Books We Are Excited to Read in September
Fiction
Daddy by Emma Cline - September 1 (Penguin Random House)
In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one’s choices? Of the moments when we act or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline’s sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi - September 1 (Penguin Random House)
Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanain immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.
Red Pill by Hari Kunzru - September 1 (Knopf)
From the widely acclaimed author of White Tears, a bold new novel about searching for order in a world that frames madness as truth. After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches "Blue Lives", a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life, and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman - September 8 (Atria)
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined. Viewing an apartment normally doesn't turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez - September 8 (Penguin Random House)
In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.
Monogamy by Sue Miller - September 8 (Harper)
Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years. A golden couple, their effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. When Graham suddenly dies, Annie is lost without this man whose enormous presence seemed to dominate their lives together. What is the point of going on, she wonders, without him? Then Annie makes a shocking discovery. Shortly before his death, Graham had been unfaithful, involved in an impulsive, brief affair he was trying to end. Confronted by his infidelity, she spirals into darkness wondering if she truly knew the man who loved her. A tender, timeless novel that probes the heart of every committed relationship: how well do we know, can we ever know, the people we love? Monogamy is a mesmerizing portrait of a family and the secrets they keep from one another.
The Seventh Mansion by Maryse Meijer - September 8 (FSG Books)
One of The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of the Second-Half of 2020, one of Library Journal's 35 Standout Summer/Fall 2020 Debut Novels, and one of Shondaland's 11 New Books That Will Change How You Think About the Climate Crisis. Maryse Meijer is back with a full-length novel that examines activism, love, and purpose. 15-year-old Xie is kicked out of high school for releasing captive mink back into the wild. While spending more and more time alone in the woods, Xie discovers the relic of a Catholic saint—the martyred Pancratius—in a nearby church. Both an urgent literary call to arms and an unforgettable coming-of-age story about finding love and selfhood in the face of mass extinction and environmental destruction.
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar - September 15 (Little Brown)
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and author of American Dervish, an American son and his immigrant father search for belonging in a post-Trump America, and with each other. A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander - September 22 (Penguin)
Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me." Irreverent and written with Auslander's incomparable humour, Mother for Dinner is an exploration of legacy, assimilation, the things we owe our families, and the things we owe ourselves.
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie - September 22 (Penguin)
From debut author Asha Lemmie, a sweeping, heartrending coming-of-age novel about a young woman's quest for acceptance—and the unexpected ally that will change everything—in post–World War II Japan. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to try to break free.
Nonfiction
Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 edited by Jennifer Haupt - September 1 (Central Avenue Publishing)
Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come. The roster of diverse voices includes Faith Adiele, Kwame Alexander, Jenna Blum, Andre Dubus III, Jamie Ford, Nikki Giovanni, Pam Houston, Jean Kwok, Major Jackson, Devi S. Laskar, Caroline Leavitt, Ada Limón, Dani Shapiro, David Sheff, Garth Stein, Luis Alberto Urrea, Steve Yarbrough, and Lidia Yuknavitch. Alone Together is divided into five sections: What Now?, Grieve, Comfort, Connect, And Don't Stop. The overarching theme is how this age of isolation and uncertainty is changing us as individuals and society.
Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore by Patric Richardson - September 8 (Flat Iron Books)
Changing your relationship with laundry can also change your life. Richardson’s handy advice shows us how to save time and money (and the planet!) with our laundry―and he intersperses it all with a healthy dose of humour, real-life laundry stories, and lessons from his Appalachian upbringing and career in fashion. Laundry Love will make you wonder why you ever stressed about ironing, dry cleaning, or (god forbid) red wine spills on your new couch. No matter the issue, Richardson is here to help you make laundry miracles happen―wrinkles and stains be damned.
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen - September 8 (Penguin Random House)
A powerful, poetic memoir about what it means to exist as an indigenous woman in America, told in snapshots of the author’s encounters with gun violence. Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history - as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. With each chapter, Carry reminds us that surviving in one’s country is not the same as surviving one’s country. Check out our review for this beautiful book here!
Eat a Peach by David Chang - September 8 (Penguin Random House)
In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in a tiny, stark space in Manhattan’s East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, worked the line, serving ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know it at the time—and certainly, Chang would have bet against himself—but he, who had failed at almost every endeavour in his life, was about to become one of the most influential chefs of his generation, driven by the question, “What if the underground could become the mainstream?” Full of grace, candour, grit, and humour, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang’s switchback path. Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.
The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir by Isabel Allende - September 29 (Harper Collins)
In this powerful memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her life after the death of her daughter, Paula. But The Sum of Our Days is not a tragedy; narrated with warmth, humour, exceptional candour, and wisdom, it is a remarkable story of a life that is as exuberant and passionate as Allende herself. Baring her soul, Allende reflects on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory—and tells poignant stories of the wildly eccentric and eclectic tribe who become a new kind of family.
