This fall promises the publication of so many exciting new books! These are the ones I'm most looking forward to, from authors I've enjoyed reading:
→ TAIPEI STORY by R.F. Kuang (Sept 8): Kuang writes in multiple genres: I've read the alternate-history-with-magic BABEL, the publishing-world-thriller YELLOWFACE, and the grad-students-visiting-hell KATABASIS. This next book seems firmly planted in reality, focusing on a college student at a summer language program who grapples with her family history and identity.
→ EXIT PARTY by Emily St. John Mandel (Sept 15): I've read all of Mandel's novels, and I love seeing how certain concepts and even characters recur throughout her work. I'm anticipating more of those echoes in what sounds like a fresh and yet very Mandelian story: EXIT PARTY involves a near future American civil war, multiple possible realities, crime, and art.
→ PLY by Hernan Diaz (Sept 29): My introduction to Diaz's work was TRUST, a fascinating reading experience through nested narrative layers. I'm intrigued that his next novel is science fiction set in a far future dystopia, described as "Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller."
→ A WALL IS ALSO A ROAD by Annalee Newitz (Oct 6): I'm a fan of Newitz's science fiction novels, which vary widely but are all inventive and thought-provoking. I am beyond curious to read their latest, about a graduate student who is also a slime mold and visits Earth to do fieldwork in ancient Pompeii.
→ THE OCCIDENTAL BOOK OF THE DEAD by T. Geronimo Johnson (Oct 6): WELCOME TO BRAGGSVILLE was the sharp and darkly funny story of college students who plan a mock lynching as a form of protest, a poorly conceived scheme that goes terribly wrong. I've been eager to see another book from Johnson, and this is going to be a big one: 672 pages about a Black cop, a violent confrontation with a white teenager, and the disputed facts of the highly publicized case.
→ LIFE OUT OF ORDER by Audrey Niffenegger (Oct 6): I have a lot of fondness for THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, which came out back in 2003. The first surprising news of a sequel was announced in 2013, so I was surprised all over again to learn it's finally arriving this fall. While I'm trepidatious, I will definitely be satisfying my curiosity about the life of Alba, the time-traveling daughter of the original couple.
→ OFF THE RESERVATION by Stephen Graham Jones (Oct 13): This is another unexpected (though less surprising) sequel, to the incredible and grisly THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS. This story focuses on different characters, five years after the events of the first book. I'm ready for more disturbing horror, more great dialogue, and more reckoning with the past.
Good Stuff Out There:
→ At Literary Hub, Madelyn Johnson explores how the role of book cover design has changed in the age of social media: "A cover no longer simply needs to communicate genre or tone. It must also construct an identity that a reader of that book can inhabit. If book covers once translated text for their readers, they now operate in reverse: translating readers for their audiences. In this context, the old adage has been inverted from don't judge a book by its cover to judge a reader by the covers on their books.
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