There are some exciting books coming out this year! (I say that every year. It’s true every year.) Here are the ones I’m looking forward to and intend to read, as well as some older books that I plan to move to the head of the queue this year:

1. Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken: I’ll read whatever she writes.
2. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert: I’ll read almost anything she writes, and historical fiction is one of my favorite genres; this one is set in New York in the 1940s.
3. Feel Free by Nick Laird: This poetry collection, his fourth, was slated to come out last year and the pub date got bumped to July 2019. Waiting…
4. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: Will it be as magical as The Night Circus? We’ll see…in November.
5. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker: Literary fiction, good reviews so far, and I liked The Age of Miracles.
6. Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley: Relish is still my favorite of hers; I think I’d like the others better if I was her exact contemporary, or a little younger instead of a little older, but I do like her style, and graphic novels are quick reads.
7. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas: Also due out last year and then the pub date got bumped. If it’s the same quality as The Hate U Give, though, I’m willing to wait.
8. Getting toward the end of the list, I’m going to crowd three books into one here, as they all fall under the #WeNeedDiverseBooks/award-winning YA umbrella: Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, and The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater. Also Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert, which is already sitting at the top of my pile.
9. Walking Home by Simon Armitage: This has been kicking around on my to-read list for ages; this is the year.
10. Get in Trouble by Kelly Link: I’ve been meaning to read more of her deliciously weird, off-kilter stories.

So that’s adult fiction and nonfiction, teen fiction and nonfiction, a graphic novel, and a book of poems…and that’s just for starters. I’m also looking forward to reading plenty of middle grade, more nonfiction in general (always a goal, and this year I’m broadening it to include TV as well), more recommendations from fellow readers. What books are you excited to read this year?

Edited to add: Also, short stories Tenth of December by George Saunders; nonfiction on climate change (e.g. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert or Rising by Elizabeth Rush); and more fiction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (I’ve already read Americanah, so it’ll be either The Thing Around Your Neck, Purple Hibiscus, or Half of a Yellow Sun. Opinions, anyone?).