Godwin marks the return of Joseph O'Neill, presenting a story that resonates with the scope of his Pen/Faulkner Award-winning Netherland. This narrative unfolds the odyssey of two brothers, Mark Wolfe and Geoff, as they traverse the globe in search of an African soccer prodigy who has the potential to revolutionize their fortunes.

Mark Wolfe, a technical writer of great intellect yet prone to self-sabotage, resides in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their young daughter. His half-brother Geoff, a UK-born struggling soccer agent, lures Mark into a transatlantic quest to locate a mysterious prospect known simply as “Godwin”—a teenager from Africa whom Geoff believes could be the next Messi.

The tale alternates between the perspectives of Mark and his colleague Lakesha Williams, weaving a narrative that is at once a family saga and a global adventure. It delves into the beauty and corruption within soccer, the hazards and hopes of international commerce, and the somber history of cross-continental profit.

Through his distinctive storytelling, Joseph O'Neill probes into the remnants of colonialism against the backdrop of familial affection, the machinations of global capitalism, and the aspirations of the individual.

There's Always This Year is a poignant, personal reflection on basketball, talent, and allegiance, and of course, LeBron James—from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America. While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture's most insightful critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan.

Growing up in Columbus in the 1990s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with memoir. "Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jumpshot," Abdurraqib writes. "The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time."

There's Always This Year is a classic Abdurraqib triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. It's about basketball in the way They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us is about music and A Little Devil in America is about history—no matter the subject, Abdurraqib's exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition.

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country.

Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.