FICTION
Sally Rooney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, out Tuesday)
Alice has asked Felix to travel with her to Rome. Meanwhile, her best friend Eileen is getting over a breakup, and starts flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. The four young adults break up, make up, slip in and out of relationships and worry about stuff in this much-anticipated new novel from the best-selling author of “Normal People.”
Emily Itami (Custom House, out Tuesday)
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife with two kids, a successful husband and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. So why is she always musing about jumping off her high-rise balcony? One night she meets a restaurateur named Kiyoshi, and embarks on a new double life, in this debut that’s sharp and stunning.
Colm Toibin (Scribner, out Tuesday)
A well-researched, beautiful reimagining of author Thomas Mann’s life as he is born in early 20th0century Germany and marries into a wealthy Munich family — hiding his homosexuality while becoming the most successful novelist of his time. As Hitler gains power, Mann eventually flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America.
Catherine Dang (William Morrow, out Tuesday)
Known as “Ivy League Mary” in her hometown of Liberty Lake, Minn., Mary used to be a nice girl known for good grades and her scholarship to Cornell. But three years later, she’s back in town, working at the grocery store — and refusing tell anyone why she got kicked out of school. When Mary’s childhood best friend goes missing, Mary becomes obsessed with the case — and is convinced it’s connected to the disappearance of another young woman.
Sandra Cisneros (Vintage, out Tuesday)
From the author of “The House on Mango Street” comes this dual-language book about Corina, who leaves Mexico behind to pursue a writer’s life in Paris. There, she is penniless and sleeping on floors — but befriends two amazing women, Martita and Paola. The years intervene and the women drift out of touch, separated on three continents —until a letter brings back all the memories.
Amanda Jayatissa (Berkley, out Sept. 14)
Paloma was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage as a girl, and grew up in the San Francisco area, where she attended the best schools and had every advantage. But recently her parents have cut her off, and she has sublet the second bedroom in her apartment to a newly arrived Indian man named Arun. After she comes home one night to find him collapsed in a pool of blood, Paloma calls the police.But when they arrive, the body is no longer there — nor is any evidence that Arun even existed.
Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, out Sept. 14)
Ray Carney is a Harlem furniture salesman, doing his best to support his wife and kids. Business is slow, and his cousin Freddie — a small-time crook — sometimes drops off the odd bit of jewelry, no questions asked. But when Freddie teams up with a group planning to rob the Hotel Theresa and offers Ray’s services as a fence, the heist does not go as planned.
Liane Moriarty (Henry Holt, out Sept. 14)
Joy Delaney has gone missing — and her husband, Stan, seems like the most likely suspect. Two of their grown children think he’s probably guilty, two think he’s innocent, and everyone seems to be squaring off against each other in this delicious family drama.
Joshua Ferris (Little, Brown, out Sept. 28)
Life isn’t going well for Charlie Barnes. Divorced and walloped by both the Great Recession and a recent cancer scare, nothing is going as he had planned. But suddenly Charlie is granted a second act, with help from his son — and his narrative takes a turn for the better.
Amor Towles (Viking, out Oct. 5)
From the author of “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “Rules of Civility” comes something completely different: An epic 1950s cross-country journey. Emmett Watson has served his time at a juvenile work farm and is ready to start fresh with his little brother Billy — leaving their Nebraska town and trying to make their way to the promised land of California. But it turns out two of Emmett’s fellow farm mates have stowed away in the warden’s car, and have a proposition for him: Only it involves going in the opposite direction, all the way to New York.
Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (Atria Books, out Oct. 5)
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. But their bond is tested when Jen‘s cop husband is involved in the shooting of a black teenager — and Riley, a prominent black journalist, has to cover the story.
Kat Rosenfield (William Morrow, out Oct. 12)
Lizzie Ouellette is dead — and her no-good husband, Dwayne, is nowhere to be found. The case causes excitement in the rural Maine town of Copper Falls and, at first glance, the culprit seems obvious. But detective Ian Bird’s inquiries lead him away from the hardscrabble village and into luxe city townhouses. It turns out that Adrienne Richards, a wealthy social media influencer, rented the Maine house from Lizzie, and that the two had a strange kind of friendship.
Alison Gaylin (William Morrow, out Nov. 2)
It’s been five years since her daughter’s death, but Camille Gardner isn’t moving on. The grieving mother is haunted by the young man she believes is her daughter’s killer. She becomes involved with the Collective, a group of other moms with similar stories — and a desire for vengeance when the law has failed them. They communicate in secret on the dark web, but it’s not just talk.
Gary Shteyngart (Random House, out Nov. 2)
It’s March 2020, and eight friends have gathered at one of their houses in upstate New York to wait out the pandemic: cooking, drinking a lot of wine, working on screenplays and reevaluating old relationships. Described as “Chekhov on the Hudson,” this novel from the author of the best-selling “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Russian Debutante’s Handbook,” is a much-appreciated addition to the fall lineup.
Ken Follett (Viking, out Nov. 9)
Ken Follett is a master storyteller, serving up thick tomes (this one clocks in at 816 pages). While he’s best known for his medieval Kingsbridge novels, “Never” is set in present day, as an escalating global crisis threatens to unleash a world war.
NON-FICTION
Ben Mezrich (Grand Central Publishing, out Tuesday)
The David vs. Goliath-esque GameStop short squeeze of Winter 2021 was undoubtedly one of the most entertaining stories of the year, and Mezrich brings new life to the whole thing in this look at the outrageous personalities and corporate drama that fueled it.
Joe Posnanski (Avid Reader Press, out Sept. 28)
A journey through baseball via the best 100 players of the game, told by an award-winning sportswriter. This one will become an instant sports classic.
Laurence Leamer (GP Putnam’s Sons, out Oct. 12)
They were the swans: A group of wealthy NYC women who were the toast of the town, and writer Truman Capote was proud to call them friends. But when he published thinly disguised accounts of their exploits in a fictionalized serial for Esquire, the reaction was swift — and the swans cut him out of their lives forever.
Magda Hellinger (Atria Books, out Nov. 9)
In March 1942, kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger was sent to Auschwitz, along with a thousand other young women. The Nazis put her in charge of an accommodation block, tasked with keeping order. She began to walk a thin line, building relationships with the other women and saving lives while avoiding the suspicion of the SS.
Ann Patchett (Harper, out Nov. 23)
A collection of essays on life, art and friendship from one of the most celebrated authors of our time.
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Qian Julie Wang (Doubleday, out Tuesday)
It is 1994, and seven-year-old Qian has
arrived in New York. In her native China, the girl’s parents were professors; here, her undocumented family works in sweatshops in Chinatown. As she struggles to find a new life in a strange country, Qian finds magic in books and delights in the everyday: New York City pizza, treasures left in the trash, and Rockefeller Center at Christmas time.
Paul Rees (Atria Books, out Sept. 14)
The definitive biography of American rock legend John Mellencamp and a look at what shaped him and his music over the past few decades. Includes exclusive interviews with friends, family and colleagues.
Laurie Woolever (Ecco, out Sept. 28)
Laurie Woolever, Boudain’s longtime assistant, interviewed hundreds of Bourdain’s closest friends and colleagues for this oral biography of this much-missed man, who left us in 2018. The book is truly a labor of love.
Dave Grohl (Dey Street Books, out Oct. 5)
The legendary Nirvana and Foo Fighghters rocker tells his stories in this hotly anticipated memoir. He compares the experience of writing it to “listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the KISS posters on my wall as a child.”
Will Smith and Mark Manson (Penguin Press, out Nov. 9)
From West Philadelphia to incredible careers in TV, music and film, Will Smith has done it all. In this honest memoir, written with help from the bestselling author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F–k,” Smith explains his own emotional education — and what others can learn from it.
Emily Ratajkowski (Metropolitan Books, out Nov. 9)
Since she became famous in her early 20s, actress/model Emily Ratajkowski has been an unapologetic feminist and activist and quick to speak up about sexuality, our society’s commodification of female beauty and more. She shares more of her thoughts in this book of thoughtful, provocative essays.