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While you can’t physically browse at bookstores right now, you can still enjoy new works and support independent book shops by making purchases online. Here are some semi-new release to choose from:

Writers & Lovers by Lily King at White Whale Bookstore
Lily King is one of the authors taking part in the recently announced Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ Ten Evenings 2020 series. She comes to Pittsburgh Nov. 16 (if the pandemic is over) to discuss Writers & Lovers, published March 3 by Grove Press. King’s fifth novel follows wannabe writer Casey Peabody during the summer of 1997 as she struggles with two potential lovers and the recent death of her mother.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyawat at City Books From Pittsburgh author Deesha Philyaw — best known as a co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce, one of the driving forces behind TENDER ââa literary anthology & book of spells: evidence, and articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more — comes The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Out in September and told in nine stories, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies follows four generations of Black women and girls caught between their own desires and the church’s expectations. This would be a preorder, but the early purchase would support a local author as well as an independent bookstore.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr at Mystery Lovers Bookshop This novel came out in 2014, but it still frequently pops up on bookstagram (Instagram accounts for book lovers). At the time of publication, All The Light was an instant New York Times bestseller and named Best Historial Fiction novel of the year by Goodreads users. In 2015, All The Light won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Doerr wrote a remarkable story with beautiful prose about a German boy and a blind French girl who meet in France as they attempt to survive the destruction of WWII.
One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus at Spark Books Published in January via Delacorte Press, One of Us Is Next is the sequel to McManus’s 2017 New York Times bestseller One of Us Is Lying. In the YA thriller dubbed “The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars,” five teens enter detention together, and Simon, the outcast, never leaves. He ends up dead. One of Us Is Next continues the story after the investigation of Simon’s death, and one of the four survivors may be the next person to join Simon.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel at Riverstone Books
A Ponzi scheme, ghosts, and a woman’s disappearance. Emily St. John Mandel’s latest novel — released March 24 via Knopf Publishing Group — is both gorgeous and haunting as it follows two narratives through a nonlinear path. It’s better if you don’t know too much going into it.

Bonus – read and watch:
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng at City of Asylum
This 2017 novel by Celeste Ng, who lived in Pittsburgh for a period, was made into a Hulu series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. The show debuted mid-March. Read this psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, then binge the show.