School is back in session, which can only mean one thing…it’s time to get reading!
This September is bursting with huge releases from writers such as Sally Rooney, Jami Attenberg, Garth Greenwell, Rumaan Alam, and more. Our most-anticipated books list this month will take you from thrilling spy novels and hilarious family dramas to plenty of horror stories to get you ready for fall. If you’ve been looking for a jolt to your reading schedule, now’s your chance!
Small Rain
By Garth Greenwell
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
When a poet finds himself trapped in sudden pain and the dysfunction of the American health system following a trip to the ICU, he must come to learn about what is happening to his body after years of spending most of his life in his own mind. Prodding and prismatic in the ways it reflects our collective values of love and art in new light, Small Rain is a triumph of genuine vulnerability, crafted by an author who has already delivered some of the most memorable characters in modern fiction.
Playground
By Richard Powers
W. W. Norton & Company
Richard Powers is one of our greatest living environmental writers, and with Playground he returns to a scope and sprawl not seen since The Overstory. Following the lives of four characters whose far-reaching lives all take them to the history-scarred island of Makatea, Playground is a novel that spans topics as different as the history of French Polynesia, chess, advanced AI, and play as an act of learning. One of the greatest joys of reading a Richard Powers novel is his genuine sense of curiosity—that sincere interest in the world and his characters’ place in it—and his new novel is a testament to that wonder.
The Repeat Room
By Jesse Ball
Catapult
I recently found myself hoping that one day Yorgos Lanthimos will find his next directorial project in the work of Jesse Ball—two visionaries who combine uncompromising bleakness and the sharpest of dark wit to create absurd depictions of human desire. Perhaps the best place to start would be with The Repeat Room, a novel set in a speculative future where a single juror is selected to inhabit the defendant’s lived experience through their own eyes. When Abel is chosen and begins to uncover the defendant’s broken life and a passionate psycho-sexual relationship, this surreal exploration of bureaucracy becomes a portrait of love in all its tainted permutations.
Creation Lake
By Rachel Kushner
Scribner Book Company
A literary neo-noir novel written by Rachel Kushner? Sign us up! Creation Lake follows a thirty-four-year-old American spy who finds herself unsure whether she’s the enticer or the seduced when she meets a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe as she embeds herself within a group of eco-activists in southwest France. Sardonic and surprising at every turn, Creation Lake is a compelling read full of thrills and knotty ideas you’ll enjoy tussling over.
Soon and Wholly
By Idra Novey
Wesleyan University Press
Following her 2023 novel Take What You Need, Idra Novey returns with her first poetry collection in a decade. The poems in Soon and Wholly takes readers through the hot summer days of city-life and the carefree childhood experiences in the countryside, juxtaposing two different lifestyles and setting the stage for a collection that spans years and miles. Inspired by authors across the literary spectrum including Clarice Lispector, Lydia Davis, and Garous Abdolmalekian, Novey’s collection highlights a deep love for the written and natural worlds.
Good Night, Sleep Tight
By Brian Evenson
Coffee House Press
A new release from one of our most ingenious horror writers is the perfect way to kick off the Halloween season early. Tracing the surreal edges of our existence and displaying the author’s trademark sense of severe isolation and paranoia, Good Night, Sleep Tight offers increasingly fraught moral quandaries and coming disasters with every story. Master of the short form scary story Brian Evenson delivers another pitch perfect collection in Good Night, Sleep Tight.
Intermezzo
By Sally Rooney
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Whether you love her or hate her, a new book from Sally Rooney deserves your full attention. Intermezzo follows two brothers—Peter, a Dublin lawyer, and Ivan, a competitive chess player—who are grieving the recent loss of their father. Both brothers attempt to cope in their own ways, whether through medication or new love, and must attempt to find a way forward through despair without breaking entirely.
Entitlement
By Rumaan Alam
Riverhead Books
Rumaan Alam follows up his New York Times bestselling novel Leave the World Behind with what’s sure to be another literary sensation. In Entitlement, Brooke’s ongoing desire for purpose leads her to a job assisting an octogenarian billionaire on his quest to give away a vast fortune. But her new proximity to wealth begins to transform her own perceptions and desires along the way. Alam’s latest is a sharp indictment of privilege and the darkness of the American dream, with the unsettling and undeniable intrigue reminiscent of an episode of Succession.
A Sunny Place for Shady People
By Mariana Enriquez
Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
Hogarth
Another can’t-miss Halloween-time read, A Sunny Place for Shady People introduces readers to twelve new captivating stories from one of our team’s favorite horror writers working today. Mariana Enriquez’s new collection centers ordinary women whose lives are made nightmares by the supernatural and the surreal, from a family whose faces melt away to a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof. Enriquez’s writing is mesmerizing and beautiful, yet it also worms its way inside of you and sets the seeds for a haunting that you will be thinking about for long after you’ve finished reading.
A Reason to See You Again
By Jami Attenberg
Ecco Press
The women of the Cohen family find themselves in disarray after the death of their patriarch Rudy. Younger sister Shelly runs away to the West Coast, eldest Nancy gets married to an untrustworthy traveling salesman, and mother Frieda gets lost in booze in Miami. Spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again provides a window into the hilarious and wrought lives of these unforgettable characters and the fragile bonds of a faltering family.
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
By Olga Tokarczuk
Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Riverhead Books
We’re thrilled to see that September brings us the return of Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk with The Empusium. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at a sanitarium on the eve of World War I. But while his evenings are spent discussing the great issues of the day with fellow patients, he begins to feel that someone sinister is watching. This gothic horror delight is as funny as it is terrifying.
Where Babies Come From: Poems
By Ori Fienberg
Cornerstone Press
Chicagoland poet Ori Fienberg’s debut collection is a dazzling and eccentric meditation on the anxieties that cling to us. In a series of unforgettable prose poems, Fienberg explores myths, fables, and alternate realities filled with striking and surreal images such as vampiric composition instructors, lonely mechanical bulls, a minotaur seeking a real estate agent, and more. Where Babies Come From is a remarkable collection with heart, a sense of humor, and plenty of punch.
