With the Fall Equinox behind us and leaves starting to scatter the sidewalks, it’s time to talk about the stacks of fall reading arriving each week here in the Book Shop. With the election in November, publishers have frontloaded their schedules, knowing the media will have little time for anything but politics come the end of October.
Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything has already hit shelves — and it will be extremely satisfying to anyone who has been keeping up with Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton over the years. The two characters finally reside in the same book and they don’t disappoint as they help to tell the story of Bob Burgess.
Liane Moriarty, who has sold more than 20 million copies of her books worldwide, also has a new book already on shelves, Here One Moment, which opens on a packed airplane with a woman who stands up and predicts the other passengers’ deaths. The novel follows each of these characters, asking: How would you live your life if you knew how it would end?
Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo published this week and is sure to be a major bestseller. She departs slightly from her previous novels by focusing on a fraternal relationship. Two brothers have recently lost their father and both struggle in different ways as they deal with their grief. The novel is still classic Rooney, however, with each character closely dissecting every moment of their millennial lives in a compelling way.
If you loved The Overstory by Richard Powers, then you’ll be delighted to know that Playground, also published this week, has many similarities to his Pulitzer Prize-winning work, but focuses on the ocean. Four characters converge on the island of Makatea in French Polynesia, where a battle is playing out between capitalism and the environment. Powers has a rare ability to make the mundane ever so slightly magical and utilize the power of fiction to its fullest.
For mystery and thriller fans, Richard Osman, author of The Thursday Murder Club series, has a new detective duo to introduce in We Solve Murders; Laura Dave, who’s smash hit The Last Thing He Told Me was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, is back with The Night We Lost Him; and, last but definitely not least, look for Louise Penny’s latest in the Inspector Gamache series, The Grey Wolf, on October 29.
Then comes the second half of the season — after publishers have taken a pause on releasing much of any real substance during the second half of October and early November. Coming just in time for the holiday seasons, all publishing on November 19, we’ll see books like Niall Williams’ The Time of the Child, set during the Christmas season in the same small Irish town of Faha as his beloved novel This is Happiness. Also, The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is his first novel in six years. On the Calculation of Volume by the Danish writer Solvej Balle is a masterful work of speculative fiction that’s been longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in Translation and is a book we love in the Book Shop that we can’t wait to share with readers. And finally, Brightly Shining by the Norwegian writer Ingvild Rishoi, translated by Caroline Waight is my pick for what to read and gift this holiday season if you loved Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. It’s a small charming book about a young girl navigating a holiday season with a problematic father and financial hardships, but with a sister who fights with her, along with a few more friends she finds along the way.
Stay tuned until next week for the latest and greatest in nonfiction releases this fall!
Hannah Harlow is owner of The Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Beverly Farms. Harlow writes semi-regular recommendations for our readers. See more of what she recommends reading at thecricket.com.
