Look out for great, new reads

This is the time of year to look out for many new releases. If you haven’t taken the plunge into Japanese literature, you might want to check out Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama.

The Japanese have mastered the art of literary surrealism, and their detective novels, edgy and often downright strange, penetrate the seedy, Japanese underworld that remains invisible to the tourist. In this novel, Yokoyama, who is the John Grisham of Japan, investigates a kidnapping that evokes memories of one of his botched cases.

While we’re on the subject, one of my favourite Japanese writers, the surrealist writer Haruki Murakami has a new book out: Men Without Women.

Set for release on May 9, Men Without Women promises to be a collection of humorous short stories.

Haruki is best known for his novels – my favourite being the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, but his short stories are a short, wild, literary ride into memorable surrealism.

Every novel Murakami has written seems to have been a practise run for Wind-up Bird Chronicle If you enjoyed The Girl on the Train, one of the best psychological thrillers I have ever read, then you’ll want to check out Paula Hawkins new novel: Into the Water.

Hopefully, Hawkins’ novel about a single mother and teenage girl who are found dead at the bottom of a river will register the same suspense as The Girl on the Train, a riveting read to the final page.

May also brings the release of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David J Garrow. Early reviews have been mixed with some critics saying there is not much new information about the former US President in this biography, but Internet stories claiming Obama had lived with and proposed to an American woman of Japanese/Dutch descent perked up interest in the book.

House of Names by Irish author Colm T?ib?n, also released in early May, retells the story of Clytemnestra, who ruled ancient Mycenae in her husband King Agamemnon’s absence.

Like all good Greek stories, there’s plotting and intrigue galore as Clytemnestra plots to kill her husband when he returns from Troy. T?ib?n’s historical writing is vivid and compelling.

He’s a masterful storyteller.

I loved The Master, T?ib?n’s novel of American writer Henry James, who is one of my favourite writers.

Everyone is talking about the newly released Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, a staff writer for the New Yorker. Grann brings the excitement and detailed research of New Yorker investigative pieces to this true story set in the 1920s. This is the horrific story of a sinister plot that resulted in the murders of Osage Indians in the 1920s, when someone discovered their reservation happened to be sitting on a fortune.

Young Adult (YA) literature just keeps getting better and the new release everyone is talking about is And We’re Off, a light travel/romance novel about a travelling team of mother and daughter by Dana Schwartz. It’s good to have a funny YA novel for a change.

In October, 2017 historian Ron Chernow will release a new biography. The author of the hugely successful biography Hamilton, which inspired the Broadway play by Lin Manuel Miranda, will examine the life of Ulysses S Grant, head of the Union’s army during the Civil War in a biography simply entitled Grant.

Many new books will be released in time for the long holiday so be on the lookout for great, new reads.