11 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Fall

Best Offer Wins (November 25) is a darkly humorous thriller about desperate homebuyer Margo Miyake, who becomes obsessed with buying a not-yet-listed house after a nightmarish 18 months dealing with the competitive housing market in Washington, D.C. Since Margo sees getting out of her tiny apartment as the key to fixing her marriage and putting her life back on track, she will stop at nothing — including trespassing, stalking, and more — to get this house. 

John Vercher’s Three-Fifths was first released in 2019, garnering sweeping praise and award nominations, and an exciting new edition is being released on November 4. This powerful novel centers on Bobby Saraceno, a biracial young man who was raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather and has passed as white his entire life. Bobby has hidden his mixed-race identity from even his closest friends — who include Aaron, a newly minted white supremacist, fresh out of prison. But things get dangerous when Bobby witnesses Aaron violently attack a Black man, and Bobby’s secrets become even harder to keep when his Black father reenters the picture after 20 years.

Wolf Bells is the latest book from Leni Zumas, best known for her novel Red Clocks. Out September 16, Wolf Bells focuses on an intergenerational group home called The House that’s run by a former punk singer who fell into the caretaker life. All are meant to be welcome — from the elderly to the disabled to the down-on-their-luck — but that is put to the test when two children, cousins Nola and James, arrive. The group home is having financial issues, the authorities are looking for the kids, and the dynamics between residents are complex and layered, providing thoughtful commentary on community, kinship, and belonging.

You can bet that we will be devouring Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket when it’s released on October 7. In Milwaukee circa 1932, amid the Great Depression and Prohibition, Hicks McTaggart has taken up work as a private eye. His newest job sees him tasked with finding a missing cheese heiress — hey, it’s Wisconsin! — and bringing her home in one piece. Hicks ends up in Hungary after being shanghaied onto a ship, and he eventually finds himself embroiled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, paranormal experts, and fugitive motorcyclists. The question, then, is not only whether Hicks will return the heiress to her family but whether he himself will make it home in one piece. 

Like her bestselling My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters (November 4) deals with themes such as love, family obligations, and female rivalry — but with a curse and possible reincarnation in the mix. In the devilishly hilarious novel, Ebun gives birth to her daughter Eniiyi on the same day that her cousin Monife is buried. That fact, combined with a striking resemblance between Eniiyi and her dead cousin, convinces the entire family that the child is the reincarnation of Monife and that she will meet the same tragic fate. They also believe that the family is cursed, after generations of women are abandoned by the men they loved. When Eniiyi falls in love with a boy she saves from drowning, she must figure out how to break generational patterns and divorce herself from family superstitions. 

In Christine Kuehn’s Family of Spies (November 25), the author talks about the puzzling letter she received from a screenwriter asking about her family’s involvement in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Kuehn broaches the subject with her father, a man born in Germany and raised in Hawaii, who has always been brief with anecdotes of his early life. After he breaks down in tears, admitting to his family’s past with the Nazi party, Kuehn uncovers an unbelievable story of espionage and deceit that shakes her to her core.

Prison journalist John J. Lennon’s The Tragedy of True Crime (September 23) weaves together the stories of four men — Robert Chambers (known as the Preppy Killer), Milton E. Jones, Michael Shan, and Lennon himself — who all committed unthinkable crimes and are searching for redemption from behind bars. This immersive, one-of-a-kind book forces the reader to confront questions of who gets to tell a story and whether a person can become more than their worst act.

In his new book, Dealing with Feeling (September 16), author Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a set of skills and strategies to help readers with their own emotion regulation — something most of us are not taught as children. This useful book serves as a tool for those who want to know how to better work with their own and others’ emotions to achieve success in their personal and professional lives, and it offers helpful strategies for harnessing emotions in healthy, purposeful ways. 

In Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (November 4), the iconic author of The Handmaid’s Tale writes about a very different topic — herself. Starting with her nomadic childhood and her parents’ somewhat unconventional child-rearing through her decades-long romance with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson and beyond, the book illustrates how Atwood’s life has impacted her art and vice versa. From Berlin (where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale) to Hollywood, where she has become a big deal in recent years, Atwood proves her real life is just as readable as fiction.

From Beth Macy, author of bestselling books Dopesick and Factory Man, comes the memoir Paper Girl (October 7). Macy talks about growing up as the neighborhood “paper girl” in small-town Ohio, her family’s struggles with addiction and poverty, and the Pell Grant that set her on the path to become a renowned journalist. Macy’s characteristic voice combines personal narrative and an examination of larger social, political, and economic issues, including those that have impacted her hometown and others like it over the past four decades.

Julian Brave NoiseCat may be best known for directing the Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane, but we have a feeling that may change when We Survive the Night is published on October 14. Parts investigative report, oral history, and memoir, the book presents a fascinating illustration of contemporary Indigenous life. NoiseCat was raised by his non-Native mother in Native communities in California and British Columbia, after his Secwépemc and St’at’imc artist father abandoned them. He immersed himself in Native history and mythology, which prepared him to expertly tell stories from the past while at the same time explore Indigenous peoples’ attempts to reclaim a culture eroded by colonization. The book also chronicles NoiseCat’s reconciliation with his father. . .in case you wanted to cry while watching those fall leaves blow in the wind.