Books We Are Excited To Read in October
Fiction
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori – October 6 (Grove Press)
From the beloved author of cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, which has now sold more than a million copies worldwide, comes a spellbinding and otherworldly novel about a young girl who believes she is an alien.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam – October 6 (Ecco)
Set at a remote Airbnb, this magnetic novel centers on a white middle class family from Brooklyn whose getaway is interrupted by the midnight arrival of an older Black couple claiming to be the owners of the house. Alam’s third novel is keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.
The Searcher by Tana French — October 6 (Vikings)
"One of the greatest crime novelists writing today" (Vox) weaves a masterful, atmospheric tale of suspense, asking what we sacrifice in our search for truth and justice, and what we risk if we don't. Tana French is back with a story about Cal Hooper who thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold by Various Authors – October 8 (Virago)
Dark, potent and uncanny, Hag bursts with the untold stories of our isles, captured in voices as varied are they are vivid. Hag comprises dark folktales retold for modern times by some of the most exciting women writing today, from Daisy Johnson to Eimear McBride.
The Redshirt by Corey Sobel – October 13 (University of Kentucky Press)
Longlisted for 2020 Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, Corey Sobel challenges tenacious stereotypes in this compelling debut novel, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. The Redshirt introduces Miles Furling, a young man who is convinced he was placed on earth to play football. Deep in the closet, he sees the sport as a means of gaining a permanent foothold in a culture that would otherwise reject him.
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse – October 13 (Saga Press)
The first installment in the Between Earth and Sky series, Black Sun transforms ancient American traditions into a new setting of epic fantasy. As a holy city prepares for a solar eclipse, a disgraced young woman carrying a potentially dangerous human cargo moves ever closer, timed to land in the city as the sun goes out.
Expanding on the beautifully crafted world of Rainbirds, Clarissa Goenawan gradually pierces through a young woman’s careful façade, unmasking her most painful secrets.
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton – October 15 (Fig Tree, Penguin)
Already a millennial icon thanks to her Waterstones Books of the Year-shortlisted memoir Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton turns her scalpel-sharp pen to fiction, with this big-hearted debut about the unravelling of a seemingly successful life. Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda – October 20 (Tilted Axis Press)
Witty, inventive, and profound, Where the Wild Ladies Are is a contemporary feminist retelling of traditional ghost stories by one of Japan’s most exciting writers. As female ghosts appear in unexpected guises, their gently humorous encounters with unsuspecting humans lead to deeper questions about emancipation and recent changes in Japanese women’s lives.
Memorial by Bryan Washington – October 27 (Riverhead)
From the author of Lot, is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love. Memorial is a profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship and the limits of love.
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter – October 27 (Harper)
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins delivers another "literary miracle" (NPR)--a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.
Nonfiction
Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin – October 13 (Monoray)
Reddit, 4chan, a 'whites only' dating site, neo-Nazi message boards, Talia Lavin spent years going undercover into the dark crevices of the internet so you don't have to. The result is this compelling, if horrifying, expose of the white supremacists who share their hate on the world wide web. Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the Web--and shows us how we can fight back.
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne with Tamara Payne – October 20 (Liveright)
Thirty years ago, Les Payne—the Pulitzer Prize-winning former editor of Newsday, the same newspaper which created Robert Caro—set out to interview anyone who crossed paths with Malcolm X. Payne died two years ago, before he could complete his decades long biography of the Nebraska-born civil rights leader, but with the help of his daughter, Tamara Payne, we now have an indispensable portrait of Malcolm X’s life, from his Depression era childhood to his terrible death too early.
Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom – October 20 (Farrar)
In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world’s most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, innocents, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship.
Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell – October 20 (Transit Books)
In a collection of speculative essays on a few such stranger faces—the disabled face, the racially ambiguous face, the digital face, the face of the dead—Namwali Serpell probes our contemporary mythology of the face. Stranger Faces imagines a new ethics based on the perverse pleasures we take in the very mutability of faces.
