Books Coming Out in the Fall That We Can’t Wait to Read

By Caroline Rogers
June 09, 2017
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We’re only halfway through our summer reading lists, but we’re already looking forward to fall. Every season brings new book releases with compelling stories, thrilling settings, and plots that we immerse ourselves in for weeks and then pass on for our friends and families to enjoy. We can’t wait for these new fall books, and once you read through this list, we bet you’ll be excited too. While you’ll have to wait a few months to enjoy them, you can still pre-order all of these books now so that your fall reading lineup is ready to go. Highlights include Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her highly anticipated follow-up to Everything I Never Told You, as well as Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach. We’re spoiled for choice, which is why we need to plan our fall reading now. And, because we can’t all wait until fall for new novels, there are some June releases included too. We couldn’t help ourselves. (We're looking at you, David Sedaris and Arundhati Roy.) Enjoy these tales of love, mystery, friendship, family, conflict, espionage, travel, and everything in between. On this list, there’s truly a book for every taste. Which ones will you read?
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Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

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Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Celeste Ng’s bestselling debut Everything I Never Told You was astonishing. We can’t wait for her much-anticipated follow-up, about the collisions of picture-perfect planning and the utterly unexpected in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which will be released on September 12.

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Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

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Buy it: $28, amazon.com

Who remembers A Visit from the Goon Squad? Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan is at it again. Drop into this novel in October. It begins before and during World War II-era Brooklyn and spins a mesmerizing story of Anna Kerrigan, the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s only female diver. You’ll want to re-read it immediately.

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Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward

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Our most highly anticipated book of the year is this new novel by Jesmyn Ward, which will be released in September. If you haven't yet read Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones, a National Book Award-winning story set on the Gulf Coast in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, immerse yourself in it before Sing, Unburied, Sing is released this fall.

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Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

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Buy it: $28.99, amazon.com

Louise Erdrich’s The Round House won the National Book Award, and her novel LaRose was nominated for last year’s National Book Critics Circle Award, so we’re anticipating a moving, beautifully told follow-up in November’s Future Home of the Living God, a dystopian tale of the world running backwards.

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The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

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Buy it: $27.99, amazon.com

Do you remember Practical Magic? This is the prequel to that beloved book (and movie), and it definitely belongs on your October reading list. It’s released on October 10, so it will help you get in the Halloween spirit while weaving the tale of Susanna Owens, her three unique and challenging children, and their magic.

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Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks

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This highly anticipated collection by actor and typewriter aficionado (and now published writer) Tom Hanks is filled with seventeen stories, each involving (what else?) a typewriter.

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Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

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Buy it: $27.99, amazon.com

This deeply moving novel brings a lawyer and a novelist—both searching and in different stages of their lives—to the same Israeli desert for a mysterious and oftentimes humorous journey toward self-realization.

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The Address by Fiona Davis

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Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Did you read Fiona Davis’ debut novel The Dollhouse? It is a stunning dive into 1950s New York City that you’ll be compelled to read in one sitting. Then you’ll be eager for the release of The Address, her new novel that weaves an unforgettable, centuries-spanning tale of life and love in The Dakota, NYC's most famous apartment house.

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Here We Are Now by Jasmine Warga

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Buy it: $17.99, amazon.com

Music lovers, rejoice. Here is a novel for you. Warga’s latest is about the connective power of music in the face of loss. It’s also about a young woman getting to know her long-lost rock-star father.

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The Mountain: Stories by Paul Yoon

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Paul Yoon's latest collection of short stories will captivate you. Each beautifully crafted tale pulls readers along with the tide of Yoon's sparkling prose as the tales traverse eras and geographies, leaving each reader, at the last page, mesmerized and utterly moved.

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Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard

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Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Knausgaard’s new book, which celebrates the wonder of the world and is structured by the four seasons, will be released on August 22. It begins with a letter to his unborn daughter, and it develops sweeping perspectives from close observations of minute, commonplace happenings in his everyday life in Sweden.

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Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir by Steve Rushin

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Revisit the 1970s in this entertaining, nostalgic, and high-flying memoir by Steve Rushin, an author and journalist who has a weekly column in Sports Illustrated.

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Perennials by Julie Cantrell

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This November release is set in Oxford, Mississippi. It tells the story of Lovey and Bitsy, two sisters reuniting in their hometown after decades spent apart. When Lovey is enlisted to help her father create a memory garden for her parents' 50th anniversary, she learns about herself, her roots, her mother's perennial garden, and the importance of family bonds that can never be broken. In the meantime, you can read Cantrell's bestselling When Mountains Move and The Feathered Bone.

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The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash

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Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com

Set in the Appalachian foothills, this novel tells a story set in North Carolina in 1929. Did you read Cash’s A Land More Kind Than Home? The New York Times Book Review called it “Mesmerizing…Intensely felt and beautifully told,” while NPR said, “This book is a thriller, but it’s so beautifully written that you’ll be torn about how fast to read it. This is great, gothic Southern Fiction.” Believe us, you’ll want to read both.

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The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

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Love and betrayal and expectation, all encapsulated in the story of one woman, Joan Ashby, and the surprises and disappointments of her life. Wolas’ debut turns a critical and perceptive eye onto the complications and expectations of marriage. It’s also gorgeously written. Get into it.

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See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

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The infamous Lizzie Borden story is reimagined in this novel, released on August 1. Schmidt makes the well-known tale brand-new by shifting perspectives and immersing readers in the tangled mysteries of traumatic memories, forgotten facts, and enigmatic strangers.

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The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

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Buy it: $25.95, amazon.com

Alexander McCall Smith’s latest is released in November. It’s the 18th (!) installment in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, and it is sure to entertain.

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The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd

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Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com

If you love historical fiction, this book should be on your fall reading list. It tells the story of Eliza Lucas, a teenager living in South Carolina in 1739 who, against all odds and amidst mounting dangers, enters the indigo business. While this story is fiction, it is based on historical documents and the real-life Eliza Lucas, an influential figure in South Carolina history, so influential, in fact, that President George Washington served as a pallbearer at her funeral.

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A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré

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Buy it: $28, amazon.com

For anyone who enjoyed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (or the movie based on the book), check out this intricately plotted, flashback-filled spy novel about the Cold War coming back to haunt Peter Gilliam, a colleague of notorious George Smiley in the British Secret Service.

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George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl

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Quirky and charming and utterly winning, this novel is the story of a marriage, of love and misunderstandings and imperfections, written by NPR contributor Nancy Pearl. It tells the tale of an imperfect partnership between two very different people who also have divergent ideas about love and marriage.

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I’m the One Who Got Away by Andrea Jarrell

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Buy it: $16.95, amazon.com

This memoir got its start in the New York Times “Modern Love” column. It’s a decades-spanning story about mother-daughter bonds and the power of escape, vulnerability, and courage. It will be released on September 5.

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Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

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If you loved Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train, then you shouldn’t miss this thriller—about three characters confronting their deepest secrets—that’s out on August 1.

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Things That Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini

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This funny, self-aware coming-of-age story is set in Los Angeles in the nineties. Get to know Eugenia, a teenager with plenty of suburban challenges (and a looming earthquake) waiting for her.

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A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

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Ken Follett’s new novel plunges readers into the world of 16th-century England, suffused with conflicts between Catholics and Protestants and interwoven with a captivating Renaissance love story.

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Little Broken Things by Nicole Baart

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If you liked Big Little Lies, you’ll want to crack open this new novel by Nicole Baart, which will be released in November—just in time for your Thanksgiving holiday reading. This novel will engross you in the suspenseful story of Quinn Cruz; her estranged and troubled sister, Nora; and a mysterious little girl named Lucy who shows up on her doorstep.

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Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand

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You’ll have to wait until October 3 to enjoy beach-read favorite Elin Hilderbrand’s new book, but you can pre-order it now to enjoy 340 pages of Hilderbrand’s Quinn family together again for the holidays.

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The Future She Left Behind by Marin Thomas

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Katelyn Chandler’s road trip to Little Springs, Texas, gets complicated when her mother-in-law decides to come along. Heart and humor ensues—or it will when it’s released on September 5.

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The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

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If you like twists and turns, delve into this tale of cold cases and spellbinding suspense. This thriller is not for the faint of heart, and it’s released on August 22.

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Beautiful Criminals by Eric Tipton and Susanna Rosenblum

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Three generations of con women, Amanda, Joyce, and Taylor, try to stick to the straight and narrow and build a fresh start for themselves. Turns out, it’s not so easy. Twists, turns, and struggles ensue.

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Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams

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Buy it: $27.99, amazon.com

Sunny Cocoa Beach, Florida, is the setting of this dreamy, Prohibition-era novel, out on June 27. In it, you’ll meet newly widowed Virginia Fortescue Fitzwilliam and her thrilling adventures among the Florida rumrunners and white sandy beaches. If you're as hooked on Beatriz Williams' storytelling as we are, also check out her other novels, Along the Infinite Sea, Tiny Little Thing, A Hundred Summers, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, and Overseas.

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A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert

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Ukraine, 1941. Let Seiffert transport you. You’re in good hands with this Booker Prize-short listed author. (If you want to dive in before A Boy In Winter is released on August 1, check out Seiffert’s lauded novel The Dark Room for another absorbing narrative about World War II.)

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Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) by David Sedaris

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Buy it: $28, amazon.com

This tome, by the writer of Me Talk Pretty One Day and Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, was out in May, but we have a feeling we’ll still be reading it come fall. While Sedaris begins the introduction by proclaiming, “I don’t really expect anyone to read this from start to finish,” it’s hard to put down this decades-spanning compilation of unexpected observations and internal excavations.

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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

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Buy it: $28.95, amazon.com

You can read this, the most highly anticipated book of 2017, right now. We’ve waited 20 years for Arundhati Roy’s second book, and the wait was worth it. Her follow-up to the bestselling, award-winning The God of Small Things was released in June. It’s a stunning journey, a yearning love story, and a bracing narrative that travels across the Indian subcontinent.

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By Caroline Rogers