So many books come out each year, and it’s difficult for readers to know what to expect at bookstores next, much less what’s any good. Here are my picks from the list of upcoming winter releases. Please keep in mind that book release dates are nebulous. These books may already be on your shelves, or they may not be out until April. Enjoy!

Barthelme, Frederick and Steven: Double Down : Reflections on Gambling and Loss (Houghton Mifflin Co.). "…an astounding book — lucid and hypnotic. I read it as if witnessing a not-so-small miracle in which a fall from grace is inverted, mid-air, and turned into a fall toward grace. It is clean and crisp and important." — Rick Bass

Budnitz, Judy: If I Told You Once: A Novel (Picador USA). Folks are already emailing me excerpts from this one without knowing I’m reading it. Bizarre imagery mixed with realistic settings.

Ellis, Helen: Eating the Cheshire Cat (Scribner). This Southerner’s debut novel exposes the horrifying pecking order and traditional rites of passage of Southern women for what they are. A mesmerizing narrative – both grotesque and alarmingly funny.

Gay, William: The Long Home (MacMurray and Home). "Handshaped fiction of great power, like a footbridge back to the heavy 40s. Gay is always good and often sublime." — Barry Hannah

Hallett, Cynthia Whitney: Minimalism and the Short Story — Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison (Studies in Comparative Literature V. 28.) (Edwin Mellen Press). Nonnfiction book by an academic linking the work of these three writers. I haven’t received a copy yet, but its premise is intriguing.

Hannah, Barry (introduction) and Nick Cave (introduction): Pocket Canons – Mark (Grove Press). You must read Hannah’s passionate and personal introduction to this pocket edition of the King James Version of the Book of Mark.

Lehman, David: The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry (Scribner). If you read his 30 daily poems at poems.com, you’ll want the whole collection. "…Reads like a sped-up meditation on the elemental stuff that we're made of… The seemingly randomness of daily life accrues into a shape and surety." — Yusef Komunyakaa

Mamet, David and Elizabeth Dahlie (Illustrator): Henrietta (Houghton Mifflin Co). A children’s story by the acclaimed writer and director. The heroine is a young piglet attending Harvard. Lots of local Cambridge references.

Mattison, Alice: The Book Borrower: A Novel (William Morrow). Her third novel. "Mattison shapes her characters like a master sculptor, rounding and aging them splendidly, to create a story that resonates." — Michele Leber, Booklist

Michaels, Anne: Poems (Knopf). Her first collection of poetry to be published in the States. "These are poems that go way beyond games or fashion or politics… they represent the human being entire." — Michael Ondaatje

Olds, Sharon: Blood, Tin, Straw (Knopf). She writes more inventively about sex than any poet I know… Her latest collection spans from her adolescence to her own children’s adulthood.

Sherman, Susan: Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley (Norton). An emotionally tumultuous, intellectually riveting exchange. "The reader is almost a participant, aware of the changing tones of Sarton’s self-revelations over the years." — Charlotte Mandel. Read Pif’s full review of this non-fiction must.

Slavin, Julia: The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.). Her characters grow teeth all over their bodies or swallow the lawn boy. As Slavin twists reality she reveals raw, emotional truth. Reminiscent of Kafka or Tim O’Brien. Most inventive book of the year. Read Pif’s interview with Slavin.

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Camille Renshaw is the Senior Editor for Pif Magazine. She currently resides in Boston, MA.