It’s been fun, summer! But come September, there immediately comes a hint of fall in the air (and I don’t just mean from all the Halloween candy that’s already on the shelves).
Fall in the book world is a time for showmanship, where some of the most exciting new books from your favorite authors make their way to the shelves. But it’s not just the buzzy titles that will get you excited. September offers so many opportunities to explore and get out of your normal reading routine. We hope you discover something you’ll never forget in this month’s most anticipated list!
The Disappearers
By Marlon James
Riverhead Books
Marlon James has created some of the most breathtaking scenes across his impressive bibliography, so we’re thrilled to see him return with The Disappearers, which is already longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize like its predecessor, A Brief History of Seven Killings. His latest novel returns readers to Jamaica, where one night a group of gay actors rehearsing for a play are brutally attacked and the lingering trauma forever changes them in a number of different ways. The Disappearers is a brutal and heartwrenching crime story that balances humor, fury, and bleakness with ease.
American Hagwon
By Min Jin Lee
Cardinal
I’ve been patiently (or maybe not so patiently) waiting for Min Jin Lee’s follow-up to the spellbinding Pachinko, so I’m thrilled to say that the wait is almost over. American Hagwon is a sweeping story about a family’s long journey to America in the late 1990s and their struggle to make a life for their children. Few writers can tackle scale like Lee, and you’ll find that even after 600 pages you’ll want just a little bit more time with these gorgeously realized characters.
Blow Yourself Up
By Ankur Thakkar
Triquarterly Books
Young lovers Arjun and Payal’s paths diverge across the wide chasm of the digital world when Payal ascends to the heights of New York’s influencer economy and Arjun finds himself moderating the internet’s darkest videos. But when he sees an act of political violence against a fellow musician, the couple must confront their dependence on the platforms they make a living from. Blow Yourself Up is a love story for our modern times, exploring the ways in which the internet dazzles and destroys us with humor and humanity.
The Sleepers
By Molly Sturdevant
Regal House Publishing
Amid the gold rush, America’s highest silver-mining town is left reeling. As Frances Byrne’s neighborhood pushes toward unionization, she finds herself caught between progress and the threat of Pinkerton spies and law enforcement. Molly Sturdevant’s The Sleepers offers a fully-realized look into the fraught fight for workers’ rights and the bravery of those who pushed for change.
Children of the Wolf
By Abby Geni
Ballantine Books
Abby Geni is a perennial favorite here at the Chicago Review of Books, so we’re excited to welcome her latest novel, Children of the Wolf, in September. Her latest follows beekeeper Liv, who is forced to grapple with her legacy of violence from her childhood when a dead body is discovered in her town. Geni’s writing is both evocative and thrilling, creating a pulse-pounding mystery that will leave you haunted.
Bonobo
By You-Jeong Jeong
Creature Publishing
Bonobo follows a primatologist Jini, who lives with regret for failing to set free a baby bonobo headed to a black market. But years later, a car accident embeds her consciousness in the animal and leaves her human body in limbo. Bonobo is strange in the most enjoyable way possible; the novel is always shape-shifting as you begin to get a handle on it, leaving you on the edge of your seat as you find where the story will take you next. Prepare for an intense and unforgettable journey!
Acid Green Velvet
By Grace Krilanovich
Two Dollar Radio
After Grace Krilanovich’s triumphant The Orange Eats Creeps, she’s back with a new novel where Victorian California surrealism meets a whole host of haunted oddities—including living dead, vampiric women, class parasites, and rampant cults. The novel follows two wayward hoboes—Paulette and Kenneth—whose relationship to the working class changes years after they threaten to kill a menacing man who wronged them. This gothic, nightmarish Western is a book only Grace Krilanovich could write; Acid Green Velvet is a wonderfully bizarre concoction of genres, frights, and ideas that will absolutely intoxicate you.
Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror
Edited by Cynthia Pelayo
Atria/Primero Sueno Press
Start your Halloween story early with this fantastic anthology of Latiné horror, curated and edited by the legendary Chicago writer Cynthia Pelayo. Something Followed Us Home brings together some of the most exciting horror writers working today, including Mariana Enriquez, Agustina Bazterrica, and Ananda Lima, with each story delivering a viscerally unsettling reading experience. From demonic hunger to bones rebuilding themselves under merciless suns, this anthology shows the depth and breadth of modern Latiné horror.
Cloud Six
By Amy Fusselman
Catapult
Following a catastrophic plane crash, married couple Mam and Bunko have found themselves in Cloud Six, the newest and lowest tier of heaven run by a slumlord demon named Widdershins who takes the form of an underwear model. For a novel that explores the intricacies of death, grief, and violence, Cloud Six is both deft of foot and laugh-out-loud funny at every turn. Amy Fusselman has created a one-of-a-kind fantastical world where metaphor and the realities of modern life meet.
Ply
By Hernan Diaz
Riverhead Books
The latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz is set in a future where the state has been dismantled and communities struggle to hold together. The novel follows a pincher, someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market, who finds herself embroiled in a complex plot that could lead to a scientific invention that will forever change reality. Ply reads like a a gripping dystopian noir; it’s part crime novel, part coming-of-age story, and part treatise on existence itself, and fully unique.
Dog’s Day
By Matthew J. Prigge
Counterpoint
If you’re a fan of the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon like me, you won’t want to miss this captivating new biography about the man who inspired it. Written in a delightfully readable narrative style, Dog’s Day explores the life of John Wojtowicz, taking us from the fateful bank robbery to the gritty origins of the gay liberation movement and the Mafia exploiters who controlled New York City’s queer gathering spaces. Wojtowicz has long been a figure of fascination in our culture, and Matthew J. Prigge never settles for the simple as he carefully crafts the complexities of this complicated man.
Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow
By Iana Buokova
Translated by Ekaterina Petrova
New York Review Books
For fans of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges comes a delightful book about the nestled mythologies of storytelling. Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow follows eight characters in the Balkans in the nineteenth century who are all defined by quests and torturous talent—from a woman who reads the future in the faces of her lovers to a dice-player whose unfailing luck becomes a curse. Iana Buokova’s prose offers blistering beauty and a net of history that is sure to entangle readers.
