The most-anticipated books of early 2015

Binary Star: A Novel by Sarah Gerard (Two Dollar Radio, $16)

One of our favorite up-and-coming New York writers, Gerard writes fiction like poetry, constructing a mesmerizing, complex story of addiction, obsession and love.

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Ban en Banlieue by Bhanu Kapil (Nightboat Books, $15.95)

Kapil, a gravely underappreciated writer, gives us a stunningly unique, indefinable work that circles around a girl named Ban and a night of riots in 1970s London.

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Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries by Ander Monson (Graywolf Press, $22)

A collection of marginalia, inscriptions and errata, Monson's latest hybrid work examines what readers leave behind in books (like MetroCards).

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Selected Letters of Langston Hughes edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel with Christa Fratantoro (Knopf, $35)

Peek into the private life and inspiration of this illustrious 20th-century poet, who corresponded with other legendary figures like Zora Neale Hurston and Ezra Pound.

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Displacement: A Travelogue by Lucy Knisley (Fantagraphics, $19.99)

In her latest illustrated delicacy, graphic memoirist Knisley presents a visually and emotionally stunning comic about caring for her grandparents on a cruise.

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Find Me: A Novel by Laura Van Den Berg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26)

The debut novel from a gifted storyteller offers up a postapocalyptic landscape, a crippling illness and one woman whose bleak life finally receives a blessing: immunity.

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Heliopause by Heather Christle (Wesleyan University Press, $24.95)

Proof that the world of poetry chugs along with quiet but spirited strength, Christle publishes her fourth collection, filled with imagination and sharp personal moments.

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Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith (Knopf, $25.95)

A must-read for anyone, the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet’s first memoir is a timeless coming-of-age story about humanity’s eternal topics: faith, race and family.

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The Shadow of the Crescent Moon: A Novel by Fatima Bhutto (Penguin Press, $25.95)

Already long-listed for the U.K.’s Baileys Women’s Prize, Bhutto’s impressive debut takes place in a small town in Pakistan during one tense, devastating day of warfare.

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After the Tall Timber: Collected Nonfiction by Renata Adler (NYRB, $29.95)

One word: finally! This longed-for book collects Adler’s brilliant, wide-ranging pieces, from film criticism to reportage on Selma, Alabama.

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Gutshot: Stories by Amelia Gray (FSG Originals, $14)

Few writers know how to give a linguistic shot to the gut quite like Gray, and her third story collection promises more of her signature strangeness and emotional fervor.

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