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 Aflame: Learning From Silence by Pico Iyer and Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah.
“And then I went to seek The Great Unity.” The Ocean in the Next Room (Milkweed Editions, January 2025) by Sarah V. Schweig. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Daniel Slager. Publicist: Morgan LaRocca.
“Two men in white robes stand at the end of the road, high above the empty highway.” Aflame: Learning From Silence (Riverhead Books, January 2025) by Pico Iyer. Seventeenth book, nonfiction. Agent: Lynn Nesbit. Editor: Jynne Dilling Martin. Publicist: Bianca Flores.
“Nettie had grown accustomed to the kind of darkness the human eye couldn’t recognize, the kind that stared back and engulfed a person.” Kingdom of No Tomorrow (Algonquin Books, December 2024) by Fabienne Josaphat. Second book, novel. Agent: Charlotte Gusay. Editor: Kathy Pories. Publicist: Marisol Salaman.
“From the second-floor window of the creaky wooden building, Nusrat could see the man’s back, his hair, and a shade of his face.” The World With Its Mouth Open (Tin House, December 2024) by Zahid Rafiq. First book, story collection. Agent: Stuart Bernstein. Editor: Masie Cochran. Publicist: Becky Kraemer.
“We entered the apartment peaceably enough.” Sand-Catcher (Coffee House Press, December 2024) by Omar Khalifah, translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine. Third book, first novel. Agent: Brigitte Bouchard. Editor: Jeremy M. Davies. Publicist: Laura Graveline.
“I was raised to revere being a Hawkins.” I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free (Amistad, January 2025) by Lee Hawkins. First book, memoir. Agent: Gary Morris. Editor: Patrik Henry Bass. Publicist: Louise Braverman.
“I am trying to envision a map.” Take My Name but Say It Slow (Norton, January 2025) by Thomas Dai. First book, essay collection. Agent: Christopher Combemale. Editors: Huneeya Siddiqui and Helen Thomaides. Publicist: Elizabeth Riley.
“When I was six weeks old, Mum left me in a playpen for three minutes, and returned to find a boy standing in the pen, holding me, his teeth clamped around my pink head.” What It’s Like in Words (Henry Holt, December 2024) by Eliza Moss. First book, novel. Agent: Millie Hoskins. Editor: Micaela Carr. Publicist: Catryn Silbersack.
“As you were, then.” If Nothing (Alice James Books, January 2025) by Matthew Nienow. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Carey Salerno. Publicist: Genevieve Hartman.
“In my novels and memoirs I have written quite a bit about sex, even very outré sex.” The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir (Bloomsbury, January 2025) by Edmund White. Thirty-first book, sixth memoir. Agent: Bill Clegg. Editors: Callie Garnett and Daniel Loedel. Publicist: Rosie Mahorter.
“Bliss, // We are not separate but one with snow.” The Radiant (Tupelo Press, December 2024) by Lise Goett. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Kristina Marie Darling. Publicist: Anna Zumbahlen.
“I asked the grasses if they believed / but they said believe is a poor verb.” Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, January 2025) by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Eighth book, fourth poetry collection. Agents: Clare Conville and Elizabeth Milne. Editors: Martha Sprackland and Michael Wiegers. Publicist: Ryo Yamaguchi.
