Our Most Anticipated Books of October 2020

Poetry & Fiction

Coming October 6th

  

The Searcher by Tana French

New Tana French is always cause for celebration. Her last book, The Witch Elm, was so beloved by our staff that people fought over who got to write the staff pick card for it! French has a way of writing mysteries that feels almost like a dream: rich, atmospheric, and captivating.

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

PREQUEL. TO. PRACTICAL. MAGIC. Nothing more to say--just put the lime in the coconut and drink it on down.

Missionaries by Phil Klay

A sweeping, complex novel that's part political thriller, part psychological character study. Klay, whose debut story collect, Redeployment, won the National Book Award in 2014 and was one of the NYT's top 10 of that year, is a Marine Corp veteran and his experience lends a brutal and refreshing realism to his writing.

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Sayaka Murata, author of the best-selling Convenience Store Woman, is back and stranger than ever! Our buyer, Devon, inhaled this book in one sitting and may never recover. In turns moving and disturbing, Earthlings is unlike anything you've ever read.

Coming October 13th

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

1915. Some wicked is brewing in Georgia. Beneath the pointed white hoods of the Klan grows a sinister, demonic power, hellbent on the destruction of humanity. Rich in historical detail and deeply creepy, Ring Shout reminds you just how good speculative fiction can be.

A Lover's Discourse by Xiaolu Guo

A post-Brexit love story, told through snippets of conversations. Suffused with a wonderful sense of humor, this intimate and tender novel asks what it means to make a home and a family in a new land.

Coming October 20th

Flowers on the Moon by Billy Chapata

Billy Chapata's writing is like slipping into a warm bath. As with his previous work, Flowers on the Moon is a blend of poetry and prose exploring topics of love, loss, healing and humanity.

Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose by Nikki Giovanni

Giovanni writes straight from the heart. In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism.

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda

These are stories about ghosts, but they aren't ghost stories. Matsuda, also a translator, has brought the works of Carmen Maria Machado, Amelia Gray and Karen Russell to Japan and in Where the Wild Ladies Are, you can see exactly why she's the woman for the job. Her prose is deft, funny and endlessly quotable.

Coming October 27th

Invisible Ink by Patrick Modiano

The latest work from Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano, Invisible Ink is a spellbinding tale of memory and its illusions. A number one best seller in France, hailed by critics as “breathtakingly beautiful” (Les Inrockuptibles) and “refined and dazzling” (Le Journal du Dimanche), Invisible Ink is Modiano’s most thrilling and revelatory work to date.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

A brilliant look at love, family, race, identity and change, that somehow manages to be both meditative and a page-turner. Bryan Washtington's debut collection, Lot, was a NYT's top 10 for 2019 and he was named one of the National Book Award's "5 under 35". In Memorial, Washington proves just how great he is.


Non-Fiction

Coming October 1st

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews

Literary scholar and keen hill-walker Kerri Andrews profiles ten women—from an eighteenth-century parson's daughter, to literary notables like Virginia Woolf and Cheryl Strayed—for whom walking was a source of pleasure, self-knowledge, and creativity.

Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics
by Tom Keymer

Tom Keymer explores the major themes throughout Austen's novels, setting them in the literary, social, and political backgrounds from which they emerge, and showing how they engage with social tensions in an era dominated by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

Coming October 6th

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
by Ruby Hamad

Journalist and researcher Ruby Hamad charts the history of white feminism being used as a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women, and women of color. Hamad's writing is as compelling as her central arguement about the legacy of white superiority that we are socialized within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.

Coming October 13th

Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy
by Talia Lavin

Reddit, 4chan, a 'whites only' dating site, neo-Nazi message boards, Talia Lavin spent years going undercover into the dark crevices of the internet so you don't have to. The result is this compelling, if horrifying, expose of the white supremacists who share their hate on the world wide web. Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the Web--and shows us how we can fight back.

Coming October 20th

The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything
by Ruth Goodman

Best known from her numerous BBC series, such as Victorian Farm, Ruth Goodman is a history-reader's delight! With her signature wit and charm, Goodman explores how the switch from peet and firewood to coal revolutionized Victorian society, from the way land-use was managed, to how people cooked their food and heated their homes.

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin
by Megan Rosenbloom

Just in time for Halloween, Dark Archives explores the gruesome practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in human skin. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship.

The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth
by Michael Marshall

How and why did life begin? It's perhaps the most enduring and impossible question human beings have ever asked themselves. Here, science writer Michael Marshall recounts some of the theories and the people who have striven to answer it.

Coming October 27th

Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy
by Stephen Wertheim

A sophisticated and impassioned narrative that questions the wisdom of U.S. supremacy, Tomorrow, the World reveals the intellectual path that brought us to today's global entanglements and endless wars.

NB: Some of the text on this page is sourced from publisher-provided marketing content.

The Searcher: A Novel By Tana French Cover Image
$27.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780735224650
Published: Viking - October 6th, 2020

Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic (The Practical Magic Series #1) By Alice Hoffman Cover Image
$27.99
Not Available
ISBN: 9781982108847
Published: Simon & Schuster - October 6th, 2020

Missionaries: A Novel By Phil Klay Cover Image
$28.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9781984880659
Published: Penguin Press - October 6th, 2020

Earthlings By Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator) Cover Image
$26.00
ISBN: 9780802157003
Availability: Not In Stock - Usually ships in 3-5 Days
Published: Grove Press - October 6th, 2020

Ring Shout By P. Djèlí Clark Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781250767028
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Tordotcom - October 13th, 2020

A Lover's Discourse By Xiaolu Guo Cover Image
$26.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780802149527
Published: Grove Press - October 13th, 2020

Flowers on the Moon By Billy Chapata Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9781524860417
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing - October 20th, 2020

Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose By Nikki Giovanni Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780062995285
Availability: Not In Stock - Usually ships in 3-5 Days
Published: William Morrow - October 20th, 2020

Staff Pick Badge
Where the Wild Ladies Are By Aoko Matsuda, Polly Barton (Translated by) Cover Image
By Aoko Matsuda, Polly Barton (Translated by)
$16.95
ISBN: 9781593766900
Availability: Not In Stock - Usually ships in 3-5 Days
Published: Soft Skull - October 20th, 2020

Invisible Ink: A Novel (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) By Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (Translated by) Cover Image
By Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (Translated by)
$24.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780300252583
Published: Yale University Press - October 27th, 2020

Memorial: A Novel By Bryan Washington Cover Image
$27.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780593087275
Published: Riverhead Books - October 27th, 2020

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking By Kerri Andrews, Kathleen Jamie (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Kerri Andrews, Kathleen Jamie (Foreword by)
$20.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9781789143423
Published: Reaktion Books - January 17th, 2020

Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics By Tom Keymer Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780198861904
Availability: Not In Stock - Usually ships in 3-5 Days
Published: Oxford University Press, USA - October 1st, 2020

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color By Ruby Hamad Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781948226745
Availability: On hand at one or more locations, see product page for details
Published: Catapult - October 6th, 2020

Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy By Talia Lavin Cover Image
$27.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780306846434
Published: Legacy Lit - October 13th, 2020

The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything By Ruth Goodman Cover Image
$27.95
Not Available
ISBN: 9781631497636
Published: Liveright - October 20th, 2020

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin By Megan Rosenbloom Cover Image
$26.00
Not Available
ISBN: 9780374134709
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - October 20th, 2020

The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth By Michael Marshall Cover Image
$32.50
Not Available
ISBN: 9780226715230
Published: University of Chicago Press - October 30th, 2020

Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy By Stephen Wertheim Cover Image
$35.20
Not Available
ISBN: 9780674248663
Published: Belknap Press - October 27th, 2020