There's no better time to pick up a recently published book to read or listen to - because more books than ever are hitting the market! The global surge in reading and book sales is evident with the 2023 book market valued at $132.4 billion, and it's projected to reach $163.89 billion by 2030. Annually, 700,000 to 1,000,000 new book titles are released. However, if you include self-published authors you’re looking at close to 4 million new book titles published each year! Let's take a look at some trends and fresh reads:
Shakespeare, The Bible, 1984, Medusa - all subjects of new fiction out in 2023. Rosaline by Natasha Solomons is a young adult retelling of the story of Romeo and Juliet, but from the point of view of Juliet's older cousin, Rosaline, who spurned Romeo. Before Eve, there was another woman - Lilith. Author Nikki Marmery spins the tale of Adam's first wife and her fall from Paradise and quest for revenge. Winston Smith's lover Julie Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth in 1984, as told by Sandra Newman, hand-selected by George Orwell's estate, in Julia. Author Hannah Lynn casts a sympathetic eye toward the goddess Medusa in Athena's Child.
Blake Crouch's latest title, Abandon, features a father-daughter team investigating the bizarre and abrupt disappearance of every citizen from a gold-mining town over a century earlier, In Breaking All the Rules by Amy Andrews, Bea Archer throws a dart at a map, and moves where it lands—quiet Credence, Colo.—trading pencil skirts, trendy health food, and the 9 to 5, for sweatpants, copious amounts of sugar, and binging all 15 seasons of Supernatural. Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché offer surreal, action-packed quest which follows two intelligence agents from secret laboratories in Colorado, to a luxury lodge in Aspen, to the remote Nevada desert, as they begin to uncover how and why people's fondest memories are being manifested and weaponized against them by a spooky, ever-shifting substance called Prophet. Defensible Spaces is a nuanced and generous debut collection from Alison Turner with the former mining town of Clayton, Colorado, and its residents at its heart.
Pockets: an Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close by Hannah Carlson brings readers an in-depth exploration of pockets throughout Western history, and how something as simple as a pocket can influence culture, gender, and society as a whole. Coloradoans love their dogs, making Fifty Places to Travel with Your Dog Before You Die: Dog Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations by Chris Santella and DC Helmuth a must-read. The Midnight Kingdom: a History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis by Jared Yates Sexton is an ambitious account of how white supremacist lies, religious mythologies, and poisonous conspiracy theories built the modern world and threaten to plunge us into an authoritarian nightmare. Happily, a Personal History, with Fairy Tales is a beautifully written memoir-in-essays on fairy tales and their surprising relevance to modern life, from a Jewish woman, Sabrina Orah Mark, raising Black children in the American South.
So, how does one find these new books?
The place to start is Recommendations, near the top of the library home page, where you will find a variety of categories, including books and movies.
Want to be super ahead of the crowd? Click the Coming Soon or On Order box on the Recommendations page. Book titles found here are at least 3-6 months away from appearing on our shelves. Yes, the holds lists on some of these titles may seem a bit daunting, but put yourself in the queue and one day, like magic, you’ll get a notification that the new book everyone is talking about is waiting on the pick-up shelf.
Don’t forget our digital resources. Pop over to Overdrive by clicking on Downloads, also accessible via the navigation menu at the top of the DPL website. Once in Overdrive, click on Collections to get a full array of options, including Just Added eBooks and New Additions in eAudio.
We offer a Personalized Reading List service, curating title lists just for you, delivered via email. Fill out the request form, indicate you want new titles, and we’ll deliver. You’re sure to get a few read or listen-alike titles on your list that are available now in case there is a wait list for the new book of your dreams.
Want new titles delivered to your inbox? Consider subscribing to DPL’s Book Ahead (for adults) or Flourish (for kids and teens) newsletters at denverlibrary.org/newsletters. Short and to the point, you’ll not only find title suggestions but event and programming news as well.
Prefer to hear about new books instead of looking for them? Friday Five at Five is the perfect vehicle for you. Tune into DPL’s YouTube channel the final Friday of each month (in most cases!) at 5 p.m. MT to hear about five new titles (plus one!) that our expert readers’ advisors think you should know about - and read-alikes are provided so you have something to read or listen to while waiting for the Next Big Book!