diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 87907ca..3ae857e 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,21 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 1.8.8
+Tuesday, August 14, 2018
+====================================
+- Fix hb-icu crash on architectures where compare_exchange_weak() can
+  fail falsely.  This bug was introduced in 1.8.4.
+  https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=873568
+- More internal refactoring of atomic operations and singletons.
+- API changes:
+  The following functions do NOT reference their return value before
+  returning:
+  * hb_unicode_funcs_get_default()
+  * hb_glib_get_unicode_funcs()
+  * hb_icu_get_unicode_funcs()
+  This is consistent with their naming ("get", instead of "reference")
+  as well as how they are used in the wild (ie. no one calls destroy()
+  on their return value.)
+
+
 Overview of changes leading to 1.8.7
 Wednesday, August 8, 2018
 ====================================
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index a32b863..55cc12b 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [1.8.7],
+        [1.8.8],
         [https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/new],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])
diff --git a/src/hb-version.h b/src/hb-version.h
index 32d95f8..e0816d1 100644
--- a/src/hb-version.h
+++ b/src/hb-version.h
@@ -38,9 +38,9 @@
 
 #define HB_VERSION_MAJOR 1
 #define HB_VERSION_MINOR 8
-#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 7
+#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 8
 
-#define HB_VERSION_STRING "1.8.7"
+#define HB_VERSION_STRING "1.8.8"
 
 #define HB_VERSION_ATLEAST(major,minor,micro) \
 	((major)*10000+(minor)*100+(micro) <= \