One Girl Collecting: B&N's Fall 2016 Discover Great New Writers List

From the Barnes & Noble booksellers comes this fall's list of 9 writers/titles to include on your radar. A bit of a misnomer, the "Discover Great New Writers List" is not so much about publicizing new or debut authors, but introducing readers to authors they may not know. Of the nine authors, six are actually debuts / "new" writers (Nathan Hill, Alexander Weinstein, Affinity Konar, Jade Chang, Tara Clancy, and Abigail Tucker).

I am particularly interested in reading Alexander Weinstein's Children of the New World.

The Nix by Nathan Hill (Knopf, August). "A smart, laugh-out-loud-funny, and bighearted novel about love, loss, longing, and family secrets that pings across decades, countries, and generations and features an unforgettable mother and son at the center of a raucous cast of characters."

Art of Waiting by Belle Boggs (Graywolf, September). "Belle Boggs draws on science, memoir, history, reporting, and cultural commentary to deliver a beautifully written, empathetic meditation about fertility and the choices we make to build our families."—Boggs is known mainly for her fiction, her debut novel Mattaponi Queen was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award, long listed for The Story Prize, and named as a Kirkus top fiction debut in 2010.

Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips (Norton, September). "Patrick Phillips brings to life an ugly and harrowing episode of American history in this meticulously researched and powerfully written history of his hometown, and the violence that kept the community all white, well into the 1990s."

Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein (Picador, September). "We're crazy for these inventive, cautionary tales set in a near-future world of social media implants, manufactured memories, robots and virtual reality games--and tore through these incredibly fresh stories a single sitting."—This is Weinstein's first book of short stories. He is the director of The Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing.

Mischling by Affinity Konar (Little, Brown, September)."The subject's undeniably difficult, but Affinity Konar's exquisite prose carried us through this kaleidoscopic story, and the waves of emotion (fear and longing and love are just the start) that accompany the unforgettable Zagorski sisters in this haunting, often dreamlike debut." —Konar also has a book of short stories, The Illustrated Version of Things (published by FC2).

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October). "A family falls apart and comes back together in this sparkling--and sharp--debut novel that reminds us of The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. An impulsive decision by a self-made cosmetics mogul rocks his family, but what happens next surprises all of them in this witty story of money and manners, identity and the American Dream." —This is Chang's debut and was listed in Library Journal's Five Big Debuts.

The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy (Crown, October). "I'm the whirling dervish of Queens, spinning around and around, arms flapping, my father's boxing gloves like cinder blocks strapped to my seven-year-old hands. We quickly fell in love with Tara Clancy's inimitable and often wickedly funny voice--and couldn't get enough of the ups-and-downs of her loving and offbeat family."

The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker (Simon & Schuster, October). "Celebrity house cats ink movie deals, make charitable donations, and count Hollywood starlets among their Twitter followers. All that, and cats still have no use for humans. Dig deep into the history, biology, and science of house cats in this charming--and highly informative--read that explains how cats came to rule."—Tucker is a writer for the Smithsonian Magazine.

Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch (Doubleday, November). "A thoughtful, immersive novel like Erika Swyler's The Book of Speculation or Leslie Parry's Church of Marvels. Two concurrent storylines--each featuring a young woman making her way in the world--pull the past and present together in this atmospheric tale of fame and self-definition.—Birch is the author of 11 novels. Her 2011 novel, Jamrach's Menagerie was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.