Trip
by Amie Barrodale
In this novel by the author of “You Are Having a Good Time,” a divorced documentary producer sends her autistic teenage son, Trip, to a psychiatric ward so she can travel to a death conference in Nepal for a film. When he escapes, shortly after she unexpectedly dies, mother and son end up on parallel journeys of both danger and discovery that are, well, trippy.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Sept. 2
Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan
The old-fashioned sweep of Ryan’s doorstop novel, about two complicated families in small-town Ohio that intersect across the mid-20th century, feels intrinsically American in the way of a Thornton Wilder play or an Andrew Wyeth painting. But “Buckeye” also recalls the subversive melodrama of a Douglas Sirk movie (or even a Todd Haynes one — think “Far From Heaven,” and you wouldn’t be wrong).
Random House, Sept. 2
Mother Mary Comes to Me
by Arundhati Roy
Before she turned 3, Roy, her older brother and their mother began a peripatetic journey across India, a “fugitive life” that sidelined her father until her 20s. In this memoir, the “God of Small Things” author grapples with how much she was shaped by a singular, strong-willed mother.
Scribner, Sept. 2
The Season
by Helen Garner
In this memoir, Garner, widely considered one of Australia’s greatest living writers, explores aging, adolescence and Australian football. When her grandson makes it onto his local under-16 “footy” team, Garner finds herself drawn into his obsession with the game. This ode to the antipodean sport is also the personal story of a boy navigating the modern world and intergenerational relationships.
Pantheon, Sept. 2
The Arrogant Ape
by Christine Webb
Webb, a primatologist, takes a hard look at the concept of human exceptionalism and then lays out a passionate argument against the implicit assumption that we are the superior species. Citing the biases that have colored scientific studies since the days of Darwin, Webb points to the intelligence and sensitivity found throughout the animal world — and details how much we lose when we fail to appreciate it.
Avery, Sept. 2
The Secret of Secrets
by Dan Brown
It has been eight years since Brown, the author of “The Da Vinci Code,” last released a Robert Langdon mystery. Now he returns to the series, following Langdon as he travels to Prague to attend a lecture on human consciousness given by his new lover, Katherine, only to be pulled into a deadly conspiracy.
Doubleday, Sept. 9
All the Way to the River
by Elizabeth Gilbert
After Gilbert’s best friend, Rayya, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the two women realized they were in love, and decided to spend Rayya’s final days as a couple. Gilbert has spoken about the difficulty of ending her marriage and the searing pain of Rayya’s death. But not until now has she written about the full, complex tragedy of realizing that both she and Rayya were in active addiction, and that their bond was as destructive as it was beautiful.
Riverhead, Sept. 9
Dark Renaissance
by Stephen Greenblatt
Elizabethan England was a dull backwater of cultural mediocrity until a humble shoemaker’s son from Canterbury burst onto the London scene with his play “Tamburlaine,” single-handedly revolutionizing the theater and jump-starting the English Renaissance. So argues Greenblatt, a leading historian of the period, in this retelling of the brief, brilliant and enduringly enigmatic life of the playwright Christopher Marlowe.
Norton, Sept. 9
Listening to the Law
by Amy Coney Barrett
Appointed to the Supreme Court as part of President Trump’s campaign to remake the justice system along conservative lines, Barrett has demonstrated an independent streak, proving to be an unpredictable ally of the court’s right-wing supermajority, even as her influence has grown. Her first book promises a peek inside her mind — and a window onto her legal approach, her career as a law professor and her life as a mother of seven.
Sentinel, Sept. 9
The Poisoned King
by Katherine Rundell; illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie
Rundell is back with a sequel to her runaway middle-grade fantasy hit “Impossible Creatures,” which offers magical thrills for young readers and adults alike. The first book’s protagonist, Christopher Forrester, returns to the Archipelago, where a mysterious poison now threatens the islands’ population of mythical beasts. Dragons, heists and revenge plots ensue.
Knopf, Sept. 11
The Wilderness
by Angela Flournoy
Ten years after the publication of her acclaimed debut novel, “The Turner House,” Flournoy returns with a saga of Black millennial friendship over 20 years. She unspools the stories of five women living across the United States, charting careers, pregnancies, divorces and deaths against the backdrop of the country’s evolving political landscape.
Mariner, Sept. 16
Exiles
by Mason Coile
Coile is a pseudonym for the writer Andrew Pyper, who died earlier this year. This posthumous novel, a blend of science fiction and horror, follows three astronauts who have left Earth for a trip to Mars. Their task is to prepare for a colony on the planet; however, when they arrive, they discover that the robots sent ahead to help them have become sentient.
Putnam, Sept. 16
Boy From the North Country
by Sam Sussman
The narrator of this debut novel comes home to care for his dying mother, and learns some stunning secrets about his identity. It turns out that his mom had a romance with Bob Dylan decades ago and his curious resemblance to the singer, often pointed out by strangers, may not be coincidental.
Penguin Press, Sept. 16
We the People
by Jill Lepore
Ever wondered why amending the U.S. Constitution is so hard? So have the thousands of people who have tried, and mostly failed, to change the document. Lepore, a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, tells the story of the centuries-long fight to remake American law in colorful detail. It’s a warning against rigidity, and a prophecy for the future.
Liveright, Sept. 16
I Am Not Your Enemy
by Reality Winner
In this tantalizing memoir, the Pokémon lover, N.S.A. translator and leaker of a report on Russian election interference tells the story of her work, capture and imprisonment. Winner leaves her own motive unspoken but drops hints along the way.
Spiegel & Grau, Sept. 16
Replaceable You
by Mary Roach
Roach, a best-selling popular science writer, brings her riotous brand of immersive journalism to the subject of artificial — or foreign — body parts. From pewter noses to hair farms, robotic limbs to lifesaving transplant technology, Roach probes what it is we’re made of.
Norton, Sept. 16
Will There Ever Be Another You
by Patricia Lockwood
Many readers may have forgotten, or perhaps memory-holed, what it was like to live through the pandemic. Lockwood offers a friendly — and characteristically witty, lyrical, sometimes bonkers — reminder in her new novel. The unnamed narrator endures exhausting health problems and psychological instability long after contracting Covid-19, and then becomes caretaker to her husband after he has surgery.
Riverhead, Sept. 23
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
by Kiran Desai
Expect the word “epic” to come up a lot in conversations about Desai’s novel, her first since 2006, which lands at more than 700 pages. Their extended Indian families are convinced that Sunny, a young New York journalist, and Sonia, a student in Vermont, are meant for each other. But it takes decades and choices, including Sonia’s return to India, to put the pieces together.
Hogarth, Sept. 23
We Love You, Bunny
by Mona Awad
In this dark, twisted satire of academia and the cultlike world of writers — a sequel to 2019’s “Bunny” that also stands alone — the former M.F.A. student Sam is now a novelist. But when her book tour takes her back to the New England town where she went to grad school, her ex-classmates are so mad about the way she’s written about them that they kidnap her and force her to hear their side of the story.
Marysue Rucci Books, Sept. 23
Water Mirror Echo
by Jeff Chang
The action-movie hero and martial artist Bruce Lee died more than 50 years ago at the age of 32, but he remains a household name around the world. Lavishly illustrated with photos from Lee’s career, Chang’s intimate portrait emphasizes the challenging life behind the legend of the Hong Kong boxer and street fighter turned Hollywood star, whose celebrity paralleled the emergence of Asian Americans as a cultural force.
Mariner, Sept. 23
Electric Spark
by Frances Wilson
“There was something darkly appealing, even witchy, about Muriel Spark, in terms of both her unearthly talent and her way of being in the world,” our critic Dwight Garner once wrote of the novelist, best known for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” In this biography, Wilson focuses on “how Muriel Spark became Muriel Spark,” she writes, “and why it took her so long.”
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Sept. 23
The Tragedy of True Crime
by John J. Lennon
Incarcerated at Sing Sing, where he is serving 28 years to life for murder, drug sales and gun possession, Lennon has built a distinguished career as a jailhouse journalist. In his first book, he unfolds his story while recounting those of four fellow inmates and highlighting the myriad frustrations, dangers and absurdities of prison life.
Celadon, Sept. 23
Awake
by Jen Hatmaker
Hatmaker was a queen bee in the world of online evangelicals — a writer, podcaster and pastor’s wife happily raising five children and tending to a thriving media career. Then she turned over in bed one night in July 2020 after hearing her husband voice-texting “I can’t quit you” to another woman, and watched her world fall apart. This memoir traces her climb out from under that disaster.
Avid Reader Press, Sept. 23
Heart the Lover
by Lily King
The reverberations of a college love triangle ripple through King’s new novel, which features a sharply observant aspiring female writer and the pair of male best friends she meets in her 17th-century lit class who nickname her Jordan — after “The Great Gatsby”’s Jordan Baker — and vie for her affection while struggling to preserve their loyalty to each other.
Grove, Sept. 30
The Impossible Fortune
by Richard Osman
Osman’s septuagenarian sleuths are having a busy fall, making their film debut (on Netflix Aug. 28) and returning for another literary adventure. The latest addition to the Thursday Murder Club series promises plenty more satisfying twists and English charm as Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim investigate the disappearance of a guest at a wedding.
Pamela Dorman Books, Sept. 30
The post 25 Books Coming in September appeared first on New York Times.
