the Subverse fall book preview
only the ones I think look good though. do you trust me?
Ya’ll I have really lost my mind this time. There are no less than 34 new releases on this list with pub dates between three days ago and the end of November. I just feel so much joy looking at the list of new releases!! There really is something for everyone who likes the exact same books as me.
While many of these authors are familiar, these titles (with the exception of Entitlement and William) are new to me, so we are relying on the graciousness of the early descriptions, reviews, buzz, and of course, the cover art.
This will be a long one, so view it in the browser or the substack app for the full tip-top experience. To view or purchase any of these titles, see my Subverse fall 2024 book preview list on bookshop.org (you’re welcome 👻).
lit fic & contemporary
very buzzy, very lit girl
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
Fiction | September 3
Three estranged sisters return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister’s death. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Fiction | September 3
A brilliant dark comedy about love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex. When [Jane] finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a "real writer," and together they begin to develop "the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies." Things finally seem to be going right for Jane--until they go terribly wrong.
Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin
Fiction | September 17
Two couples, fifty years apart, face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy. They inhabit this same small space in separate but similar times--times charged with political upheaval and intellectual controversy. Scaffolding is about the way our homes collect and hold our memories and our stories, about the bonds we create and the difficulty of ever fully severing them, about the ways all the people we've loved live on in us.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Fiction | September 24
This is a coming-of-age story about two brothers and their fraught relationships in the wake of their father’s death. Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. When their lives become intertwined, it is a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking. An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family--but especially love.
your degree is showing
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
Fiction | September 3
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain that confines him to a hospital bed in a dysfunctional American healthcare system. He struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone how has lived for many years in his mind. This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value--art, memory, poetry, music, care--are thrown into sharp relief. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind.
Playground by Richard Powers
Fiction | September 24
Four individuals meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity's next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. Set in the world's largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Llyod-Jones
Fiction | September 24
A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day. Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.
If Only by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund
Fiction | September 3
A relatively young woman, aged thirty. She married in her early twenties, had two children. It is winter. She has written in her diary that she is waiting for the heartbreak that will turn her into her true self. She has an impending sense of doom or possibly her own death. A passionate and groundbreaking bestseller from one of Norway's most highly-regarded and award-winning novelists.
things might get a little freaky
The Third Realm by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken
Fiction | October 1
We meet nine individual characters impacted by the sudden appearance of a blazing new star. They witness shapeshifting visitors, unsolved murders in the forest, black metal bands and an online bank of thousands of people's dreams. This is a kaleidoscopic novel about human nature in the face of enormous change--and the warring impulses between light and dark that live in all of us.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel
Fiction | November 19
The long-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami, his first in six years, revisits a Town his readers will remember, a place where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where our shadows become untethered from our selves. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature's most important writers.
Cross by Austin Duffy
Fiction | November 12
1994, the summer leading up to the ceasefire between Britain and the IRA. Francie, a hardened yet troubled IRA man, has authorized the murder of a policeman by two teenaged henchmen. Meanwhile, paranoia is growing because operations are beginning to go wrong. The townsfolk suspect a tout, but no one is willing to accept the evidence before their eyes. Cross is a complex tale of betrayal and brutality at the height of the Troubles, a powerful, moving, and empathetic lament for a community that has lost its way in its battle for the nation.
The Repeat Room by Jesse Ball
Fiction | September 24
In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes. Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.
mystery & thriller
spicy peppers
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Mystery/Thriller | September 3
Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. In this region of 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. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling.
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam
Mystery/Thriller | September 17
Brooke wants. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession.
Exposure by Ramona Emerson
Mystery/Thriller | September 11
In Gallup, New Mexico, where violent crime is five times the national average, a serial killer is operating unchecked, his targets indigent Native people whose murders are easily disguised as death by exposure on the frigid winter streets. As the Gallup detectives struggle to put the pieces together, they consider calling in a controversial specialist to help. Exposure is a dual-voice cat-and-mouse thriller, told from the points of view of a killer who has created his own deadly religion and the only person who can stop him, an embattled young detective who sees the ghosts of his Native victims.
Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker
Mystery/Thriller | September 3
Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. When she receives a letter from a women's prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?
Darkly by Marisha Pessl
YA Mystery/Thriller | November 26
What would you kill for? When an ad for an internship with the Louisiana Veda Foundation poses this question, seemingly every high school student in the country rushes to apply. Little is known about Louisiana Veda. Her game-making empire, Darkly, was renowned for its ingenious, utterly terrifying toys and games, rife with hidden symbols and secrets. Dia is shocked when she’s chosen as an intern, along with six other teenagers from around the world. Now the interns are thrust into the enigmatic heart of Louisiana Veda's operation, and Dia immediately questions everything. It soon becomes clear that this summer will be the most twisted Darkly game of all.
tried and true
The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
Mystery/Detective | October 29
Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. When Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté finally answers, his rage shatters the clam of the quiet Sunday morning. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, the pursuit takes Gamache’s team across Québec and across borders. If they fail the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages. This is the 19th (!) mystery in the bestselling series from Louise Penny.
Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jonasson
Mystery/Thriller | September 10
1983 at a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.
The Alaska Sanders Affair by Joel Dicker, translated by Robert Bononno
Mystery/Thriller | September 17
April 1999. The body of Alaska Sanders is found on the shore of a lake near the quiet town of Mount Pleasant, New Hampshire. Within days, a suspect is identified and soon convicted. Case closed. Eleven years later, Marcus Goldman, celebrity author and amateur sleuth, picks up a thread that will unravel not only the "open and shut" case of Alaska Sanders, but the very fabric of his best friend’s life. Teaming up with Marcus, he hopes to find redemption by solving the most intricate and trying case of his career. Clue by clue, witness by witness, question by question, his characters painstakingly piece together an unguessable puzzle that could only have been set by this acclaimed master of the plot twist.
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
Mystery/Thriller | September 3
In his sleepy Yorkshire town, ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off boredom and malaise. His only case is the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But Jackson soon uncovers a string of unsolved art thefts that lead him down a dizzying spiral of disguise and deceit to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted into a hotel hosting Murder Mystery weekends. As paying guests, impecunious aristocrats and old friends collide, we are treated to Atkinson's most charming and fiendishly clever mystery yet, one that pays homage to the masters of the genre.
fantasy, sci-fi & horror
I myself am strange and unusual
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda
Science Fiction | September 3
In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.
Model Home by Rivers Solomon
Horror | October 1
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things--the strange and the unexplainable--began to happen in their house. As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, the siblings must reckon with their family's past and present, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American south.
Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
Horror | September 24
Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks--and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.
Bringer of Dust by J.M. Miro
Fantasy | September 17
The dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine--long-hidden, thought lost--which might not even exist. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together--if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend.
William by Mason Coile
Horror | September 10
Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career--he's created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. Henry's agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily's coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house--the smartest of smart homes--Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.
The Theatrical Adventures of Edward Gorey by Carol Verburg
Art | October 15
The definitive, deluxe art book about Edward Gorey's theater work--from the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Dracula to the wildly creative productions to which he devoted the last decade of his life. Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was a prodigious and original artist who published more than one hundred beloved works. Written by his friend and collaborator Carol Verburg, this handsome hardcover edition is filled with annotated scripts, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and over two hundred images, including archival photos and previously unpublished artwork.
essays, short stories & biography/memoir
a dry martini would do the trick
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia De La Cerda, translated by Julia Sanches
Short Stories | September 10
In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life and become her. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to endure, telling their own stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once a work of black humor and social critique, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico's most thrilling new writers.
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell
Short Stories | September 17
In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women--these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists. Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez's stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken.
She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark
Short Stories | November 12
A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark's debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik
Essays | November 12
Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in the wrack, ruin, and filth of her apartment, a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. Inside, a lost world. 7406 Franklin Avenue, a combination salon-hotbed-living end where writers and artists mixed with movie stars, rock 'n' rollers, and drug trash, the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion. With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz, Babitz's brilliance of observation, Babitz's incisive intelligence, and, most of all, Babitz's diary-like letters--letters found in those sealed boxes, letters so intimate you don't read them so much as breathe them--as the key to unlocking Didion.
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Short Stories | September 17
These seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet. As the characters pop up in each other's dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection. These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.
The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop
Memoir | September 17
Kelly Bishop's long, storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey's mother in Dirty Dancing. But it is probably her iconic role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy. Full of witty insights and featuring a special collection of personal and professional photographs, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and spirited memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades and has no plans on slowing down.
end notes - let’s chat 👻→
I am forgoing the normal endnotes because this was already the longest project of my life. I hope you find your next favorite fall read somewhere in this massive list and your wrist didn’t break from scrolling please do not send me your medical bills. Next week I will let you know which of these titles are actually on my immediate fall TBR…
regardless - tell me what books you are most excited about for fall, new or backlist titles!
in case you missed it 🖤
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See you around the bookshelf!
My fave part: “There really is something for everyone who likes the exact same books as me.” 😂🤣
I just finished The Morning Star and I’m completely hooked! Now I’m diving into the whole series, so I can’t wait for the next book to drop. I’m also adding Playground, The Empusium, and of course The City and Its Uncertain Walls to my TBR—thanks for the stellar recs! 📚✨