"The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois" by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers • Jeffers' first novel is a multigenerational family story about the daughter of a light-skinned doctor and Southern teacher. Ancestral trauma includes early slave owners and a relative's sexual abuse, with Publishers Weekly saying the story is full of "rich layers." (Harper; Aug. 24)
'More Than I Love My Life'
"More Than I Love My Life" by David Grossman • An elderly woman, her daughter and granddaughter return to a Croatian island where one of them was imprisoned and tortured. Inspired by a true story. The prominent Israeli writer's work is translated by Jessica Cohen. (Knopf; Aug. 24)
'A Slow Fire Burning'
"A Slow Fire Burning" by Paula Hawkins • Hawkins' latest murder mystery involves the body of a young man, found on a London houseboat, whose connections to three different women suggest that any one of them may have sought revenge. (Riverhead; Aug. 31)
'Beautiful World Where Are You'
"Beautiful World, Where Are You" by Sally Rooney • The young Irish author features friends who hook up, break up and have relationships that include some of the masochism seen in Rooney's popular "Normal People." In two women's emails, they also mull over capitalism, art and the worrisome future. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Sept. 7)
'In Every Mirror She's Black'
"In Every Mirror She’s Black" by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström •Three Black women seek a better life in Sweden, the home of the Nigerian American author, who is also a travel photographer and nonfiction author. This is her first novel. (Sourcebooks; Sept. 7)
'The Magician'
"The Magician" by Colm Toíbín • The latest book by the author of "Brooklyn" is a fictionalized life of German author Thomas Mann, who marries and has six children while hiding his homosexual desires. He lives through two world wars, wins a Nobel Prize and flees Europe for America. Publishers Weekly concludes: "Tóibín has surpassed himself." (Scribner; Sept. 7)
'Matrix'
"Matrix" by Lauren Groff • Young Marie de France is sent from the royal court of Eleanor of Aquitaine to become prioress of a poor abbey. Marie's religious visions and rising power help her rebuild and strengthen the community in this bold historical novel. (Riverhead; Sept. 7)
'The War For Gloria'
"The War for Gloria" by Atticus Lish • A teenager's mother declines from ALS as the boy also deals with his biological father, whose creepiness leads one character to suspect he's a murderer. Lish won the PEN/Faulkner Award for his first novel, "Preparation for the Next Life." (Knopf; Sept. 7)
'Apples Never Fall'
"Apples Never Fall" by Liane Moriarty • Moriarty, a darling of book clubs with her family dramas such as "Big Little Lies," builds a missing-person mystery around a successful Australian couple and their four adult children. Maybe Joy and Stan should have thought twice before letting an utter stranger into their home? (Henry Holt; Sept. 14)
'Harlem Shuffle'
"Harlem Shuffle" by Colson Whitehead • Whitehead has already won two Pulitzers ("The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys"), but look for more acclaim for his novel set in civil rights-era Harlem, where a slightly crooked used-furniture salesman is confronted by mobsters. (Doubleday; Sept. 14)
'Harrow'
"Harrow" by Joy Williams • In Williams' first novel since 2000's "The Quick and the Dead," a plundered Earth seems to be in its final days. Can precocious youths and a fierce group of elderly survivors bring it back to life? (Knopf; Sept. 14)
'Palmares'
"Palmares" by Gayl Jones • Set in 17th-century Brazil, "Palmares" is named for a fugitive slave settlement, where an escaped girl arrives. Later, Almeyda travels across the country looking for her lost husband. A welcome publication by Jones, who had not released a novel in two decades. (Beacon; Sept. 14)
'Bewilderment'
"Bewilderment" by Richard Powers • A widowed astrobiologist raises his son, who is challenged by emotional outbursts. Kirkus calls it a "taut ecological parable." (Norton; Sept. 21)
'The Book of Form and Emptiness'
"The Book of Form and Emptiness" by Ruth Ozeki • After his father dies, a boy starts hearing loud voices from inanimate items around his house (which becomes fuller because of his mother's hoarding). He seeks refuge in a library, where books only whisper, in this poignant and funny story by the author of "A Tale for the Time Being." (Viking; Sept. 21)
'The Wrong End of the Telescope'
"The Wrong End of the Telescope" by Rabih Alameddine • A trans doctor travels to Lesbos, Greece, to help treat desperate refugees, including a woman who won't tell her family she has cancer. Publishers Weekly says that "Alameddine crafts a wise, deeply moving story that can still locate humor in the pit of hell." (Grove, Sept. 21)
'A Calling for Charlie Barnes'
"A Calling for Charlie Barnes" by Joshua Ferris • After a serious diagnosis, a father's life of failures is told through his loving son, unreliable narrator Jake Barnes (yes, like the protagonist in "The Sun Also Rises"). (Little Brown; Sept. 28)
'Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth'
"Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth"by Wole Soyinka • The Nobel Prize winner offers his first novel in almost 50 years, a satirical look at a corrupt Nigeria with a "Ministry of Happiness." (Pantheon; Sept. 28)
'Cloud Cuckoo Land'
"Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Anthony Doerr • This 600-plus-page novel is expected to enthrall readers of "All the Light We Cannot See." Doerr connects the stories of characters who live in ancient Constantinople, contemporary Idaho and on a future spaceship. (Scribner; Sept. 28)
📖 Nonfiction 📖
'Every Deep Drawn Breath'
"Every Deep-Drawn Breath" by Wes Ely, M.D. • A history of critical care seems timely in light of COVID-19, and although distressing, this book discusses how long-haul symptoms are not unusual in ICU patients, whatever the diagnosis. (Scribner; Sept. 7)
'Home, Land, Security'
"Home, Land, Security: Deradicalization and the Journey Back From Extremism" by Carla Power • An examination of former militants, whether ISIS radicals or white supremacists, and how rising divisions in the world might be mended. (One World; Sept. 7)
'On Freedom'
"On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint" by Maggie Nelson • The poet and author of acclaimed "The Argonauts" discusses the limits of freedom through the realms of art, sex, drugs and climate. (Graywolf; Sept. 7)
'Conquering the Pacific'
"Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery"by Andrés Reséndez • The author tells the little-known history of a 16th-century mixed-race mariner. From Mexico, Lope Martín sailed the smallest ship in a fleet of four attempting to cross the Pacific to Asia and return. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Sept. 14)
'Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation'
"Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation" by Paul Hawken • In a title more hopeful than many observers, Hawken says citizens, corporations and governments can indeed address what seems like an impossible problem. (Penguin Books; Sept. 14)
'Rule of the Robots'
"Rule of the Robots" by Martin Ford •Artificial intelligence is altering every dimension of human life, Ford says, but more, much more, is to come. AI could fight climate change, but its ability to generate deep fakes may also create havoc. (Basic Books; Sept. 14)
'The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773–1783'
"The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783" by Joseph J. Ellis • A new look at the actions and motives of colonists by a veteran historian. The publisher says Ellis' work challenges "the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people and a nation." (Liveright; Sept. 21)
OCTOBER
'Crossroads'
"Crossroads" by Jonathan Franzen • The first book in an ambitious trilogy opens in 1971 Chicago, where the liberal minister Russ Hildebrandt, his wife and several of their offspring seem to seek their own independence from one another. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Oct. 5)
'Fight Night'
"Fight Night" by Miriam Toews • A small child's grandma tells her she must "learn to fight" as their plucky family faces challenges in Toronto. (Bloomsbury; Oct. 5)
'My Monticello'
"My Monticello" by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson • A collection of stories and the title novella explores a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, a single mother and more in this heralded debut. (Henry Holt; Oct. 5)
'State of Terror'
"State of Terror" by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny • A guaranteed bestseller by the former secretary of state, first lady and presidential candidate, with the help of a top-notch mystery writer. But is it really a novel? In it, a new secretary of state works with a president, once her opponent, and faces the challenges of terrorist attacks. (St. Martin’s; Oct. 12)
'When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky'
"When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky" by Margaret Verble • Two Feathers, a Cherokee horse-diver, travels to Tennessee as a Wild West show performer in 1926. (Mariner; Oct. 12)
'Silverview'
"Silverview" by John Le Carré • Not quite a year after the spy author's death, fans will be eager to check out a novel set in a small English town where a Polish émigré seems unusually interested in a bookstore owner's family. Will this posthumous (and presumably last) novel be a worthy addition to his legacy? (Viking; Oct. 12)
'Oh William!'
"Oh William!" by Elizabeth Strout • The third book featuring Lucy Barton (who's rather less prickly than Strout's Olive Kitteridge) finds Lucy revisiting life with her first husband. (Random House; Oct. 19)
'As the Wicked Watch'
"As the Wicked Watch" by Tamron Hall • Journalist Hall offers the first in a series featuring Chicago crime reporter Jordan Manning, who investigates oft-ignored murders of Black women and, here, the death of a teenager found in a vacant lot. (Morrow; Oct. 26)
📖 Nonfiction 📖
'Carnival of Snackery'
"Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020)"by David Sedaris • The second volume of the humorist's quirky diaries. (Little, Brown; Oct. 5)
'The Long War'
"The Long War: The Inside Story of America and Afghanistan Since 9/11" by David Loyn • A detailed and educational history of America's two-decade "forever war" just as this country withdraws and the Taliban invades Afghanistan. (St. Martin; Oct. 5)
'The Taking of Jemima Boone'
"The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped a Nation" by Matthew Pearl • Daniel Boone led a posse on a dramatic rescue of his kidnapped daughter and her two friends after they were taken by Cherokee-Shawnee raiders in Kentucky. Pearl ("The Dante Club") links this to more clashes of westward expansion. (Harper; Oct. 5)
'Letter to a Stranger'
"Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us," edited by Colleen Kinder • A paperback anthology of pieces about brief encounters that are nevertheless remembered. Dozens of contributors include Lauren Groff, Elizabeth Kolbert and Pico Iyer. (Algonquin; Oct. 5)
'The Boys'
"The Boys" by Ron Howard and Clint Howard • Memoir by brothers who have each worked in, and survived, Hollywood for more than 50 years. As kids they were fondly competitive (Clint wanted his "Gentle Ben" to outdo "The Andy Griffith Show"). (William Morrow; Oct. 12)
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
📖 Fiction 📖
'The Dark Hours'
"The Dark Hours" by Michael Connelly • The fourth book featuring Renée Ballard with Harry Bosch finds the LA police department challenged by social unrest and the pandemic, not to mention serial rapists and unsolved murders. (Little, Brown; Nov. 2)
'Never'
"Never" by Ken Follett • Modern-day drama of international intrigue and threats of a new world war. Its expected 800 pages should give Follett fans plenty of excitement. (Viking; Nov. 2)
'Our Country Friends'
"Our Country Friends" by Gary Shteyngart • Perhaps a pandemic quarantine would be more entertaining among friends and lovers. Likely, it's better to just read Shteyngart's novel about eight people in one house. (Random House; Nov. 2)
'Look For Me I'll Be Gone'
"Look for Me and I’ll Be Gone" by John Edgar Wideman • New stories span layered topics from Michael Jordan and Emmett Till to art and memory. (Scribner; Nov. 9)
'The Sentence'
"The Sentence" by Louise Erdrich •A Minneapolis bookstore is haunted by a former customer during a year that sees isolation and a murder by police. Oh, and there's also humor. (Harper; Nov. 9)
'Wish You Were Here'
"Wish You Were Here" by Jodi Picoult • Picoult has a knack with timely subjects, and in her 27th novel, a couple's trip to the Galapagos is upended by a new virus. While her doctor boyfriend must cancel to work in a hospital, Diana is stuck on the islands during what might be an evolutionary experience. (Ballantine; Nov. 30)
📖 Nonfiction 📖
'Profit and Punishment'
"Profit and Punishment" by Tony Messenger • The Post-Dispatch columnist received a Pulitzer for shining a light on, as the book's subtitle says, "How American Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice." The publisher calls the book about modern debtors prisons a "call to arms." (St. Martin’s; Dec. 7)
