September Reading Preview      

I begged my sales rep for an early reading copy, which I delivered proudly to my brother months ago.  When I checked in a few weeks ago, he still hadn’t read it.  “I don’t want it to be over,” he said. ”

As we get deeper into August, all of us who work in the Book Shop have started furiously reading books due to publish in September so we can be prepared to recommend (or not!) the biggest new releases.  It’s a stacked month!  Here are some of the books we’re looking forward to.

Emma Cline’s previous two novels, “The Girls” and “The Guest,” darkly tackled female adolescence and early adulthood, and so her new novel, “Switzy,” about an aging man’s trip (to Switzerland, hence the title) to tie up loose ends, feels like a departure, but a welcome one.  While the subject matter is still dark — David, the main character suffers from dementia and is knowingly in his final days — Cline writes with such exacting language and with such sympathy that I found the revelations to be found in her execution quite poignant.  David’s mental deterioration over the few days the novel takes place, while he visits his daughter for the last time and seeks to make amends with a childhood friend, is subtly, carefully done.  Reading David’s journey was a profound experience.

Since “The Frozen River” by Ariel Lawhon was published in November 2024, it has consistently been one of our bestsellers.  Now Lawhon returns with a new novel, “The Pirate Queen,” based on the real-life pirate Grace O’Malley, a legendary figure in Irish history who was also an Irish tribal leader who crossed Elizabeth I and lived to tell about it.  The novel fictionalizes O’Malley’s full life story, beginning with dreams of the sea in her early life only to be married off to a brutal warrior of a nearby clan, through her seafaring days, battling for independence.  I think what Lawhon does best is immerse her readers in history, telling stories that engross you, and with “The Pirate Queen” she has raised the stakes, giving readers a true adventure.

My brother, Sam, and co-owner of the Book Shop, loves every book he’s read by Emily St. John Mandel, including “Station Eleven” and “Sea of Tranquility.”  When I heard “Exit Party” was coming out this September, I begged my sales rep for an early reading copy, which I delivered proudly to my brother months (and months!) ago.  

When I checked in a few weeks ago, he still hadn’t read it.  

“I don’t want it to be over,” he said.  

Sometimes the anticipation is just as good as the event itself.  In “Exit Party,” a man disappears from a Los Angeles party, and a woman — a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State — searches for answers.  Sam has now, finally, read “Exit Party” and declares it “so excellent.”  What he loves about St. John Mandel’s books is that she creates alternative universes that aren’t just plausible, but you genuinely hope can exist.  She broadens your whole view of what’s possible.

Our bookseller Sue is almost finished reading “American Hagwon” by Min Jin Lee, the National Book Award finalist and bestselling author of “Pachinko,” and she says the story just keeps getting better as you go along — which is good, because at over 650 pages, that’s what you want to happen.  This ambitious family saga follows the Koh family from a comfortable middle-class existence in Korea, upended by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, to Australia and then Southern California.  Underlying the action of the story that moves across decades and characters is the belief that education will lead the next generation to financial security.  If you love sweeping epics, be sure to put this one on your list.

There’s so much more to come.  Below is a more extensive list of titles to look forward to.  September is just around the corner!

And I have to warn you, October isn’t looking too shabby either.

Arriving Sept. 1:

Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson

American Scoundrel by Kai Bird

Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings by Jared Diamond

The Disappearers by Marlon James

The Birthing Tree by Amanda Peters

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

Arriving Sept. 8:

Switzy by Emma Cline

The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon

The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman

Arriving Sept. 15:

Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson

Signals Across Vast Distances by Elizabeth Alexander

Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman

True North by Paul Theroux

Arriving Sept. 29:

Threshing Day by Rebecca Yarros

Ply by Hernon Diaz

The French Illusion John Grisham

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Dodge City by Patrick deWitt

The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw

Hannah Harlow is owner of The Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Beverly Farms.  Harlow writes biweekly recommendations for us.  See more of what she recommends reading at thecricket.com.