January Preview

Hi all. I hope everyone is well and that you received some books over the holiday. I was lucky to have a great haul of gifts that were books, yay. You might be surprised to know that all of these on the left are nonfiction. I’m mainly a fiction reader, but I sort of like to pick those out myself and I like getting nonfiction in hardcover print. Some of these are recent books and others came out years ago. What do you think — have you read any of these? I can’t wait to dig in. As you can see, I’m posting my monthly preview and First Book of the Year a bit early since I have a spare moment now rather than later. And as usual, there’s much to discuss in upcoming releases. 

So here I am gearing up for my first book of 2025, lol. I don’t usually like putting odd pictures of myself on here but perhaps once in a blue moon is okay. The book is the nonfiction memoir by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin titled: An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s. I’ve heard many favorable things about this book, so I’m excited.

It delves into her marriage and political events of the day back in the 1960s — when she and her husband-to-be both worked for President Lyndon Johnson. Years ago, I liked Goodwin’s 1997 memoir Wait Till Next Year about her childhood in New York in the 1950s and her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers, so I’m keen for the new one. What’s your first book?

Now let’s talk about what’s coming out in January. One of my goals in 2025 is to read more translated lit, so that’s one reason I’m interested to read Korean author Han Kang’s new novel We Do Not Part (due out Jan. 21). Another reason is that the author recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature and I haven’t read her yet.

According to Publishers Weekly her new novel is the story of a writer who discovers how her friend’s family was impacted by the 1948–1949 Jeju Massacre. Kirkus calls it a “mysterious novel about history and friendship that offers no easy answers.” Hmm. I think the author’s known for a couple strange novels so I’ll be ready for anything. 

Next up is the debut novel by Aria Aber titled Good Girl (due out Jan. 14) that Kirkus says follows an “aspiring photographer who’s bent on concealing her Afghan heritage and becomes embroiled in the Berlin techno scene and a fraught relationship with an older man.” PW calls it a “stunning coming-of-age story that’s set amid Berlin’s underground art and music scene.”

Apparently the theme of what it means to be a ‘good girl’ is explored along with themes about identity and desire. I’m not sure if it’ll be for me, but I generally enjoy good debuts and new voices so I hope to check it out.

Then there’s German author Bernhard Schlink’s translated novel The Granddaughter (due out Jan. 7) about the story of a German bookseller’s attempt to connect with his radicalized granddaughter and try to steer her away from such thinking. PW says “Schlink offers an unflinching look at the neo-Nazi movement and the compromises people make out of love,” and calls it a “powerful story of loss and the desire to move forward.”

I haven’t read Schlink since his 1995 novel The Reader, which was one of my very first reviews on the blog in 2009 and the book was made into a movie with Kate Winslet. That one I recall was a pretty unsettling story and I wonder if this one will have some of the same elements, hmm. 

I’m also keeping in mind Adam Haslett’s novel Mothers and Sons (due out Jan. 7), which has received strong reviews and according to Kirkus is about an immigration lawyer and his estranged religious mother who work to finally face their pasts. It’s said to be a family-in crisis kind of story that involves a harrowing event that happened in their family long ago.

We’ll see if I can handle this one. I think I tried his 2016 novel Imagine Me Gone a couple years ago and didn’t finish it but perhaps I should give him a second chance. Ann Patchett among others have raved about his writing.

In screen releases in January, I mentioned many of the big movies last month so I won’t repeat those, but I inadvertently missed mentioning Nickel Boys (I didn’t even hear about the movie until recently) based on the novel by Colson Whitehead. I read the novel back in 2019 and found it a chilling and powerful tale, which follows the friendship between two young African-American men who navigate the trials of a harrowing reform school together in Florida. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2020 and was based on a real school for boys that operated in Florida from 1900 till 2011. The movie’s artistic rendering of the novel and visual style is said to be unique, so I hope to see it, though it could take some courage too.

Also the Brazilian film I’m Still Here (out Jan. 17) looks powerful about a  mother and activist who’s coping with the forced disappearance of her husband, a dissident politician, during the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1971.

The screenplay is mostly in Portuguese with English subtitles, which I don’t do too well with, but the film seems like it will get a Best International Film Oscar nomination and has already made a big splash in Brazil, so I think it’ll be worth seeing. It’s based on the 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva about his experiences of losing his father to the Brazilian military and also becoming paralyzed at age 20 from a diving accident. 

In TV shows, the British crime drama Vera — based on the books by Ann Cleeves featuring Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope — will start its fourteenth and final season on Jan. 2 on Britbox, though it’ll just be two last episodes.

I admit I haven’t seen the show after all these years and don’t get Britbox, but it looks entertaining with Brenda Blethyn in the title role. Apparently she’s been playing Vera from 2011 to 2025, wow. I think it’s also available on PBS. The series looks gorgeous with its cinematography and is filmed on location in North East England. I think you can stream all the seasons if you want.

And for fans of the sci-fi show Severance, Season 2 will begin Jan. 17 on AppleTV+. It’s been three years since the end of Season 1 so people have been waiting for a while. I haven’t seen the show but apparently it’s received much critical acclaim.

It seems hard to explain the premise but basically it’s about a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives … but then after a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, they begin a journey to discover the truth about their jobs. Has anyone watched this? Do I need to get their implanted chip? Lol.

Also Season 6 of the series C.B. Strike starts Jan. 23 on HBO Max. It’s the adaptation of JK Rowling’s sixth crime novel The Ink Black Heart and stars Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.

Has anyone been following the series? I think I tried to watch an earlier season and might have fallen asleep more than once, so that doesn’t bode well. I have read one of the Rowling Galbraith books, so I know the characters. But let me know if I should try to pick up the show again. The actors seem to have a pretty good connection in the roles of Strike and Robin.

And lastly in music, there’s upcoming albums by Ringo Star, David Gray, the Weather Station, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the duo Penny & Sparrow among others. I’ll pick British singer-songwriter David Gray’s new one Dear Life (due out Jan. 17) as my choice this month, and you can hear his song Plus & Minus off it here, which is a bit of a duet with a British singer named Talia Rae.

That’s all for now. What about you which releases are you looking forward to this month? Wishing everyone a very safe and Happy New Year.