My 2022 Autumn Reading List

 

Those of us who are lucky enough to live in the great state of Connecticut woke up last Friday to brilliantly blue skies, crisp, clear air and temperatures in the upper 50s. It was a reminder that, while summer does not end until September 21st, the long Labor Day Weekend properly ushers in the fall season. If you know me, then you know that autumn is my favorite time of the year. I am longing for thick sweaters and socks, hot mugs of tea, the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, harvest moons, apples and, of course, the splashiest, biggest and best books of the year, which are reliably released between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

According to Goodreads, this year's fall book season is shaping up to be one of the busiest and best in recent memory. I know we hear that every year, but I happen to agree with Goodreads' assessment. I have been spending a lot of time lately immersed in lists (upon lists) of upcoming book releases in preparation for the library's semi-annual Book Buzz program, which will take place this fall on September 19th. The program will offer handouts of new books across nine different genres, and of the 540 books featured in those handouts, I will be highlighting 20 books scheduled for publication this fall and winter that are getting extra amounts of pre-publication "buzz" (the so-called "20 Notables"). My first pass at choosing the 20 books to discuss yielded a list of 35 completely worthy titles. Goodness me!

But before we get to Book Buzz, there is this list, which seems to have become a North Main Book Notes tradition: 15 books scheduled for release between now and the end of the year that are my personal most anticipated reads. Said another way, these may or may not be buzzing in the broader book world (although several of them definitely are), but they are certainly buzzing for me. For full disclosure, I have deliberately not included any of the 20 Notable titles that I will be discussing during Book Buzz on this list of 15 books. That means that some wowzer titles are missing but sneak peeks are not allowed. It's just as well, actually, because something like six of the 20 Notables are on my personal most anticipated list, and if I included them here, this blog post would be ridiculously long (some might say it already is). Although the library is hosting two sessions of Book Buzz on the 19th, both are full, but if your curiosity is peaked and you'd like to attend, the library is livestreaming the early program (4-5:30), and you can register to attend virtually by clicking here.

So with that caveat out of the way, here are 15 books scheduled for release between now and the end of the year that I am particularly eager to read, listed in chronological order by release date:

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (September 6) — I credit Richard Osman (more on him in a moment) for the wonderful notion that retirees might spend their free time solving crimes and having a lot of fun doing it. Raybourn should credit him too because her new novel is about four women who have spent 40 years working for an elite network of assassins but have been urged to retire because their skills are considered too old-school for current technological trends. It turns out that the the top-level members of the network actually want the four women dead, but they've underestimated their former agents to their peril. There is a lot of buzz on this one, and it sounds like a rollicking good time.

Lessons by Ian McEwan (September 13) — Ian McEwan has been writing unputdownable novels for a long time. He is probably best known for his 2002 book Atonement, which was turned into an Academy Award-winning movie in 2008, but he won the Booker Prize in 1998 for Amsterdam and has had great success with several other novels (try The Children Act, Nutshell, On Chesil Beach or Saturday to get a feel). I love his books. This new one, purported to be his best in years, is about one man's life over the course of several decades and many major historical events. Early reviews describe it as sprawling, ambitious, intimate and quite likely autobiographical. What more could you want? 

Marple by Agatha Christie et. al. (September 13) — I was one of those kids who made a master list of Agatha Christie mysteries and then checked books off as I read them. Although Hercule Poirot is her most famous detective, I was always more a fan of the elderly and perpetually underestimated Jane Marple, because she was so smart and so unassuming and perhaps because she was the detective in the very first Agatha Christie novel I ever read (A Murder is Announced). So imagine my delight when I learned that Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Val McDermid, Ruth Ware and six other mystery authors had each written a Marple mystery story and that the compilation of 12 new Marple escapades would be published as a book. Hooray!

Prisoners of the Castle by Ben Macintyre (September 13) — In 2010 I read a book called Operation Mincemeat, about an extraordinary World War II scheme to convince the Germans that Allied Forces were planning to invade southern Europe via Greece or Sardinia rather than Sicily. This history major found the book fascinating (it has since been turned into a Netflix movie starring Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen) and also exceptionally well-written by Ben Macintyre. Since then, I have become a Macintyre fan. His new book is about Colditz Castle and the defiant Allied prisoners held there by the Germans during World War II. Their creative attempts to escape the castle are legendary, and Macintyre purportedly brings to life not just the well-known inhabitants of the prison but some of the previously lesser known as well, and traces the narrative arc of the war from within the castle's walls. It sounds riveting.

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman (September 20) — Richard Osman is a well-known TV personality in Britain but is less well known here at home. His bestselling mystery series features four septuagenarians who live in a peaceful retirement community and are the sole members of The Thursday Murder Club. They meet weekly to discuss cold cases and soon find themselves trying to solve the murders taking place in their own town. The first two books in the series (The Thursday Murder Club and The Man who Died Twice) were New York Times bestsellers and each was a favorite read of mine in the year it was published. That makes this upcoming third book in the series a must-read for me. In it, a decade-old cold case leads the club to a murder with no body and no answers. 

Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer (September 20) — In the summer of 2017, I read Andrew Sean Greer's new novel Less, about the hapless and lovable Arthur Less, who travels around the world attending third-rate literary events to avoid his ex's wedding and the fact that he is turning 50. I was absolutely charmed by it, found it alternatively touching and hilarious and very, very joyful, and I started recommending it widely. Much to my (and apparently Greer's) astonishment, it went on to win the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became one of the most controversial book titles the Thursday Night Book Club has ever discussed. A few years ago, I found out that Greer was writing a sequel to Less, and I have been impatiently awaiting its arrival ever since. In Less is Lost, Arthur Less goes on another road trip, this time around America. The novel is appearing on many lists of the most anticipated books of the fall, including this one.

The Winners by Fredrik Backman (September 27) — I stumbled upon Backman's A Man Called Ove many years ago. It was one of those books that stayed with me for months afterwards and that I recommended widely and gave as a present several times. Since then, I have read every single book Backman writes as quickly as I can once it is published and have become a lifelong fan. Every single Backman novel is moving, funny, thought-provoking and poignant, and since Ove, each one has been a New York Times bestseller. The Winners is the third and final book in a trilogy (after Beartown (which was turned into an HBO miniseries) and Us Against You) about the hockey-obsessed inhabitants of a small town going through a very rough time.

Somebody Feed Phil The Book by Phil Rosenthal (October 18) — One of the early silver linings of the pandemic cloud was my discovery of a Netflix travel and food documentary series called Somebody Feed Phil. The show's irrepressible host Phil Rosenthal is the creator of the iconic sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which, it turns out, is autobiographical. Phil has boundless curiosity, eats anything and loves to meet and get to know people. There have been five wonderful seasons of the show thus far with a sixth due for release soon. This companion book contains never-before-heard stories from every episode of the first four seasons of the series, along with sixty of viewers’ most requested recipes. There are a lot of great cookbooks scheduled for publication this fall (including one more discussed below), but I'm particularly excited about this one.

The Singularities by John Banville (October 25) — It is not a secret that I am partial to Irish stories and storytelling. And few writers working today are better at that than John Banville. The author of 17 novels, including his stunning 2005 Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea, Banville has also written a riveting series under the pseudonym Benjamin Black that is set in 1950s Dublin and is about a pathologist named Quirke. His new novel is about an ex-con who has been released from prison after 20 years and returns to his childhood home where he wrecks havoc on its new occupants. It is being described as a cryptic blend of metafiction and aristocratic manners, told in a beautifully lilting style. That may or may not sound like your cup of tea, but it is definitely mine.

Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby (November 1) — It is not an original observation to note that Jane Austen is the gift that keeps on giving. Gill Hornby has previously written a charming novel that imagines the life of Jane Austen's sister Cassandra (Miss Austen) and now returns with a historical novel based on the life of Anne Sharpe, who, at the beginning of 1804, arrived at Godmersham Park in Kent to become governess to Austen's niece Fanny. When members of the Austen family arrive for a visit, Anne develops a bond with Jane. Yes please!

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy (November 8) — This is a debut novel that was published in the U.K. in April and was frequently mentioned as a contender both for the Booker Price and for the Women's Prize. Although it did not appear on either longlist, it has been on my radar screen for months. Set in a small town outside of Belfast in 1975 as the Troubles are heating up, the novel depicts a socio-economically mixed community coming to terms with increasing sectarianism. Its focus is on a young Catholic schoolteacher who begins an affair with a married Protestant lawyer and also becomes involved with the family of one of her students. I heard Louise Kennedy speak (virtually) at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few weeks ago and her comments and observations made me only more eager to read this novel.

Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths (November 15)  — I've mentioned before that Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series is my current favorite of the many mystery series I follow. Griffiths has recently started writing a new series of crime fiction featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur. The first two books in the series (The Stranger Diaries, which won the Edgar Award for best novel, and The Postscript Murders) were terrific, and in the upcoming third book, Kaur has been promoted to Detective Inspector and has moved out of her parents' house in Sussex to live and work in London. She is put in charge of the investigation into the murder of a Member of Parliament who is a former classmate of a fellow cop. I can already tell that this one will be a page-turning weekend treat.

Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby (November 15) — There is so much to love about Nick Hornby. He is passionate about music and soccer (what he calls football) and writes engaging, approachable novels about people you'd like to know and all the ways they discover how complicated life and love can be. Several of his books (About a Boy, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity) have been turned into movies, and for years he wrote a fabulous monthly column called "Stuff I've Been Reading" in the magazine Believer (collected in the worthy Ten Years in the Tub). His new book is about art, creativity and the parallels and similarities between the writer Charles Dickens and the musician Prince. This sounds like a fascinating look at two geniuses and the way their art transcends time.

Giuseppe's Italian Bakes by Giuseppe Dell'Anno (November 22) — I am a Great British Bake Off (Great British Baking Show on this side of the Pond) fanatic. I have watched every episode of every season, and I especially appreciate that Netflix drops a single episode at a time so that I can watch the show the way I used to watch television when I was younger. Last season's cast included several incredibly talented bakers and a universally beloved winner, Giuseppe Dell'Anno. His first cookbook contains 60 step-by-step recipes for focaccia, pannacotta, tiramisù, rum baba, piadine, Sicilian cannoli and other Italian delicacies. Yum!

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley (December 6th) — Jane Smiley is probably best known as the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres, which was turned into a movie in 1997, but she has written many wonderful novels, including a trilogy about the fortunes of a single family throughout the 20th century, a mocking and delightful campus novel called Moo and, most recently, the utterly charming Perestroika in Paris, which was one of my favorite reads of 2020. Much to my surprise (and anticipatory glee), her new novel is a murder mystery set in California during the Gold Rush and is about two prostitutes who start to investigate the recent spate of murders of young girls. Smiley really knows how to tell a story, and this one sounds like a doozy.

So of the thousands of new releases scheduled to arrive this fall, I would grab these 15 first (plus several others you might hear about on September 19th). But wait: there are two more titles I need to mention, because they would definitely have been on this list of my most anticipated titles of fall were it not for the fact that I have already read them. The first is We Are the Light by Matthew Quick, the author of the library's very first One Book, One Wallingford selection The Reason You're Alive. We Are the Light, due out on November 1st, is Quick's first novel since he visited Wallingford in 2018, and it is mesmerizing. He was kind enough to send me an advance reader's copy (ARC) of the book, and I inhaled it. And the second is Kevin Wilson's Now is Not the Time to Panic, due out November 8th. Wilson has been writing quirky and slightly off-kilter novels and short stories for years, and in my opinion, each book has been better than the one before. His last novel Nothing to See Here was one of my favorite reads of 2019. and after I heard Wilson speak about Now is Not the Time to Panic at a publisher event a few months ago, I reached out to the publisher's library marketing team to request an ARC. And they sent it! Do I have a great job or what? Anyway, it was terrific, engaging and very thought-provoking.

So there you have it. What are you most excited to read this fall?