Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books published in June 2024 from CLMP members.
Green Island by Liz Countryman
Tupelo Press | June 1, 2024
In this poetry collection, Countryman “mines childhood for its longing, its intense sensations, its loneliness.”
Pee Poems: Second Edition by Yang Licai
Translated from the Chinese by Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu
Circumference Books | June 1, 2024
These poems “go deep and dark—with deceptive lightness—into the metaphysical and the social, offering insight and humor along the way.”
Breaking the Curse: A Memoir about Trauma, Healing, and Italian Witchcraft by Alex DiFrancesco
Seven Stories Press | June 4, 2024
This memoir is “a tour de force of narrative nonfiction, a reimagining of the self-help genre, and a brave memoir about mystical forces, trauma, trans life, and how we must heal ourselves to survive.”
Tupelo Press | June 2, 2024
Landsickness “explores the inelegant progress of grief and pursues a relentless search for evidence of the beloved’s presence through the physics of splashes, the history of seasickness, and the science of depression.”
It Didn’t Start Out That Way by Judy Bridges
Hidden Timber Books | June 4, 2024
In this collection of personal essays, Bridges “sees her life and her characters from all sides, up and down, and brings them to life.”
Dances of Time and Tenderness by Julian Carter
Nightboat Books | June 4, 2024
This collection of essays is “a cycle of stories linking queer memory, activism, death, and art in a transpoetic history of desire and touch.”
Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix by Katherine Cross
LittlePuss Press | June 4, 2024
In this book, Cross “excavates a fallen world of social media’s political promises, from Twitter epidemiology, to handwringing over TikTok, to the ersatz hopes of new platforms like Bluesky. ”
Clouds Are The Mountains of the World by Alan Davis
Woodhall Press | June 4, 2024
This novel-in-stories “dramatizes the heroic quest of three women—mother, daughter, granddaughter—to reunite in a post-apocalyptic future.”
WTAW Press | June 4, 2024
This memoir in flash form recounts Giles’ many trips across the Golden Gate Bridge “since the first sunny day in 1945 when she rode from San Francisco to Sausalito in a moving van with her father.”
Red Hen Press | June 4, 2024
This essay collection “sees mythical ravens murmur alongside the actual bone and viscera of crows, starlings, and pigeons in disarming explorations of desire and destruction, the body and creation.”
Freak Show by Casey Killingsworth
Fernwood Press | June 4, 2024
In Freak Show, Killingsworth “assembles poems outlining his own freakishness, the odd jobs and shifts that earned him his living, the difficulty trying to relate to other people, even how to love.”
Close to the Surface: A Family Journey at Sea by Bethany Lee
Fernwood Press | June 4, 2024
In this memoir, Lee recounts her family’s story of traveling the Pacific Ocean by sailboat, as well as “her own uncertain pilgrimage, and the ingenuity and courage it takes to sail over the horizon and find your way home.”
The Coracle and the Copper Bell: Poems to Carry Skin and Soul by Bethany Lee
Fernwood Press | June 4, 2024
The poems in this collection speak “to the work it takes to weave body and soul into a trustworthy vessel, capable of navigating the currents of a life with curiosity and courage.”
Dalkey Archive Press | June 4, 2024
The “ultimate dysfunctional kids” in Levy’s novel “are every boy and girl reeling from the pain of their childhoods, forgetting what they need to forget, inventing worlds they think will be better.”
Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Transit Books | June 4, 2024
First published in Kenya in 2014, this novel is “a multilayered narrative that reimagines the history of Uganda through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan.”
Hell Gate Bridge by Barrie Miskin
Woodhall Press | June 4, 2024
Miskin’s memoir “brings rare mental illnesses into the light, seeks to heal the fractures in our broken maternal and mental healthcare system, and shows how we can overcome the impossible when we fight to save the ones we love.”
The Unfinished Family by Barbara E. Murphy
Červená Barva Press | July 1, 2024
The poems in this collection “explore the impulses of duty and loyalty, love and fear and compulsion for perfection as the speaker comes to embrace the mistakes that are inevitable in every family.”
Europa Editions | June 4, 2024
In this new installment in the Glasgow-based series, Detective Harry McCoy searches for a missing boy and investigates corruption.
Forgotten on Sunday by Valérie Perrin
Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle
Europa Editions | June 4, 2024
Perrin’s novel “depicts the consequences of undeclared love and, in her inimitable way, portrays once again how the past is never really past.”
Akashic Books | June 4, 2024
This book, told in three parts, “is the definitive story of a label that for a brief, bright burning moment shaped British, American, and world culture.”
Blue Elegies by Helen Ruggieri
Sea Crow Press | June 4, 2024
According to TAK Erzinger, this collection is “an avian ode that migrates and mitigates through a lifetime of experiences.”
Cocoa the Tour Dog: A Children’s Picture Book by Stick Figure and Adam Mansbach
Akashic Books | June 4, 2024
This picture book, illustrated by Juan Manuel Orozco, “is the saga of an Australian shepherd who meets her soul mate: a struggling musician, Scott, with dreams of spreading love on stages across the globe.”
Their Borders, Our World: Building New Solidarities with Palestine
Haymarket Books | June 4, 2024
Edited by Mahdi Sabbagh, this anthology of essays “connects Palestinian resistance with global freedom struggles against settler colonialism and calls on us to think more concretely about the practice of solidarity.”
What Makes Him Tic?: A Memoir of Parenting a Child with Tourette Syndrome by Michele Turk
Woodhall Press | June 4, 2024
What Makes Him Tic? is “a moving portrait of a family, a marriage, and a mother coping with day-to-day life amidst the stresses of caring for a boy with a stigmatizing condition.”
Our Bodies Electric by Zackary Vernon
Regal House Publishing | June 4, 2024
Our Bodies Electric is “a coming-of-age story that celebrates the exuberance of youth, the individual quest for sexual identity, and the joy of finding connections in the most unexpected of places.”
53rd State Press | June 10, 2024
404 Not Found is “a twisting, twisted work of intricacy, density, and despair netted in kidnap, virtual utopias, upended borders, and Freddy Krueger cosplay.”
JackLeg Press | June 10, 2024
Underpinning Rigby’s poetry collection “is a keen interest in cinema, fashion, feminism, transformation, and textuality (from ars poeticas to portmanteaus to ekphrastics).”
Vine Leaves Press | June 11, 2024
According to Joel Stein, this memoir is “a sweaty, funny examination into suburban marriage, motherhood, social status and all the other reasons I left New Jersey.”
Beginning Again: Stories of Movement and Migration in Appalachia
Haymarket Books | June 11, 2024
Edited by Katrina M. Powell, this anthology about Appalachia “brings together twelve narratives of refugees, migrants, and generations-long residents that explore complex journeys of resettlement.”
Translated from the Italian by Oonagh Stransky
Europa Editions | June 11, 2024
The first novel in Bernini’s Machiavelli Trilogy “recounts the enigmatic life of Niccolò Machiavelli, revealing the complex man behind the infamous political strategist.”
Cómo no ahogarse en un vaso de agua by Angie Cruz
Translated to the Spanish by Kianny N. Antigua
Seven Stories Press | June 11, 2024
Cruz’s novel, presented here in a Spanish-language edition, follows “a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story.”
Haymarket Books | June 11, 2024
Dobbs’ poetry collection “explores surveillance, queerness, disability, race, and working-class identity in post-9/11 America.”
Dzanc Books | June 11, 2024
The stories in this collection “provide a deep and nuanced view of contemporary Iranian women as they navigate a crucial moment in their nation’s history.”
Nauetakuan, a Silence for a Noise by Natasha Kanape Fontaine
Translated from the French by Howard Scott
Book*hug Press | June 11, 2024
In this novel, a young art history student in Montreal “connects with other Indigenous artists and thinkers, learning about the power of traditional ways and the struggles of other Nations.”
Haymarket Books | June 11, 2024
In this book, Friedman, Lin, Liu, and Smith share “snapshots of China’s growing social movements—from its labor struggles to feminist campaigns, and more,” providing “some of the building blocks we’ll need to construct a movement that centers international solidarity across borders.”
Red Hen Press | June 11, 2024
In this first novel in a new series, “Detective Arias hunts for a murderer on a liberal arts campus that prides itself on its progressive curriculum but is rife with jealousy, racial and sexual tensions, and a hierarchy as real and destructive as a medieval fortress.”
Between This World and the Next by Praveen Herat
Restless Books | June 11, 2024
Winner of the 2022 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Herat’s thriller is “a breathtaking exploration of power, identity, unconditional love, and the question of how far we’ll go to uncover the truth.”
Under the Neomoon by Wolfgang Hilbig
Translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole
Two Lines Press | June 11, 2024
Originally published in Germany in 1982, this short fiction collection “is a neon-bright reminder of humanity’s folly and the importance of storytelling from down below, where the workers toil.”
Long Day Press | June 11, 2024
In these short stories, “David Bowie sees every mask he has ever worn, every shapeshifting phase of an iconic, fifty-year career even the most jaded critic wouldn’t hesitate to call ‘classic.'”
The Vixen Amber Halloway by Carol LaHines
Regal House Publishing | June 11, 2024
LaHines’ novel is “a jailhouse confessional, a dark comedy, an oeuvre of women’s rage, a suspenseful revenge fantasy, and a moving portrait of one woman’s psychological breakdown.”
Sapello Son by Alejandro Lucero
Bull City Press | June 11, 2024
According to Aldo Amparán, the poems in this collection “sprawl like the New Mexico landscape they inhabit—across memory, family, and the complexities of the body.”
WannaBeat: Hanging out … and Hanging on … in Baby Beat San Francisco by David Polonoff
Trouser Press Books | June 12, 2024
This book is “an incisive and provocative novel about yearning for authenticity in the face of an increasingly artificial reality.”
Alice James Books | June 11, 2024
Revell’s fifteenth collection “weaves anxiety and morality into a tangled web, asking how we’re supposed to live in a world where our imaginations can cause irreparable harm.”
Story of The Everything, The Nothing, and Other Strange Stories by Gyula Gábor Tóth
Translated from the Hungarian by Adam Z. Levy
Transit Books | June 11, 2024
Illustrated by Norbert Nagy, this children’s book “whisks readers away to lands of paradox and play: to a place where anything can happen, one where everything exists all at once, and another where nothing exists at all.”
Long Day Press | June 11, 2024
In this intergenerational novel, “the offspring of a central Texan family fight, steal, dig holes, and force people to eat sand.”
Translated from the Chinese by Jennifer Feeley
Feminist Press | June 11, 2024
Tongueless is a psychological thriller following two rival teachers that “sheds light on the current political situation in Hong Kong.”
Terrapin Books | June 12, 2024
According to Lynn Levin, “Wheel offers us pleasure after pleasure of finely tuned lyric poems that contemplate the circularity of being, its darkness, its hope.”
Happy Poems and Other Lies by Jeddie Sophronius
Codhill Press | June 15, 2024
This poetry collection “details the experience of an exiled speaker who struggles to conform to the rigid religious beliefs imposed by their family.”
Object 7 ( ,a spirit loosely, ,bundled in a frame, ) by Tilghman Alexander Goldsborough
Futurepoem Books | June 15, 2024
According to Marwa Helal, in this collection “Tilghman Goldsborough is reporting live on the minuscule and maximal repercussions of the manmade.”
The Song Cave | June 18, 2024
Felsenthal’s second poetry collection “moves between the difficult work of mourning and the spirited nature of life.”
Global Justice: Three Essays on Liberation and Socialism by Ernesto Che Guevara
Seven Stories Press | June 18, 2024
In this collection of three speeches, Che Guevara “offers a revolutionary view of a world in which human solidarity and understanding replace imperialist aggression and exploitation.”
Justicia Global: Tres ensayos sobre liberación y socialismo by Ernesto Che Guevara
Seven Stories Press | June 18, 2024
In the speeches in this Spanish-language edition, Che Guevara “offers a revolutionary view of a world in which human solidarity and understanding replace imperialist aggression and exploitation.”
Gather the Olives: On Food and Hope and the Holy Land by Bret Lott
Slant Books | June 18, 2024
In this memoir, Lott “considers how food and the people with whom we share it can bring together hearts and souls in a lasting, meaningful, and peaceful way.”
Vine Leaves Press | June 18, 2024
In this novel, “an elderly Korean woman relives her years upended by the Korean War, finding love in the rubble, and her acclimation to 1960 America.”
Murder in Mennefer by Al Sirois
Regal House Publishing | June 18, 2024
In this YA novel set in ancient Egypt, “Imhotep must use all of his wiles to outwit his enemies, protect his family, and save the realm.”
Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe by Jim Tilley
Red Hen Press | June 18, 2024
In these poems, Tilley “draws on his experience as a poet and mathematician to fix a lens on the current raw state of the country and the world and on interpersonal relationships.”
Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! by Judy Kronenfeld
Bamboo Dart Press | June 20, 2024
This poetry chapbook is a paean to the author’s mid-twentieth century Bronx childhood as the sole offspring of warmly loving—if sometimes provincial, overprotective, or embarrassing—immigrant parents.”
Dalkey Archive Press | June 25, 2024
This novel is “a rhapsodic saga that could have come only from Barnes’ pen—and politics—as impactful today upon at its first pressing, a document of sexual revolution and censorship.”
Another North by Jennifer Brice
Red Hen Press | June 25, 2024
According to Dana Spiotta, these essays are a “precise and intimate depiction of what one can see from the complicated vantage of middle age.”
Ricky & Other Love Stories by Whitney Collins
Sarabande Books | June 25, 2024
In this short fiction collection, Collins “applies her sharp eye, black humor, and generous heart to love stories (and the stories we tell ourselves about love).”
Confuse the Wind by Rachel Stolzman Gullo
Vine Leaves Press | June 25, 2024
This novel is “about our human interdependence and how we desperately need one another to survive and hopefully thrive.”
Instructions for the Lovers by Dawn Lundy Martin
Nightboat Books | June 25, 2024
Instructions for the Lovers is “a taught, tender collection of poems woven with sadness and loss dealing with aging, attachments, and the precarity of life.”
Translated from the Dutch by Kristen Gehrman
Sandorf Passage | June 25, 2024
Originally published in 1969 and set in 1950s Suriname, this novel “makes it all too clear what women have had to, and continue to, sacrifice in the name of claiming their identity.”
Moonlight Over Sea Trees by Edgar Heap of Birds and Michael Maxwell
Burrow Press | June 28, 2024
This book—containing visual art by Heap of Words and Maxwell as well as an artist talk and three essays contextualizing their works—explores “the ways both artists engage with the natural world through abstraction.”
