The Best New Book Releases Out May 30, 2023

From the author of The Guncle comes the ultimate story of friend goals. Back in the ’90s, when a group of misfit U.C. Berkley students experience the death of a friend, they make a pact: from this point on, any of them can call for the group to assemble to give a “living funeral” for someone in crisis. The Celebrants shows the “funerals” for Marielle as she struggles through a failing marriage, for Naomi after her parents die, and for Craig as he contends with an art fraud charge. Then, in 2023, when Jordan’s cancer returns, his husband convinces him to call for a meeting one last time. Throughout this ode to good friends is lots of clever dialogue and some genuinely funny moments.

In these essays, Good tells the truth about the Indigenous experience in Canada. Looking at both historical and contemporary issues, she speaks on everything from unhonored treaties to cultural appropriation to flat out racism. Canada’s current treatment of its Indigenous population, and how it values their lives, is explored, as well as how to right the wrongs of the past and the present.

Her award-winning Murderbot series has made me an eternal fan, and I feel like I will love her tale of body-hopping demon as much as I do the one about a murderous security unit. In the present, Kai, the titular Witch King, is dead in a watery grave. His consciousness, separated from his body, is now set on figuring out who betrayed him. As we’re led through the mystery of his murder, we also learn of Kai’s past, when he possessed another human body and was involved in a revolution. Throughout, we’re treated to a bevy of interesting characters, chief among them another endearing killer.

This is such a unique one. Matthews explores economics — the failures of capitalism, really — through both a personal and more academic lens. She places redacted texts by Scottish economist Adam Smith and French Marxist Guy Debora alongside autobiographical poetry. The disconnected and privileged views of those who subscribe to Smith’s ideology are confronted with the very real, human cost of capitalism, especially as it is seen throughout the Black community.

Poet Ocean Vuong has this to say about the collection: “Formally ambidextrous, teethed with wit and uncompromising dignity, Matthews engages the archive as a breathing document, refusing to let history be done with itself, and thereby accomplishes what I love most about poetry — especially hers — that it lives, is living.” 

Days after New York City shut down for COVID, a group of Lower East Side neighbors join each other on their apartment’s rooftop to tell stories. Though they barely spoke to each other before the pandemic, each night of tales brings them closer and closer. This novel has a unique element to it: each character has been secretly written by a popular author. There’s writing in here from Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Douglas Preston, Celeste Ng, R. O. Kwon, Luis Alberto Urrea, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, Diana Gabaldon, Ishmael Reed, Meg Wolitzer, Sylvia Day, Mary Pope Osborne, Monique Truong, Hampton Sides, R. L. Stine, David Byrne, Neil Gaiman, Rachel Kushner, Nora Roberts, Scott Turow, Tommy Orange, and more.

This collection of genre-blended stories takes its title from the Victorian name for queer people, and expands on some people’s idea from that era that queer people could guide us towards the future. McCombs’ tales traverse several worlds, offering up different realities. A gay man waits in line at a Berlin rave to see a vision of an alternate version of himself across the multiverse. In the titular story, a group of queer people — scientists, artists, and a trans priest — must keep each other alive as they continue on their lifelong mission to study other planets. Each story grants its own, completed universe.