With so many great books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the mix. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice by Rachel Kolb and Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy.
“Everyone is ugly.” Pick a Color (Little, Brown, September 2025) by Souvankham Thammavongsa. Sixth book, first novel. Agent: Sarah Chalfant. Editor: Liese Mayer. Publicist: Elizabeth Garriga.
“Nobody’s angel— / even your crown, unkempt, / looks like an egret” Night Watch (Knopf, September 2025) by Kevin Young. Sixteenth book, thirteenth poetry collection. Agent: Rob McQuilkin. Editor: Deborah Garrison. Publicist: Jordan Rodman.
“As speech sounds go, R has always been my least favorite.” Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco Press, September 2025) by Rachel Kolb. First book, memoir. Agent: Lydia Wills. Editor: Sarah Murphy. Publicist: Sonya Cheuse.
“Practice: A routine.” Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming (Duke University Press, September 2025) by Eli Clare. Fourth book, hybrid genre. Agent: None. Editor: Elizabeth Ault. Publicist: Laura Sell.
“On a winter morning my friend’s kid hears me telling my friend about all the sticks I pee on.” Trying (Graywolf Press, August 2025) by Chloé Caldwell. Fifth book, second memoir. Agents: Laurie-Maude Chenard and Rebecca Gradinger. Editor: Yuka Igarashi. Publicist: Claire Laine.
“Postmen begin delivering the letters to our houses a week into August, two weeks into the rains that drip sticky and countrywide.” Small Scale Sinners (A Public Space Books, September 2025) by Mahreen Sohail. First book, story collection. Agent: Samantha Shea. Editor: Brigid Hughes. Publicist: Kait Astrella.
“Lately I’d become obsessed with sewing stuffed animals.” The Dilemmas of Working Women (HarperVia, August 2025) by the late Fumio Yamamoto, translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom. Sixth of sixteen books, sixth of eight story collections. Agent: Lisette Verhagen. Editor: Alexa Frank. Publicists: Alison Cerri and Ashley Yepsen.
“I attribute all that summer’s disquiet to an encounter with a man on the ferry, an encounter that was as destabilizing as it was strange.” Archipelago (Tin House, August 2025) by Natalie Bakopoulos. Third book, novel. Agent: Audrey Crooks. Editor: Masie Cochran. Publicist: Becky Kraemer.
“Or that I would run my hand along / the dip in the hill’s grey back / up to its withers, feeling / the closeness of its heat, / its inwardness risen and risen and blown away” Green of All Heads (BOA Editions, September 2025) by Aracelis Girmay. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Peter Conners. Publicist: Amy Betti.
“We developed a program of eliminating other people’s eyelashes” Perverts (Nightboat Books, September 2025) by Kay Gabriel. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Stephen Motika. Publicist: Dante Silva.
“She chose September, that most excellent month, to make her move.” Mother Mary Comes to Me (Scribner, September 2025) by Arundhati Roy. Nineteenth book, first memoir. Agent: Lisette Verhagen. Editors: Kathryn Belden and Nan Graham. Publicists: Kate Lloyd and Katie Monaghan.
“Once, while disemboweling the chicken / readying it for my lover’s dinner, I remembered / my abuela slashing the rooster’s throat.” Someone Else’s Hunger (Four Way Books, September 2025) by Isabella DeSendi. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Hannah Matheson. Publicist: Alisha Gorder.
