January Preview

Hi Bookworms, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and now soon we’re headed into the New Year. Happy 2026! Wow it’s futuristic sounding.

Last year was a tough one, so I’m hoping this year will be better. Will you be attending a party on New Year’s eve, or having a more quiet evening at home? We’ll be having dinner out with friends and then be back with these two dogs — Willow and Stella (the dynamic duo) — likely to watch the ball drop in NYC, Lol. I heard Central Park received some snow. It’s been really freezing here — below 0F a couple days — but it should be much warmer this week, fingers crossed.

I’m thinking of posting my Favorite Reads of 2025 next time as I’m still reading one last good one. I’ll look over my stats and write about those as well as which books were excellent for me. I hope you had a great reading year. I think my numbers felt pretty average for me, but we’ll see.

And now let’s talk about what’s coming out in January. There’s a slew of new books releasing, including novels by such popular authors as Laura Dave, Paula McLain, Ashley Elston, Alice Feeney, and Ashley Winstead among others. I’m looking at those and a few others, including author Gabriel Tallent’s second novel Crux (due out Jan. 20). It’s about two-down-and-out high school best friends who try to escape their hard family lives through their love of rock climbing in the Mohave Desert.

It’s said to be an intense story of friendship and grit … which Publishers Weekly calls “a brutal portrait of finding hope in an unforgiving landscape” and “a towering coming-of-age saga packed with muscle and heart.” So count me in.

Next up is a tossup between two previous Booker Prize-winning authors who have new novels releasing: Julian Barnes’ auto-fictional tale Departure(s) (due out Jan. 20) and George Saunders’ second novel Vigil (out Jan. 27). Barnes novel features a narrator named Julian Barnes who explores such issues as love, death, memory, and the merits of novel writing, while Saunders novel is about a ghost who attempts to guide an unrepentant oil executive toward redemption and the afterlife.

Coincidentally I read both authors’ previous prized novels in 2017 and they sound a bit similar to these. Like Saunders’ first novel Lincoln in the Bardo, his new one features ghosts and spirits as well, while Barnes new book appears to touch on memory and time a bit like his earlier work The Sense of an Ending. Both were quite good though, so I probably shouldn’t miss their new fiction.

I’m also looking at Thrity Umrigar’s latest novel Missing Sam (due out Jan. 27) about a woman who goes missing on a morning run and her wife’s determination to find her and also clear her own name from suspicion … particularly as a gay, Muslim daughter of immigrants. Apparently while the hunt for Sam propels the narrative, conflicting pulls of family, faith, sexuality, and culture affect the characters’ actions.

I’ve read a few of Umrigar’s other novels over the years and they often touch on the differences perceived by people and raise various modern-day issues. You get into the crosshairs and it’s hard to pull away.

On the screen in January, there’s the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 11 and a slew of new and returning TV series. There’s so many that I can only feature a few that I’m interested in … (but if you like The Pitt, Season 2 starts Jan. 8 on HBO Max, the series Shrinking Season 3 begins Jan. 28 on AppleTV+, and the series Bridgerton airs on Netflix starting Jan. 29). I haven’t followed those shows, but I know many do.

Meanwhile I’m surprised and happy to see that The Night Manager, the le Carre spy thriller from 2016, will be returning on Jan. 11 to Prime for a six-episode sequel, Yay. Tom Hiddleston will return as Jonathan Pine who’s sent on a new mission in Colombia involving a dangerous arms dealer. He’ll team with Olivia Coleman again who’ll be back as well. Gosh where have they been? That was 2016 … so I might like to watch the original once more before the new season.

Also there’s Season 2 of the thriller Hijack starting Jan. 14 on AppleTV+ You might recall Season 1 featured Idris Elba as a corporate business negotiator on a scary hijacked flight from Dubai to London … now for Season 2 he’s on a Berlin underground train when its commuters are taken hostage and authorities are scrambling to save hundreds of lives. It looks intense and violent, but I am curious what Idris’s character will do. So I will cautiously board that train. Gulp.

Meanwhile I’ll keep in mind the British movie H Is for Heart (due out Jan. 23) with Claire Foy as a woman whose grief over the sudden loss of her father is aided by the unlikely friendship with a wild goshawk named Mabel. The film, which is based on the popular 2014 memoir by Helen Macdonald, hasn’t received very strong reviews, but I plan to see it nonetheless. Some of the birding film shots look superb and Claire Foy is always pretty excellent, so what are we waiting for?

Finally in music releases for January, I don’t see a lot to peruse other than folk singer Courtney Marie Andrews’ new album Valentine (due out Jan. 16) and icon singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams’ new album World’s Gone Wrong (due out Jan. 23). Over the decades, I’ve seen Lucinda a number of times in concert and she’s quite the legend with so many great songs. I’ll pick her album World’s Gone Wrong for my pick this month … which you can hear the title track of and see performed live here.

Cheers. That’s all for now — what about you which new releases are you looking forward to? Happy 2026.