What are the dangers – and opportunities – of artificial intelligence? This new novel addresses these questions through the story of a well-known but financially struggling poet in her 70s who accepts a technology company’s offer to work with an AI program to write a poem in exchange for a lucrative paycheck.
Astra House, September 5th
Set in 19th-century London, Smith’s first historical novel centers on the real-life figure of a man on trial for impersonating a nobleman lost at sea. Although the defendant was clearly a fraud, he amassed an unlikely band of followers who viewed him as a populist folk hero. The novel focuses on the developing friendship between one of his fans (a Jamaican who escaped slavery) and a skeptical Scottish housekeeper who becomes fascinated by the process.
Penguin Press, September 5th
Holly, by Stephen King
The scrappy, clever private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in The Outsider and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing persons case that, in typical King fashion, unfolds into a story of Dickensian proportions.
Scribner, September 5th
Book recommendations from a gnomic librarian in Tokyo lead five loosely connected people down new paths to fulfillment in a tender novel that became a bestseller in Japan.
Hanover Square Press, September 5
As much as humans rely on roads and highways, they are a confusing and dangerous intruder for our animal friends. (As Goldfarb points out, a million animals are killed by vehicles every day in the United States alone.) This book examines the environmental costs of roads that disrupt migration patterns, contribute to water pollution, and more, but also the innovative solutions currently being developed.
Norton, September 12th
Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson
Isaacson, the author of the best-selling biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, turns his attention to Musk, the controversial billionaire whose companies include Tesla, SpaceX and now X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The book promises an intimate look at someone who feels compelled to break the rules – even when such disruptions don’t necessarily work out in their favor.
Simon & Schuster, September 12th
Evans, the author of the 2018 novel Ordinary People, returns with an epic family saga about grief, identity and healing. After her husband’s death, Alice – the matriarch of the Pitt family – must decide whether to return to her native Nigeria after half a century in London, a decision with serious consequences for her daughters.
Pantheon, September 12th
More focused than the author’s four previous novels, “The Vaster Wilds” traces the inner world of a maid who has fled a 17th-century colonial settlement and the prospect of “a certain miserable death” into the wilderness where she survives the land and her own spirit.
Riverhead, September 12th
When Jack and Elizabeth met as college students in 1990s Chicago, they bonded over their love of underground art and music. Now their youthful idealism is all but gone and they must deal with all sorts of domestic indignities (mindfulness, polyamory), raise a young son, and negotiate their commitment to one another.
Knopf, September 19th
An important book on a sadly timely topic, “American Gun,” by two Wall Street Journal reporters, uses impressive research and reporting to explain how a Navy veteran and self-taught engineer developed an assault rifle for military use in the 1950s It was marketed to civilians and eventually became the weapon of choice for mass shootings.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September 26
This ambitious work of investigative journalism from a former New York Times Mexico City bureau chief is a parable of violence and impunity that reads like a noir thriller. Set in a Mexican city overrun by rival drug cartels, the film follows a grieving mother determined to avenge her daughter’s senseless murder. Through her story, the book shows us a nation struggling with an epidemic of fear and lawlessness.
Random House, September 26th
This intimate work of narrative non-fiction begins in 1975 Laos with a message spoken quietly among the villagers: “The Americans have failed us.” Ia Moua, the youngest daughter of Hmong rice farmers, is only 11 years old and falls victim to fate so many people escape their living conditions – arranged marriage, communist rule, famine – by fleeing their country. Hamilton, an author and photographer, follows the girl’s journey as she spends 15 years in refugee camps and builds a new but extremely familiar life as a rice farmer in California.
Little, Brown, September 26th
The Iliad by Homer. Translated by Emily Wilson.
Wilson’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey was celebrated for its idiomatic language and technical mastery. Here she brings those same strengths to a translation of the Iliad that once again carries Homer in effortless iambic pentameter and tells the story of the Trojan War in a way that revives its epic violence and human tragedy.
Norton, September 26th
A chef is banned from returning to her California home in a dystopian landscape of crop-killing smog and closed international borders. She finds herself on a mountaintop in Italy, preparing elaborate dishes for a small group of wealthy and powerful “researchers” who are enjoying the last tastes of luxury in the only spot on the planet the sun still touches.
Riverhead, September 26th
Nagourney, a veteran Times reporter, picks up more or less where Gay Talese’s groundbreaking 1969 book “The Kingdom and the Power” left off. His report provides a carefully reported, impartial account of this newspaper over four decades, encompassing both its missteps and its successes, and exposing the myriad internal tensions the company has faced as it transitions into the digital age.
Crown, September 26th
Mathis tests the shackles of family, legacy, and hope through the story of Ava Carson and her 10-year-old son Toussaint, who begin the novel in a Philadelphia homeless shelter in 1985. From there, the novel takes the reader to Ava’s roots in Alabama, her estranged mother, and the gentrifying hometown of Bonaparte; and back north to the return of Toussaint’s father, a former Black Panther.
Knopf, September 26th