This week’s new releases span wildly different worlds — yet each grapples sith identity, transformation and the search for meaning. From a nostalgic, joy-filled reckoning with aging and desire to a deeply human meditation on finding joy amid life’s hardships, these books invite readers to reconsider what fulfillment really looks like. Whether through humor, vulnerability or cultural insight, they remind us that reinvention is always within reach.
Elsewhere, the boundaries of reality and imagination blur. A surreal feminist fever dream challenges power and patriarchy, while a sweeping international anthology opens doors to voices and perspectives from across the globe. Together, these titles push beyond the familiar — urging us to see the world from new angles.
American Fantasy by Emma Straub
From the New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow comes a sharp, funny novel about second chances and long-buried desire. Annie, newly divorced and turning fifty, reluctantly boards a nostalgic boy-band cruise with her sister. Surrounded by screaming fans and the music of her youth, she reconnects with a forgotten part of herself. When she forms an unexpected bond with a band member, Annie discovers that passion, possibility and reinvention don’t have an expiration date at last again.
Joyful, Anyway by Kate Bowler
In a culture obsessed with optimizing happiness, Kate Bowler offers a more honest alternative: joy that coexists with life’s hardest realities. Drawing on years of living with serious illness, she explores why happiness often eludes us — and why that’s okay. Joy, she argues, can’t be forced or perfected; it finds us in unexpected moments. With warmth and clarity, Joyful, Anyway invites readers to loosen control, stay open and discover meaning, even when life doesn’t go according to plan at all.
Hexes of the Deadwood Forest by Agnieszka Szpila
Anna Frenza, CEO of Poland’s largest oil company, publicly unravels after a bizarre, viral incident in the woods destroys her career and marriage. As her identity fractures, she finds herself drawn into a radical, mystical sisterhood devoted to nature and female liberation. Immersed in their rituals, Anna embraces a new worldview — until powerful forces threaten to destroy the forest and the women within it. Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a provocative, surreal tale of rebellion, transformation and the collapse of patriarchy.
The Penguin Book of the International Short Story by Rabih Alameddine and John Freeman
The Penguin Book of the International Short Story gathers bold, boundary-crossing fiction from writers across six continents, offering a vibrant alternative to the Western canon. From Murakami’s surreal Tokyo to Han Kang’s haunting transformation and Ted Chiang’s distant galaxies, each story opens a distinct world. Featuring both iconic and emerging voices, this anthology celebrates the power of translation and imagination, inviting readers to move beyond borders and encounter the richness, complexity and surprise of global storytelling today.
