliding with the stark light of reality — a dreamlike yet vivid novel about the moments and mysteries that shape us.
Paul is our resident expert on art and photography books. He buys all of our art books and has done so for 43 years!
So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Pub Date: Mar 26, 2019
A brilliant and personal examination by sensational and bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard of his Norwegian compatriot Edvard Munch, the famed artist best known for his iconic painting The Scream.
Louise Bourgeois by Frances Morris
Pub Date: Feb 26, 2019
The most complete overview of groundbreaking artist Louise Bourgeois’s sculptures, textiles, and prints is now available as an accessible paperback.
The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure by Cynthia S. Brenwall
Pub Date: Apr 16, 2019
Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion.
Louis Stettner: Traveling Light by Clément Chéroux
Pub Date: Feb 5, 2019
Published to celebrate a major acquisition of Stettner’s prints by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this beautiful volume presents iconic photographs from the entirety of Stettner’s career and more!
Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988–2018 by Peter Schjeldahl
Pub Date: Jun 4, 2019
Hot Cold Heavy Light collects 100 writings — some long, some short — that taken together form a group portrait of many of the world’s most significant and interesting artists.
Barry is a Book Buyer for the kid’s department at the Strand. He grew up reading idiosyncratic picture books and children’s classics and now works closely with books just like these on the second floor.
There Are No Bears in This Bakery by Julia Sarcone-Roach
Pub Date: Jan 8, 2019
The creator of the New York Times bestselling The Bear Ate Your Sandwich brings us another sly story of a hungry bear and a smooth-talking narrator.
WeirDo (WeirDo #1) by Anh Do
Pub Date: Jan 29, 2019
Weir Do’s the new kid in school. With an unforgettable name, a crazy family, and some seriously weird habits, fitting in won’t be easy . . . but it will be funny!
Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner
Pub Date: Feb 26, 2019
From the Morris Award-winning author of The Serpent King comes a contemporary novel about two best friends who must make tough decisions about their futures — and the TV show they host — in their senior year of high school.
Music for Mister Moon by Philip C. Stead
Pub Date: Mar 26, 2019
What if you threw your teacup out your window…and what if it accidentally knocked the moon out of the sky?
Sock Story by CK Smouha
Pub Date: Apr 30, 2019
A beautifully illustrated picture book about a sock that loses his pair and the identity crisis that ensues.
Nobody Hugs a Cactus by Carter Goodrich
Pub Date: Apr 16, 2019
Celebrated artist and lead character designer of Brave, Ratatouille, and Despicable Me, Carter Goodrich, shows that sometimes, even the prickliest people — or the crankiest cacti — need a little love.
