This is going to happen in batches because there is so much great stuff coming out. As part of Amazon’s vertical integration and virtual domination of the bookselling industry, the company purchased Goodreads in 2013 for ‘an undisclosed sum’. Amazon had previously acquired Shelfari in 2008. So they were in charge of the books that got sold and then the largest book recommendation platform. Not a great system for book buyers. Or book sellers. But that isn’t the point of this post. This post is to get you excited about all this really good content coming out over the next few months. I’m splitting the books up by genre starting with Contemporary & Historical Fiction.
Evil Eye by Etaf Rum
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents.
Publication Date: September 5
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed
Publication Date: September 5
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
Publication Date: September 12
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.
Publication Date: September 26
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai’s ghost won’t leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ’s family bakery. TJ’s not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said – and left unsaid – to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?
Publication Date: October 10
The House of Doors by Tan Wan Eng
In the Straits Settlements of Southeast Asia, circa 1921, famed British novelist Somerset Maugham visits his old friend Robert Hamlyn, war veteran and lawyer. Things get very complicated, very quickly. Based on actual events, Tan Twan Eng’s ambitious new novel digs deep into issues of race, gender, sexuality, and storytelling.
Publication Date: October 17
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward follows the fate of Annis, an enslaved girl in the American South traveling from the fields of Carolina to the slave markets of New Orleans. Annis transcends her circumstances through visions of a world beyond our world, filled with magic, spirits, and hope. I have an ARC of this that I am starting tonight.
Publication Date: October 24
America Fantastica by Tim O’Brien
From the author of the American Lit 101 classic The Things They Carried, America Fantastica marks the return of author Tim O’Brien to the fiction game after more than 20 years. The gist: A desperate bank robbery morphs into a cross-country chase featuring hit men, a billionaire tycoon, jealous lovers, and several ex-cons. O’Brien hands America a mirror once more.
Publication Date: October 24
