The main reason I love writing about books is that I get a sneak preview of what’s coming. Remember when you were a kid and you got the giant catalog from JC Penney or Montgomery Ward and you would go through it and dream about your Christmas presents? Getting a publisher catalog and sifting through titles is a lot like that. And the fall / winter release season is always the biggest time of the year in book publishing. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a preview of some of the books I can’t wait to read, coming out in the second half of 2019.


The Wonders: The Extraordinary Circus Performers Who Transformed the Victorian Age by John Woolf

From the publisher: On March 23, 1844, General Tom Thumb, just 25 inches tall, entered the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace and bowed low to Queen Victoria. On both sides of the Atlantic, this meeting marked a tipping point in the nineteenth century, and the age of the freak was born. Bewitching all levels of society, it was a world of curiosities and astonishing spectacle—of dwarfs, giants, bearded ladies, Siamese twins, and swaggering showmen.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books; 1 edition (November 5, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1643132202
ISBN-13: 978-1643132204


Dark Skies: A Journey into the Wild Night by Tiffany Francis

From the publisher: Over the course of a year, Tiffany travels through different nightscapes across the UK and beyond. She experiences 24-hour daylight while swimming in the Gulf of Finland and visits Norway to witness the Northern Lights and speak to people who live in darkness for three months each year. She hikes through the haunted yew forests of Kingley Vale, embarks on a nocturnal sail down the River Dart, feeds foxes on a south London estate, and listens to nightjars churring on a Sussex heathland.

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Wildlife (November 5, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1472964594
ISBN-13: 978-1472964595
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 8.5 inches


The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski

From the publisher: Harry Houdini. Say his name and a number of things come to mind. Escapes. Illusions. Magic. Chains. Safes. Live burials. Close to a century after his death, nearly every person in America knows his name from a young age, capturing their imaginations with his death-defying stunts and daring acts. He inspired countless people, from all walks of life, to find something magical within themselves.

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster (October 22, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1501137239
ISBN-13: 978-1501137235
Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches


The Greatest Fury: The Battle of New Orleans and the Rebirth of America by William C Davis

From the publisher: It was a battle most thought could not be won. Outnumbered farmers, merchants, backwoodsmen, smugglers, slaves, and Choctaw Indians, many of them unarmed, were up against the cream of the British army, professional soldiers who had defeated the great Napoleon and set Washington, D.C., ablaze. At stake was nothing less than the future of the vast American heartland, from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, as the ragtag American forces fought to hold New Orleans, the gateway of the Mississippi River and an inland empire.

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Dutton Caliber (October 15, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399585222
ISBN-13: 978-0399585227
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 9.2 inches


Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

From the publisher: Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 8, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0358023939
ISBN-13: 978-0358023937
Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches


The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

From the publisher: At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi―a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother―it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls.

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Imprint (September 24, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250304504
ISBN-13: 978-1250304506
Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches


Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn (Author), Paul Murray (Editor, Introduction)

From the publisher: In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living, and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: “rokuro-kubi,” whose heads separate from their bodies at night; “jikininki,” or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless “mujina” who haunt lonely neighborhoods.

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics (September 24, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0241381274
ISBN-13: 978-0241381274
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 7.8 inches


Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru: A Poe and Dupin Mystery by Karen Lee Street

From the publisher: Philadelphia, 1844.

As violent tensions escalate between nativists and recent Irish immigrants, Edgar Allan Poe’s fears for the safety of his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Muddy, are compounded when he receives a parcel of mummified bird parts. Has his nemesis returned to settle an old score? Just as odd is the arrival of Helena Loddiges, a young heiress who demands Poe’s help to discover why her lover died at the city’s docks on his return from an expedition to Peru.

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books; Reprint edition (December 10, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1643132644
ISBN-13: 978-1643132648
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.2 inches


Mystery of the Exploding Teeth And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris

From the publisher: PA puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the nineteenth century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled. Witness Mysterious Illnesses (such as the Rhode Island woman who peed through her nose), Horrifying Operations (1781: A French soldier in India operates on his own bladder stone), Tall Tales (like the “amphibious infant” of Chicago, a baby that could apparently swim underwater for half an hour), Unfortunate Predicaments (such as that of the boy who honked like a goose after inhaling a bird’s larynx), and a plethora of other marvels.

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Dutton; Reprint edition (November 12, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1524743704
ISBN-13: 978-1524743703
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches


The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways (Tales of the Weird) by Mike Ashley (Editor)

From the publisher: The Platform Edge is a collection of the greatest stories of strange happenings on the tracks. In this express service to the unknown, phantom passengers join the jostling of the daily commute, a subway car disappears into another dimension without a trace, while a tragic derailment on a lonely hillside in the Alps torments the locals with its horrifying nightly repetition.

Series: Tales of the Weird (Book 6)
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: British Library Publishing; None edition (September 1, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0712352031
ISBN-13: 978-0712352031
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches


What books are you looking forward to?


 

11 thoughts on “Books to watch for in 2019”

  1. I am so excited for the Kate Racculia book! I quite liked her debut, and I was just thinking about her recently and wondering when she was going to have another book out. I thought she might have been a one-and-done sort of author, but I’m thrilled that she’s not.

  2. These all sounds so good! I just added literally all of these to my TBR to check out, haha, so thank you for sharing these! I hope you get a chance to read them all. 🙂

    1. I don’t know very much about them but one of my favorite podcasts, Astonishing Legends, did an episode about yokai and I want to know more. We can learn a lot about a culture by learning what they are afraid of.

  3. Lots of good ones on this list! You’re not helping me reduce my TBR pile, Meaghan. Here are two books I’ve preordered: Fiction: The Plus One by Sarah Archer – “A brilliant but socially inept robotics engineer builds her own wedding date.” Nonfiction: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal – “Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.”

    1. Hahaha! I just did a huge purge of my library, and I still have piles everywhere. 😀

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