Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

With so many good 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 Wild Is the Wind by Carl Phillips, Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee, and No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin. 

“After dinner, nobody went home right away.” The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (Random House, January 2018) by the late Denis Johnson. Eighteenth book, second story collection. Agent: Nicole Aragi. Editor: Susan Kamil. Publicist: Barbara Fillon.

“Born in 1841 on a Faroese sheep farm, / The polar explorer was raised on a farm near / In the North Atlantic Sea, between Scotland and Iceland, on an island with more sheep than people, a shepherd’s wife gave birth to a child who would grow up to study ice.” Red Clocks (Lee Boudreaux Books, January 2018) by Leni Zumas. Third book, second novel. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff. Editor: Carina Guiterman. Publicist: Katharine Myers.

“—Both things, I think.” Wild Is the Wind (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2018) by Carl Phillips. Sixteenth book, fourteenth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Caroline Zavakos.

“2 December. You have lain inside the belly all summer and all autumn.” Winter (Penguin Press, January 2018) by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by Ingvild Burkey. Eleventh of thirteen books, tenth novel. Agent: Andrew Wylie. Editor: Ann Godoff. Publicist: Gail Brussel.

“Maple and oak branches lash the windowpanes, sirens scream all over town.” Heart Spring Mountain (Ecco, January 2018) by Robin MacArthur. Second book, first novel. Agent: Julia Kenny. Editor: Megan Lynch. Publicists: Sonya Cheuse and James Faccinto.

“Lucia said she was going to marry a one-armed Russian Jew.” Everything Here Is Beautiful (Pamela Dorman Books, January 2018) by Mira T. Lee. First book, novel. Agent: Susan Golomb. Editor: Pamela Dorman. Publicist: Rebecca Marsh.

“So I didn’t come back for my brother’s funeral because I had to work and I was newly pregnant and there were reporters and seeing Ricky dead and pieced together by some amateur embalmer-type person would’ve seriously pushed me over the edge, I know this.” The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves (Little A, December 2017) by James Han Mattson. First book, novel. Agent: Christopher Rhodes. Editor: Vivian Lee. Publicist: Nicole Dewey.

“On our walk my youngest daughter asked me, ‘What are the songs you don’t know.’” Of Silence and Song (Milkweed Editions, December 2017) by Dan Beachy-Quick. Tenth book, third essay collection. Agent: None. Editor: Daniel Slager. Publicist: Joanna R. Demkiewicz.

“Thick stick sticky sticking wet ragged wool winding round the wounds, stitching the sliced skin together as I walk, scraping my mittened hand against the wall.” Peach (Bloomsbury, January 2018) by Emma Glass. First book, novel. Agent: None. Editor: Liese Mayer. Publicist: Lauren Hill.

“I’ve been inspired by José Saramago’s extraordinary blogs, which he posted when he was eighty-five and eighty-six years old.” No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, December 2017) by Ursula K. Le Guin. Forty-seventh book, sixth essay collection. Agent: Ginger Clark. Editor: Naomi Gibbs. Publicist: Stephanie Buschardt.

“Words are filthy.” Indictus (Noemi Press, January 2018) by Natalie Eilbert. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Diana Arterian. Publicist: Sarah Gzemski.

“HR had hit bottom.” This Could Hurt (Harper, January 2018) by Jillian Medoff. Fourth book, novel. Agent: Jennifer Gates. Editor: Emily Griffin. Publicist: Tracy Locke.