15 Most Anticipated Books for the Second Half of 2021

By Bookazine Blogger Carissa Law

Word has it, some of the most illustrious names in the literary sphere will be releasing new work, from Sally Rooney and Amor Towles to Yuval Noah Harari. These highly anticipated novels veritably run the gamut: there is your emotionally incontinent romance, a particularly zany variety of children’s book, and a certain occult je ne sais quoi—inter alia.

Here, we present to you the 15 most anticipated books halfway through 2021. Feel free to pick up three, thirteen, or the complete set, preferably at Bookazine. In any case, as Shakespeare had so sensibly noted—to each his own.

Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney

September 1st, 2021

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

August 31st, 2021

A Slow Fire Burning is a slow, by no means dull, burn; a tundra of bleak, roiling resentment tumbling from Hawkins’ previous books, The Girl on the Train and Into the Water. Then as now, the cathecting revenge episodes are indubitably the hallmarks of her thrillers on deceit, murder, and no one, not even Gillian Flynn, should expect less.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

September 14th, 2021

Is love a blessing or a curse, a tonic or a dagger? Liane Moriarty intermittently flips the coin, or one could say her command for words necessitates it to stay put, in an interminable spin. It is because of this prowess that Moriarty quarried deep into the cobweb of marriage, family—without getting ensnared herself.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

September 16th, 2021

Second not in place but sequence, The Man Who Died Twice is just as gripping as the first in Richard Osman’s mystery-solving quartet. Members of the Thursday Murder Club, by chance or design, are enlisted to save an old friend who needs their help, bad. Osman’s galloping plot, as if wheezed out unvarnished from his frontal lobe, describes essentially, how not to keel over.

Silverview by John Le Carre

October 14th, 2021

John Le Carre was a spy novel writer par excellence, and so it came as a pleasant surprise when we caught wind of his new novel. To be released in October, Silverview is Le Carre’s 26th and final touch to his oeuvre, featuring the Secret Intelligence Service, a bookseller and a Polish émigré. The crux of the book, quoting a blurb, is “an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals."

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

October 5th, 2021

Amor Towles’ earlier works were set in late 1930s Manhattan and Bolshevik Russia. With the arrival of the Lincoln Highway, set in 50s America, it is fair to say Amor Towles has a tendency to elegize. That is not to say his work is derivative, only to posit this tendency, as it were, bodes better for the imagination. Slated for publication in October, the novel retains the immersive sense of place consistent in Towles’ writing, while providing an altogether new set of characters riding on a consequential left turn.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

September 28th, 2021

For a species like us that relies on myth for self-preservation, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land offers a sizable dose of catharsis. As it follows the protagonists across different timelines, all united by a single copy of an ancient text, Doerr affirms our interconnectedness, and attaches an apologia for the chimerical that all but declaimed the power—of stories passed down.

Sapiens Graphic History Vol 2 by Yuval Noah Harari

November 2nd, 2021

Based on Yuval Noah Harari's internationally bestselling phenomenon, the graphic format is an alternate portal by which readers explore the past through an intellectual and artistic lens. With the ripening neoplasm of atomizing information, Harari parses knotted webs and synthesizes a larger truth by presenting a diorama of our civilization.

Will by Will Smith with Mark Manson

November 9th, 2021

Written in collaboration with self-help phenomenon Mark Manson, Smith’s memoir is a triumph of will (no pun intended). Whether you’re a fan of Will Smith or not has no bearing on what you can extract from this awe-inspiring autobiography, and his at times corny epiphanies find their validation in his life-affirming tales.

Big Panda and Tiny Dragon by James Norbury

October 20th, 2021

Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, Big Panda and Tiny Dragon is a souffle of contentment. Images of blooming meadows and verses that swell and then ebb, Norbury assays to waylay readers mindlessly careening in the attention economy.

The Christmas Pig by JK Rowling

October 12th, 2021

Returning with an iridescent story, JK Rowling traces the journey of Jack in locating his lost companion during the most festive time of the year. Laden with illustrations of charming spreads and decorative art, The Christmas Pig is bound to make its way into children’s yearning hearts.

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan

October 10th, 2021

The author of Percy Jackson moved his set to the underworld, following a female protagonist sent on a weekend trial at sea. With impeccable pacing and panache, Rick Riordan’s new novel has the scent of yet another bestseller.

Pony by RJ Palacio

September 28th, 2021

Quixotic was the archetypal American hero, goes the credo. RJ Palacio precisely presents the hero we’re familiar with, male, that is, who undertakes a quest for the sake of transcendental love. But far from being an insipid rehash, it has a bent that produces a transmogrifying effect, which, in part, can be imputed to the touch of magic introduced.

The 143-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths

October 19th, 2021

Cat Kid Comic Club #2 Perspectives by Dav Pilkey

November 30th, 2021