Looking Ahead: October Highlights

October! Month of pumpkins and corn mazes and pumpkins and apples and pumpkins! And also the big publishing month, as everyone gears up for holiday seasons. Personally, I think it's too early to think about the holidays, but that doesn't mean I don't have quite the list of October want-to-reads. Obviously I won't be able to get to all of these, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

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Cartwheel, by Jennifer duBois (Random House, September 24th): Ok, this is technically a September release, but since it didn't make it onto my radar in time for my post of September highlights, it's going here. I read duBois' debut, A Partial History of Lost Causes, last spring, and called it one of the best books I'd read all year. Obviously I wouldn't dream of missing her second novel, which focuses on a foreign exchange student arrested for murder. Stay tuned for a more in-depth review this month.

The Revolution of Every Day, by Cari Luna (Tin House, September 24th): Another truly September book that didn't make last month's post--oops. The novel imagines the lives of five squatters in mid-nineties NYC, revealing a city that New Yorkers walk by every day and fail to recognize. I met Cari Luna at BEA at the urging of a fellow blogger, and I'm absolutely delighted to dive into what Elliot Holt calls "an elegy for a city that no longer exists."

The Lion Seeker, by Kenneth Bonert (HMH, October 15th): I actually know very little about this book beyond the fact that it is quite large (576 pages), and autumn is the season for large books (who are we kidding, every season is the season for large books), and it is about South Africa. It sounds perfectly wonderful, and set in a time and place about which I know perfectly little, and I can't wait to read it.

 

This House Is Haunted, by John Boyne (Other Press, October 8th): Perfectly timed for Halloween, crisp fall evenings and the RIP challenge. The newest from John Boyne (of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas fame) is an ode to the classic Victorian ghost story, Dickensian in time period, subject and prose. I've already read this one, and know for a fact I'll be recommending throughout October as a perfect historical fall read.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown & Company, October 22nd): I've already written about this once, and tweeted about it a million times, because I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. That is all. Go read it as soon as you are able and then let's chat.

  

How to Read a Novelist, by John Freeman (FSG, October 8th): John Freeman, critic for more than 200 newspapers worldwide (which seems a staggering amount to yours truly), has collected his profiles of some of the best novelists of our time into one volume to give us a portrait of the contemporary novelist. Literary junkie that I am, how could I resist a book about the books I love?

Writers Between the Covers, by Joni Rendon and Shannon McKenna Schmidt (Plume, October 29th): The subtitle of this fascinating little book says it all: "The Scandalous Romantic Lives of Legendary Literary Casanovas, Coquettes, and Cads." If October is the month of reading books about books, it's hard to see how this one doesn't fit right in. Welcome to the party, Writers Between the Covers.

Running Like a Girl, by Alexandra Heminsley (Scribner, October 8th): I started running last year and managed to work my way up from one mile in mid-July to my first half-marathon on December 1st. Since then, I've run two additional halfs and found I actually like running... something I never thought I'd say. Workload, weather, and a minor ankle injury have interrupted my flow, though, and I'm always on the lookout for new books to get me back into it; Running Like a Girl, which calls itself a "charming, hilarious and practical book about one woman's stumbling, painful efforts to start running and how becoming a runner ultimately transformed her relationships, her body, and her life," seemed like the perfect kick-in-the-butt for fall training.

Honorable mention, because this post is getting obscenely long but I haven't run out of October books yet...