NEW YORK (AP) – Brandon Sanderson, whose epic Wind and Truth is a highlight of the upcoming publishing season, sees nothing wrong with the idea of “escapism”.
“It’s just the ability to go to another world and relate to other people’s problems, problems that aren’t our problems. It’s a really valuable tool in our lives,” the fantasy novelist told The Associated Press (AP) during a recent telephone interview. Sanderson’s fans have waited four years for Wind and Truth, the 1,300-page fifth volume in his Stormlight Archive fantasy series.
He acknowledged, with mixed feelings, that some will take relatively little time to finish it.
“They will absolutely read it in two days, which feels both gratifying and a little horrifying,” he said. “You put your heart and soul into something for so long, knowing that fans are going to be done in a couple of days and say, ‘When’s the next one?'”
The presidential election is expected to dominate headlines this fall, but booksellers look to Sanderson and others to sustain the wave of fantasy and the hybrid romantasy novels that have been selling strongly over the past few years. Wind and Truth is among numerous anticipated works that include Jeff VanderMeer’s Absolution, Alan Moore’s The Great When, Cecy Robson’s Bloodguard and Kerri Maniscalco’s Throne of Secrets, the second installment of her Prince of Sin series.
According to Circana, which tracks around 85 per cent of the retail market, fantasy sales have been growing for the past five years and since last summer have jumped by nearly 75 per cent, driven in part by the million-selling romantasy authors Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros.
“The fantasy subject is the top growth segment of the total United States (US) print book market,” said Circana analyst Brenna Conner, who cites the reader-driven sales of #BookTok as a strong factor. “I also believe escapism is a component as more readers seek out stories with elements of escapism to counter daily stress and fatigue of the news cycle.”
At Barnes & Noble, Senior Director of Books Shannon DeVito noted that fantasy has expanded and diversified, blending horror and romance and mystery. She cited Maas and Yarros, and such upcoming releases as John Gwynn’s Norse-inspired The Fury of the Gods and Ann Liang’s mythical A Song to Drown Rivers.
“It’s event-proof,” DeVito said of fantasy and its offshoots. “It doesn’t depend on news of the day.”
PROSE AND POETRY
Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is a story of grief and sibling rivalry from the author known for the best sellers Normal People and Conversations With Friends. Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story is the Polish’s author variation of the Thomas Mann classic The Magic Mountain. Nobelist Annie Ernaux of France combines memoir and images in The Use of Photography and perennial Nobel candidate Haruki Murakami expands on an early short story for The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which his Japanese publisher is calling “soul-stirring, 100 per cent pure Murakami world”.
Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers’ Playground touches upon everything from climate change to artificial intelligence (AI), while another Pulitzer winner, Louise Erdrich, sets The Mighty Red on a North Dakota beet farm during the economic crash of 2008. In Tell Me Everything, Pulitzer winner Elizabeth Strout returns to fictional Crosby, Maine, and such friends from Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again as the elderly title character and the scribe Lucy Barton.
“I never intended to write them about them again. I think I keep bringing them back because they are so very well known to me,” Strout said. “They feel almost as real as actual people. I know they’re not real people, but they feel like real people.”
John Edgar Wideman blends fiction, history and memoir in Slaveroad, and Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a fictional take on the heiress-art collector Peggy Guggenheim that was completed by Leslie Jamison after Godfrey’s death in 2022. New fiction is also coming from Richard Price, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Kate Atkinson, Janet Evanovich, Rachel Kushner, Richard Osman, Tova Reich, Paula Hawkins, Jami Attenberg and Rumaan Alam.
Margaret Atwood began her career as a poet and her verse is collected in Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems: 1961-2023, while Blues in Stereo features early work from the late Langston Hughes. Prize winners Paul Muldoon, Kimiko Hahn and Matthew Zapruder all have collections coming out, along with new books from Billy Collins, Ben Okri, Kimiko Hahn, Frank X Walker and E Hughes.
Dear Yusef is a tribute to the celebrated poet Yusef Komunyakaa that includes contributions from Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson and Sharon Olds. Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology compiles verse from the 17th Century to the present.
TAYLOR-ED
Like all pop culture phenomena, from the Beatles to Star Wars, Taylor Swift’s appeal isn’t confined to a single art form.
Her songs and her life have inspired young adult novels, children’s books and biographies and the wave continues.
Katie Cotugno’s Heavy Hitter is an athlete/pop star romance based in part on Swift and NFL great Travis Kelce, while The 13 Days of Swiftness is a picture story for holiday shoppers who can chant such lines as “12 strings for strumming” and “11 bracelets beaded”.
The anthology Poems for Tortured Souls includes verse from Emily Dickinson, Edna St Vincent Millay and other alleged kindred souls of Swift’s. Biographies/critical studies include the picture book Taylor Swift: Wildest Dreams, by Erica Wainer and Joanie Stone; and Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield’s Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music. – Hillel Italie
