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 Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age by Joy Harjo and An Eye for an I: Growing Up With Blindness, Bigotry, and Family Mental Illness by James Francisco Bonilla.
“The days I don’t want to kill myself / are extraordinary.” The New Economy (Copper Canyon Press, October 2025) by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. Fourth book, poetry collection. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon. Editor: Michael Wiegers. Publicist: Ryo Yamaguchi.
“I once had a friend who could tell you where you were from.” Love, Dirt (University of Iowa Press, November 2025) by Bruce Johnson. First book, story collection. Agent: None. Editor: James McCoy. Publicist: Allison Means.
“Some people are born to be the main character, with a flock of sidekicks that would follow them even to the toilet.” Spent Bullets (HarperVia, October 2025) by Terao Tetsuya, translated from the Chinese by Kevin Wang. First book, story collection. Agent: Whitney Hsu. Editor: Alexa Frank. Publicists: Courtney Nobile and Ashley Yepsen.
“Hours before they find him, everything burns.” This Is the Only Kingdom (Algonquin Books, October 2025) by Jaquira Díaz. Second book, first novel. Agent: Michelle Brower. Editor: Kathy Pories. Publicists: Amelia Possanza and Marisol Salaman.
“At the feet of a precipice-tall skeleton, / we wonder about the horrors of the Jurasssic, / predators stalking, then slicing into, their prey.” Natural History (Graywolf Press, November 2025) by Brandon Kilbourne. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeff Shotts. Publicist: Nirali Sheth.
“The intruders enter as quiet as light.” If the Dead Belong Here (Viking, October 2025) by Carson Faust. First book, novel. Agent: Annie Hwang. Editor: Ibrahim Ahmad. Publicist: Emily Fishman.
“I was young in my poetry making.” Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age (Norton, October 2025) by Joy Harjo. Fifteenth book, third memoir. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Jill Bialosky. Publicist: Gabrielle Nugent.
“Crawl beyond barbed wire.” Something Small of How to See a River (Tupelo Press, October 2025) by Teresa Dzieglewicz. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Kristina Marie Darling. Publicist: Alisha Gorder.
“Put your ribs into the wind when you say it.” A Bright and Borrowed Light (William Morrow, October 2025) by the late Courtney Kampa. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: Dana Murphy. Editor: Tessa James. Publicist: Sharyn Rosenblum.
“There is no single anecdote.” Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation (Doubleday, November 2025) by Jen Percy. Second book, nonfiction. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Thomas Gebremedhin. Publicists: Sarah Jean Grimm, Elena Hershey, and Whitney Peeling.
“I’m five years old and being chased around our tiny one bedroom apartment in Forest Hills, New York, by my knife-wielding mother.” An Eye for an I: Growing Up With Blindness, Bigotry, and Family Mental Illness (University of Minnesota Press, November 2025) by James Francisco Bonilla. First book, memoir. Agent: None. Editor: Erik Anderson. Publicist: Heather Skinner.
“I wish I could tell you how the idea of writing about marrying a ten-year-old boy first occurred to me, but I can’t.” Joyride (Avid Reader Press, October 2025) by Susan Orlean. Eighth book, first memoir. Agent: Richard Pine. Editor: Jofie Ferrari-Adler. Publicists: Ilana Gold, Lena K. Little, and Alexandra Primiani.
