The Most Exciting Reads Of Winter/Spring 2021

Including a new Jhumpa Lahiri, a “Great Gatsby” retelling, and several novels about witches

Feeling overwhelmed and verklempt about the year’s reading material. “A Brace of Full-grown Puppies: or My Dog and Me,” 1807, Thomas Rowlandson

I have consistently, in times of great distress or even merely to get through annoying circumstances, depended upon escaping into a novel to get through it. 2021 will be another heavy year; there will be battles to fight and hope to cultivate and energy in grave need of restoration. I intend to get through it all, at least in part, as I always have: by sinking into stories with the strength, humor, and heart to carry me from one trying day to the next.

Not everyone reads this way, but it’s how I’ve always approached reading — and it’s reflected in my lists, which tend to focus on books driven by character and which have a strong sense of narrative.

The forecast for 2021 fiction that fits this bill is very, very good. Overwhelmingly good, need-more-hours-in-a-day good. So behold: a necessarily abbreviated preview of what’s to come the first half of 2021.

JANUARY

PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS, Chris Harding Thornton. Jan 5. In Nebraska in 1978, a small…