I am excited to present my fall and winter reading list: the books I plan to cozy up with during these upcoming colder months (I meant to create this list sooner but it just got cold here!!).
I hope you’ll join me in reading the books that interest you.
What do I look for in a book, and why did these make my list? I’m still looking for my “favorite book of the year” and although I have some contenders, nothing yet has compared to my favorite book of last year. I am looking for “epic” books that teach me something about life and myself, and they have to be entertaining as well. A lot to ask, I know!
So here are the newly published (or soon to be published) books that I’m most looking forward to reading soon:
Fall and Winter Reading List
Publisher’s notes are in text boxes. You can click on the title or picture for more information or to purchase on Amazon.
Against a rich backdrop of post-Victorian vice, suffrage, and celebration, Love and Other Consolations is an enchanting tale about innocence and devotion—in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale.
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?
It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.
The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo
This devastatingly romantic debut novel about the enduring power of first love, with a shocking, unforgettable ending, is Love Story for a new generation.
Reincarnation Blues: A Novel by Michael Poore
An interesting premise here but I’m hoping this could be an epic read.
Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking.
The World of Tomorrow
Another book set around a world’s fair but completely different.
From the smoky jazz joints of Harlem to the opulent Plaza Hotel, from the garrets of vagabonds and artists in the Bowery to the backroom warrens and shadowy warehouses of mobsters in Hell’s Kitchen, Brendan Mathews brings the prewar metropolis to vivid, pulsing life. The sweeping, intricate, and ambitious storytelling throughout this remarkable debut reveals an America that blithely hoped it could avoid another catastrophic war and focus instead on the promise of the World’s Fair: a peaceful, prosperous “World of Tomorrow.”
Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel by George Saunders
This book was recommended to me by #askalibrarian when I asked them this: “My favorite book of last year was A Gentleman in Moscow, what should I read this year?” And it just won the Man Booker Prize and a #1 New York Times Bestseller.
The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented.
Manhattan Beach: A Novel
This is another one recommended to me by #askalibrarian. It has also been longlisted for the National Book Award and is getting a lot of buzz.
With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. Manhattan Beach is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world. It is a magnificent novel by the author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, one of the great writers of our time.
The Woman in the Window: A Novel
Yet another thriller “woman somewhere“ book to look forward to….she drinks too much and sees something she wishes she hadn’t…anyway it looks to be a good, fast, and gripping read.
Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.
Sourdough: A Novel
In his much-anticipated new novel, Robin Sloan does for the world of food what he did for the world of books in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance 
This book is a fable and quirky thus far (I have just started it).
A book that’s also the beginning of a movement, Bill McKibben’s debut novel Radio Free Vermont follows a band of Vermont patriots who decide that their state might be better off as its own republic.
The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow
From the critically acclaimed author Bradford Morrow, a literary quest novel that travels from Nazi-occupied Prague to turn-of-the-millennium New York as a young musicologist seeks to solve the mystery behind an eighteenth-century sonata manuscript Music and war, war and music―these are the twin motifs around which Bradford Morrow, recipient of the Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has composed his magnum opus, The Prague Sonata, a novel more than a dozen years in the making.
Set in 1950s Louisiana, Mandy Mikulencak’s beautifully written and emotionally moving novel evokes both The Help and Dead Man Walking with the story of an unforgettable woman whose quest to provide meals for death row prisoners leads her into the secrets of her own past.
Non-Fiction
Wrapping up my list with a couple of non-fiction picks:
The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion_Surprising Observations of a Hidden World
This is my latest environmental pick because I read his previous book on trees.
Horses feel shame, deer grieve, and goats discipline their kids. Ravens call their friends by name, rats regret bad choices, and butterflies choose the very best places for their children to grow up.
In this, his latest book, Peter Wohlleben follows the hugely successful The Hidden Life of Trees with insightful stories into the emotions, feelings, and intelligence of animals around us. Animals are different from us in ways that amaze us—and they are also much closer to us than we ever would have thought.
And finally a memoir – though in the format of essays – I keep hearing about:
We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True
In the spirit of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl, and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, a powerful collection of essays about gender, sexuality, race, beauty, Hollywood, and what it means to be a modern woman.
These are some of the books I”ll be reading this fall & winter. Which ones will be on your list??
Check back because I’ll add reviews and reflections as I read though this list, just as I did for my summer reading list.
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