As we head toward the end of the year, it’s time to hit your reading goals with this season's latest new releases.
From romantic comedy to speculative fiction and magic realism, you’ll be spoiled for choice with various styles and genres by some of the world’s best-selling authors.
Here are The National’s picks for your autumn must-reads.
The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
Matt Haig’s stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations have been incredibly popular with readers over the past few years. His latest novel explores the same themes of self reflection, this time with retired math teacher Grace Winters.
After inheriting a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, Grace books a one-way ticket to Ibiza without a real plan.
Surrounded by the bucolic setting of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended, uncovering a truth stranger than she ever imagined, a truth forcing her to come to terms with her past.
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
From Japan’s most renowned contemporary novelist comes a speculative fiction novel exploring a dystopian future where humanity is close to extinction.
Having settled in small tribes across the world under the care of so-called "Mothers", some children are made in factories while some live by what little they can forage from nature.
The story unfolds over fourteen sections where hundreds and then thousands of years pass, revealing how the various tribes have adapted and changed over eons. This is a story of survival, not of one character or protagonist but of humanity, and what it will become of us when how we love, reproduce and see ourselves fundamentally changes forever.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Set in rural France, this complex and thrilling espionage story follows 34-year-old American mercenary Sadie Smith – if that is her real name.
Sadie begins a relationship with Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, as part of her top secret mission. But in this region France, filled with centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email.
Sadie is now torn between what she was trained to do and what she feels she must do.
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam
Brooke Low is a Black woman raised in a privileged environment by a single mother. Despite her advantages, including an Ivy League education and a network of affluent friends, Brooke has been working as an underpaid inner-city teacher and is feeling unfulfilled and inadequate about her life.
She decides to change her life by taking a job as the administrator of the foundation of the self-made billionaire Asher Jaffee. Responsible for dispersing his fortune, Brooke focuses on all the areas in her life that feel empty, including her fixation on buying an apartment she can’t afford.
Through a thrilling sequence of events, Brooke’s hasty financial decisions concerning her aspirations puts her at risk to lose everything.
The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
The unthinkable happens to Nora when she is still processing the death of her mother. Her father, an affluent businessman named Liam Noone, falls to his death close to his cottage perched on the California coast.
While the authorities have ruled the death accidental, Nora and her estranged brother Sam believe something more sinister was at play. As Nora and Sam team up to uncover the truth, discovering love affairs and a web of strange connections, their relationship is tested as they realise that neither of them never really knew their elusive father.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Set against rural Ireland, estranged brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek are attempting to make sense of life after their father's death. Typical of Rooney’s style, the narrative is character centric, delving into the many facets of the brothers personalities. Peter is an outgoing lawyer while Ivan is more than 10 years his junior and an awkward chess prodigy.
While they come to terms with their father’s death, the brothers lives mirror each other with their struggles at making long lasting intimate connections, living through toxic romantic relationships, leading them to realise that they are more alike than they think.
Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen
Evie Lang is navigating through the grief of losing her aunt while also dealing with the repercussions of getting fired from her poetry professorship. She’s stuck in Ohio, unsure what her next move should be when she finds out that her aunt left her the deed to her San Francisco home – with an exception.
To inherit the home, Evie must first attend a matchmaking tour in Vietnam. There she meets Adam Quyen, who seems grumpy and uptight. But he has his own problems. As the CMO of his sister’s matchmaking business, he’s attempting to prove that he does understand the business of love – until he meets Evie, who keeps getting in his way.
Set against Vietnam’s bustling cities and beautiful nature, Evie and Adam soon discover that despite their differences, there’s a lot they can teach each other about love.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
In this gothic fantasy, the Haddesley family have a strange relationship with a cranberry bog. In exchange for taking care of the bog through a ritual sacrifice every generation, the bog in return produces a “bog-wife". She is brought to life from vegetation and is meant to carry on the family line.
But when the bog fails to honour the bargain, warring siblings Eda, Wenna, Percy and Nora and other family members, each with their own beliefs and ideas about what to do next, must find away to work together as they unearth alarming secret about their family and its history.
A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
In this historical fantasy inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the renowned four beauties of ancient China, the novel explores themes of love and sacrifice set against the backdrop of two warring kingdoms.
Xishi is a beautiful girl from a poor village who she captures the attention of a famous young military advisor, Fanli. Quickly, he presents her with a special opportunity – to use her beauty as a weapon. With the right training she could improve the lives of her people, avenge her sister’s murder and overthrow the rivalling kingdom of Wu.
As Xishi gets her training, she and Fanli grow close but things are put under further strain when she infiltrates the enemy palace as a spy, and the king starts to show her special affection.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
Published in Japan last year but translated and set to be released internationally this November, the renowned Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's latest novel is told in three parts.
Centred around a young mans travels between the real world and a fantasy world across the course of his life, he’s on a journey to find his teenage crush who has vanished. In an imaginary city filled with horned beasts and willow trees, his search leads to a dream library where his teenage crush works, with no memory of their life together.
Slowly the lines between reality and fantasy seep into each other and he must decide where he wants to be and who he will lose in the process.
