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The Best New Books Publishing in October 2023

October

2023

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We currently have previews of 142 October books.
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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
by Nathan Thrall
Metropolitan Books, 10/03/2023
 
Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial
by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Grove Press, 10/03/2023
 
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
After the Forest
by Kell Woods
Tor Books, 10/03/2023
 
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe
by Carl Safina
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/03/2023
 
When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they'd rescued, she'd be...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
And Don't Look Back
by Rebecca Barrow
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 10/03/2023
 
Harlow Ford has spent her entire life running, caught in her mother's wake as they flit from town to town, hiding from a presence that Harlow isn't ...more
Before the Devil Knows You're Here
by Autumn Krause
Peachtree Publishers, 10/03/2023
 
1836, Wisconsin. Catalina lives with her pa and brother in a ramshackle cabin on the edge of the wilderness. Harsh winters have brought the family to ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Brooklyn Crime Novel: A Novel
by Jonathan Lethem
Ecco, 10/03/2023
 
On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of ...more
Thrillers
Company: Stories
by Shannon Sanders
Graywolf Press, 10/03/2023
 
Shannon Sanders's sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Short Stories
 Debut Author
Curious Tides: The Drowned Gods Duology
by Pascale Lacelle
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 10/03/2023
 
Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
Death Valley: A Novel
by Melissa Broder
Scribner, 10/03/2023
 
In Melissa Broder's astounding new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Dragging Mason County
by Curtis Campbell
Annick Press, 10/03/2023
 
Peter Thompkins needs a public image overhaul. After a tense confrontation with one of the few other queer kids in his small-town high school, rumors ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will
by Kevin J. Mitchell
Princeton University Press, 10/03/2023
 
Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
Gather
by Kenneth M. Cadow
Candlewick Press, 10/03/2023
 
Ian Gray isn't supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn't happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian's adopted pup, is good ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
Glory Be: A Glory Broussard Mystery
by Danielle Arceneaux
Pegasus Books, 10/03/2023
 
It's a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Mysteries
 Debut Author
Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways: A Memoir
by Brittany Means
Zibby Books, 10/03/2023
 
I can't write a story about myself as the sad, quiet child of two drug addicts. That's not how it was, even when it was. To me, sleeping in the car ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
by Marc Masters
The University of North Carolina Press, 10/03/2023
 
The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy
by Faith Erin Hicks
First Second, 10/03/2023
 
It should have been a night of triumph for Alix's hockey team. But her mean teammate Lindsay decided to start up with her usual rude comments and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
by Safiya Sinclair
37 Ink, 10/03/2023
 
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
I've Been Thinking
by Daniel C. Dennett
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/03/2023
 
Daniel C. Dennett, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering the thorniest, most fundamental mysteries of the ...more
Biography/Memoir
In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950
by Nick Bunker
Basic Books, 10/03/2023
 
Halfway through the twentieth century, the United States towered over the world in industrial might. After winning the 1948 election, Harry Truman ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Lou Reed: The King of New York
by Will Hermes
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/03/2023
 
Since his death ten years ago, Lou Reed's living presence has only grown. The great rock-poet presided over the marriage of Brill Building pop and the...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep
by Kenneth Miller
Hachette Books, 10/03/2023
 
A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn to overcome. Then, an immigrant scientist ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein: A Novel
by Anne Eekhout
HarperVia, 10/03/2023
 
Switzerland, 1816. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, the friends while away rainy wine-...more
Historical Fiction
Monica
by Daniel Clowes
Fantagraphics Books, 10/03/2023
 
Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story — actually, stories — of its title character. Clowes...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
Moscow X: A Novel
by David McCloskey
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/03/2023
 
CIA officers Sia and Max enter Russia under commercial cover to recruit Vladimir Putin's moneyman. Sia works for a London law firm that conceals the ...more
Night of the Witch: Witch and Hunter #1
by Sara Raasch
Sourcebooks Fire, 10/03/2023
 
Fritzi is a witch. The lone survivor of a brutal attack on her coven, she's determined to find her only remaining family member and bring the hexenj&#...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
One Last Kill: Tracy Crosswhite Series #10
by Robert Dugoni
Thomas & Mercer, 10/03/2023
 
Tracy Crosswhite is reopening the investigation into Seattle's Route 99 serial killer. After thirteen victims, he stopped hunting and the trail went ...more
One Puzzling Afternoon: A Novel
by Emily Critchley
Sourcebooks Landmark, 10/03/2023
 
I kept your secret Lucy. I've kept it for more than sixty years...

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is ...more
Plan A
by Deb Caletti
Labyrinth Road, 10/03/2023
 
Ivy can't entirely believe it when the plus sign appears on the test. She didn't even know it was possible from ... what happened. But it is, and now ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Salt the Water
by Candice Iloh
Dutton for Young Readers, 10/03/2023
 
Cerulean Gene is free everywhere except school, where they're known for repeatedly challenging authority. Raised in a free-spirited home by two loving...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Starling House
by Alix E. Harrow
Tor Books, 10/03/2023
 
I dream sometimes about a house I've never seen….

Opal is a lot of things―orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Blackwoods
by Brandy Colbert
Balzer + Bray, 10/03/2023
 
The Blackwoods. Everyone knows their name.

Blossom Blackwood burst onto the silver screen in 1962, and in the decades that followed, she would ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance
by Rebecca Clarren
Viking, 10/03/2023
 
Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family's origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Dead Take the A Train: Carrion City #1
by Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw
Tor Nightfire, 10/03/2023
 
Julie is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-year-old whose only retirement plan is dying early. She's been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Locked Door
by Freida McFadden
Poisoned Pen Press, 10/03/2023
 
While eleven-year-old Nora Davis was up in her bedroom doing homework, she had no idea her father was killing women in the basement.

Until the ...more
Thrillers
The Prospectors: A Novel
by Ariel Djanikian
William Morrow, 10/03/2023
 
The middle daughter of struggling California fruit farmers, Alice Bush is accustomed to feeling inferior and destitute. But when her elder sister's ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily: A Novel
by Noelle Salazar
Mira Books, 10/03/2023
 
2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s ...more
Historical Fiction
The Scarlet Alchemist
by Kylie Lee Baker
Inkyard Press, 10/03/2023
 
Zilan dreams of becoming a royal alchemist, of providing for her family by making alchemical gold and gems for the wealthy to eat in order to stay ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Voice Upstairs
by Laura E. Weymouth
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 10/03/2023
 
Wilhelmina Price has a dubious reputation in the village of Thrush's Green. Ever since her mother's untimely death, she has been able to see a person'...more
Bittersweet in the Hollow
by Kate Pearsall
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 10/10/2023
 
In rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest, the James women serve up more than fried green tomatoes at the Harvest Moon diner, ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
Blackouts: A Novel
by Justin Torres
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/10/2023
 
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Breaking Through: My Life in Science
by Katalin KarikĂł
Crown, 10/10/2023
 
Katalin Karikó has had an unlikely journey. The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in an adobe home that ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Brooms
by Jasmine Walls
Levine Querido, 10/10/2023
 
It's 1930s Mississippi. Magic is permitted only in certain circumstances, and by certain people. Unsanctioned broom racing is banned. But for those ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
Charming Young Man
by Eliot Schrefer
Katherine Tegan Books, 10/10/2023
 
They say Léon Delafosse will be France's next great pianist. But despite his being the youngest student ever accepted into the prestigious Paris ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair
by Rosa Lowinger
Row House Publishing, 10/10/2023
 
Dwell Time is a term that measures the amount of time something takes to happen – immigrants waiting at a border, human eyes on a website, the ...more
Biography/Memoir
Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir
by Werner Herzog
Penguin Press, 10/10/2023
 
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
Family Meal: A Novel
by Bryan Washington
Riverhead Books, 10/10/2023
 
Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion
by Sowmya Krishnamurthy
Gallery Books, 10/10/2023
 
Set in the sartorial scenes of New York, Paris, and beyond, music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy's reporting on the intersecting histories of hip-hop...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
I Loved You in Another Life
by David Arnold
Viking Books for Younger Readers, 10/10/2023
 
Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother are taken care of, and continue therapy to process his ...more
Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction
by Fergus M. Bordewich
Knopf, 10/10/2023
 
The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as "the first organized terrorist movement in American history," rose from the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Lies and Sorcery
by Elsa Morante
New York Review Books, 10/10/2023
 
Elsa Morante is one of the great writers of the twentieth century—Natalia Ginzburg said she was the writer of her own generation that she ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
Lilith: A Novel
by Nikki Marmery
Alcove Press, 10/10/2023
 
Before Eve, there was Lilith.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
Look on the Bright Side
by Lily Williams, Karen Schneemann
First Second, 10/10/2023
 
Old friends. New Loves. The future is looking bright.

A new year of school is starting, and Brit finds herself struggling with feelings for a ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios
by Joanna Robinson
Liveright/W.W. Norton, 10/10/2023
 
Marvel Entertainment was a moribund toymaker not even twenty years ago. Today, Marvel Studios is the dominant player both in Hollywood and in global ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
My Work
by Olga Ravn
New Directions Publishing, 10/10/2023
 
After giving birth, Anna is utterly lost. She and her family move to the unfamiliar, snowy city of Stockholm. Anxiety threatens to completely engulf ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Naked: On Sex, Work, and Other Burlesques
by Fancy Feast
Algonquin Books, 10/10/2023
 
When Fancy Feast was in her high school production of "Cabaret," she convinced the director to cast her as a sexy Kit Kat Club Girl, not the old ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Essays
 Debut Author
Nobility in Small Things: A Surgeon's Path
by Craig R. Smith M.D.
St. Martin's Press, 10/10/2023
 
His routine was the same every day for 38 years: up at 4:15, make a turkey-on-rye, drive the deserted Henry Hudson Parkway to the hospital, check the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business
by Roxane Gay
Harper Perennial, 10/10/2023
 
Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society—state-...more
Essays
Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Lady Macbeth
by Isabelle Schuler
Harper Perennial, 10/10/2023
 
She will be Queen. Whatever it takes ...

Daughter of an ousted king, descendant of ancient druids, Gruoch (GREW-ock), has grown up believing that ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
 Debut Author
Shoot the Moon
by Isa Arsén
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 10/10/2023
 
How far would you travel for love?

Intelligent but isolated recent physics graduate Annie Fisk feels an undeniable pull toward space. Her childhood...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
 Debut Author
Songs of Irie
by Asha Ashanti Bromfield
Wednesday Books, 10/10/2023
 
It's 1976 and Jamaica is on fire. The country is on the eve of important elections and the warring political parties have made the divisions between ...more
Sword Catcher
by Cassandra Clare
Del Rey, 10/10/2023
 
In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, the richest of nobles and the most debauched of criminals have one thing in common: the constant search for ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
The Crossing (Harry Bosch)
by Michael Connelly
Grand Central Publishing, 10/10/2023
 
Detective Harry Bosch has retired from the LAPD, but his half-brother, defense attorney Mickey Haller, needs his help. A woman has been brutally ...more
Thrillers
The Fall of Whit Rivera
by Crystal Maldonado
Holiday House, 10/10/2023
 
Frenemies Whit and Zay have been at odds for years (ever since he broke up with her in, like, the most embarrassing way imaginable), so when they're ...more
The Leftover Woman: A Compelling Exploration of Motherhood and Survival, Uncover the Secret Ties that Bind Two Women Across Worlds
by Jean Kwok
William Morrow, 10/10/2023
 
Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate ...more
Literary Fiction
The Prince and the Coyote
by David Bowles
Levine Querido, 10/10/2023
 
1418 – Pre-Columbian Mexico

Fifteen-year old crown prince Acolmiztli wants nothing more than to see his city-state of Tetzcoco thrive. A ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
Touched
by Walter Mosley
Grove Press, 10/10/2023
 
Martin Just wakes up one morning after what feels like, and might actually be, a centuries-long sleep with two new innate pieces of knowledge: ...more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Wearing My Mother's Heart
by Sophia Thakur
Candlewick Press, 10/10/2023
 
In her heartfelt second poetry collection, Sophia Thakur takes us on an emotionally charged journey through the lives of women in the past and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Poetry & Novels in Verse
What We Kept to Ourselves: A Novel
by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Atria Books, 10/10/2023
 
But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving ...more
Literary Fiction
All These Sunken Souls: A Black Horror Anthology
by Circe Moskowitz
Amberjack, 10/17/2023
 
Welcome to the Dark.

We are all familiar with tropes of the horror genre: slasher and victims, demon and the possessed. Bloody screams, haunted ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Short Stories
 Debut Author
An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America
by Edwin Raymond
Viking, 10/17/2023
 
Over his decade and a half with the New York Police Department, Edwin Raymond consistently exposed the dark underbelly of modern policing, becoming ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Artificial: A Love Story
by Amy Kurzweil
Catapult, 10/17/2023
 
How do we relate to—and hold—our family's past? Is it through technology? Through spirit? Art, poetry, music? Or is it through the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
Black Friend: Essays
by Ziwe
Abrams Image, 10/17/2023
 
Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Essays
 Debut Author
Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
by Robert M. Sapolsky
Penguin Press, 10/17/2023
 
Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
Distant Sons
by Tim Johnston
Algonquin Books, 10/17/2023
 
What if?

What if Sean Courtland's old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he'd never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local ...more
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir
by Curtis Chin
Little Brown & Company, 10/17/2023
 
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again
by Reggie Watts
Tiny Reparations, 10/17/2023
 
Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who's seen his multifaceted, entirely improvised comedy and music shows knows that. Reggie Watts is ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Half a Cup of Sand and Sky
by Nadine Bjursten
Alder House Books, 10/17/2023
 
It is 1977, and the anti-shah protests at Tehran University are intensifying, but Amineh is not like her peers who want a say in the future of their ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters
by Schuyler Bailar
Hachette Go, 10/17/2023
 
Anti-transgender legislation is being introduced in state governments around the United States in record-breaking numbers. Trans people are under ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World
by Deb Chachra
Riverhead Books, 10/17/2023
 
Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
 Debut Author
How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks
by Adam Nicolson
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/17/2023
 
In How to Be, Adam Nicolson takes us on a glorious, immersive journey. Grounded in the belief that places give access to minds, however distant and ...more
I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country
by Elena Kostyuchenko
Penguin Press, 10/17/2023
 
To be a journalist is to tell the truth. I Love Russia is Elena Kostyuchenko's unrelenting attempt to document her country as experienced by those ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
by Gary J. Bass
Knopf, 10/17/2023
 
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Let the Dead Bury the Dead: A Novel
by Allison Epstein
Doubleday, 10/17/2023
 
Saint Petersburg, 1812. Russian forces have defeated Napoleon at great cost, and the tsar's empire is once again at peace. Sasha, a captain in the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
One Hundred Days: A Novel
by Alice Pung
HarperVia, 10/17/2023
 
Sixteen and pregnant, Karuna finds herself trapped in her mother's Melbourne public housing apartment for one hundred days awaiting the birth of her ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country
by Patricia Evangelista
Random House, 10/17/2023
 
"My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
Straw Dogs of the Universe: A Novel
by Ye Chun
Catapult, 10/17/2023
 
"Heaven and earth do not pick and choose.
They see everything as straw dogs
."

A sweeping historical novel of the American West from the little-...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
 Debut Author
The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary
by Sarah Ogilvie
Knopf, 10/17/2023
 
The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind's greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food
by Andrew Friedman
Mariner Books, 10/17/2023
 
On a typical evening, in a contemporary American restaurant, a table orders their dinner from a server. It's an exchange that happens dozens, or ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
The Forgers: The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust's Most Audacious Rescue Operation
by Roger Moorhouse
Basic Books, 10/17/2023
 
Between 1940 and 1943, a group of Polish diplomats in Switzerland engaged in a wholly remarkable—and until now, completely unknown—...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination
by Stuart A. Reid
Knopf, 10/17/2023
 
It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA
by Liza Mundy
Crown, 10/17/2023
 
Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA's ...more
Biography/Memoir
The Unmaking of June Farrow: A Novel
by Adrienne Young
Delacorte Press, 10/17/2023
 
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Witches at the End of the World
by Chelsea Iversen
Sourcebooks Landmark, 10/17/2023
 
Rage burns brighter than any spellfire…

Deep in the birchwoods of Norway, magic courses through the veins of two sisters. For years they've ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
These Burning Stars: The Kindom Trilogy #1
by Bethany Jacobs
Orbit, 10/17/2023
 
On a dusty backwater planet, occasional thief Jun Ironway has gotten her hands on the score of a lifetime: a secret that could raze the Kindom, the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
Touch the Future: A Manifesto in Essays
by John Lee Clark
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/17/2023
 
Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world. He is on the...more
Tremor: A Novel
by Teju Cole
Kids@Random, 10/17/2023
 
Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.

A weekend spent ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Here Lies Olive
by Kate Anderson
North Star Editions, 10/20/2023
 
Growing up in the dark tourism capital of the United States, sixteen-year-old Olive should be comfortable with death. But ever since an allergic ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing
by Hilary Mantel
Henry Holt and Company, 10/24/2023
 
In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own ...more
America Fantastica: A Novel
by Tim O'Brien
Mariner Books, 10/24/2023
 
At 11:34 a.m. one Saturday in August 2019, Boyd Halverson strode into Community National Bank in Northern California.

"How much is on hand, would ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Hercule Poirot's Silent Night: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
by Sophie Hannah
William Morrow, 10/24/2023
 
It's December 19, 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are looking forward to a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday, when they are ...more
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
by Adam Grant
Viking, 10/24/2023
 
We live in a world that's obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
Jane and the Final Mystery: Being a Jane Austen Mystery
by Stephanie Barron
Soho Crime, 10/24/2023
 
March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen's health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her...more
Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins - From Spices to Vices
by Noah Whiteman
Little, Brown Spark, 10/24/2023
 
A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes.

Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
On Marriage
by Devorah Baum
Yale University Press, 10/24/2023
 
"As far back as our history books go, we have no record of a time preceding marriage. Isn't that an extraordinary fact?" So writes Devorah Baum in ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Science, Health and the Environment
Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever
by Matt Singer
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 10/24/2023
 
On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they'd ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement
by Tanisha Ford
Amistad, 10/24/2023
 
Our Secret Society brilliantly illuminates a little known yet highly significant aspect of the civil rights movement that has been long overlooked&#...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream
by David Leonhardt
Random House, 10/24/2023
 
Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
 Debut Author
Pay as You Go
by Eskor David Johnson
McSweeney's Books, 10/24/2023
 
New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he'...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
Sonic Life: A Memoir
by Thurston Moore
Doubleday, 10/24/2023
 
Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan's East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York's sights and sounds&...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year
by Margaret Renkl
Spiegel & Grau, 10/24/2023
 
In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over ...more
The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories
by Kij Johnson
Small Beer Press, 10/24/2023
 
The Privilege of the Happy Ending collects award-winning writer Kij Johnson's speculative fiction from the last decade. The stories explore gender, ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Short Stories
The Search for Us: A Novel
by Susan Azim Boyer
Wednesday Books, 10/24/2023
 
Samira Murphy will do anything to keep her fractured family from falling apart, including caring for her widowed grandmother and getting her older ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
by Michael Willrich
Basic Books, 10/31/2023
 
In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Black Punk Now
by Chris L. Terry
Soft Skull Press, 10/31/2023
 
Black Punk Now is an anthology of contemporary nonfiction, fiction, illustrations, and comics that collectively describe punk today and give punks&#...more
Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided
by Scott Eyman
Simon & Schuster, 10/31/2023
 
Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin's fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust
by Neal Shusterman
Graphix, 10/31/2023
 
Courage to Dream plunges readers into the Holocaust - one of the greatest atrocities in human history - delving into the core of what it means to face...more
Critics' Consensus:

Graphic Novels
Edith Holler: A Novel
by Edward Carey
Riverhead Books, 10/31/2023
 
The year is 1901. England's beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science
by Catherine McNeur
Basic Books, 10/31/2023
 
In Mischievous Creatures, historian Catherine McNeur uncovers the lives and work of Margaretta Hare Morris and Elizabeth Carrington Morris, sisters ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
People to Follow: A Novel
by Olivia Worley
Wednesday Books, 10/31/2023
 
A reality show on a remote Caribbean island. Ten teen influencers. One dead body.

Welcome to "In Real Life," the hot new reality show that forces ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
Sinner's Isle
by Angela Montoya
Joy Revolution, 10/31/2023
 
Rosalinda is trapped on Sinner's Isle, an island filled with young women like her—Majestics, beautiful witches loathed by society for their ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Romance
 Debut Author
The Berry Pickers: A Novel
by Amanda Peters
Catapult, 10/31/2023
 
July 1962. A Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family's ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
 Debut Author
The Body of the Soul: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
by Ludmila Ulitskaya
Yale University Press, 10/31/2023
 
While we can feel, know, and study the body, the soul refuses definition. Where does it begin and end? What does the soul have to do with love? Does ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Short Stories
The Glutton: A Novel
by A.K. Blakemore
Scribner, 10/31/2023
 
1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
The House of Love and Death: Cameron Winter Mysteries
by Andrew Klavan
Mysterious Press, 10/31/2023
 
Cameron Winter is known for having a sense about crime. His background as a spy trained his mind—and his body—for action, and his current ...more
The Race to Be Myself: A Memoir
by Caster Semenya
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/31/2023
 
Olympian and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heartbreaking story of how the world came to know her name. Thrust ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
The Space Between Here & Now
by Sarah Suk
Quill Tree Books, 10/31/2023
 
Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
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