Now that beach reads are back on the shelves, it’s time to cozy up with these fall titles. CATALYST provides ten of the hottest books right now to add to your bookshelf.
Finish your summer reading? Good, because CATALYST’s lineup of new books for the fall provides wondrous worlds to explore, without leaving the comfort of your favorite reading chair. From elegiac poetry to bracing memoir to transgenerational fiction, this list offers a diverse array of books that comprise a who’s who and what’s what of the literary world today. From some of literature’s biggest names to lesser-known geniuses, these books promise to widen your scope of what books can accomplish–and of where they can take you.
1. Young MungoDouglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart follows his worldwide sensation “Shuggie Bain” with this tender, brutal novel of young working-class love between two young men. Mungo and James are born on opposite factions of a sectarian divide- Mungo on the Protestant side and James on the Catholic side. Despite their differences, however, they forge a friendship – and something more – that simultaneously threatens life as they know it but promises to change it for the better. This heartbreaking novel ends with a search for both inner and outer peace that provokes thought as much as it does tears.
Colson Whitehead takes his reader back in time with his latest outing. “Harlem Shuffle” tells the story of the scrappy social climber Ray Carney, full-time furniture salesman and part-time crook, as he learns the true rules and rulers of his beloved New York City. When he takes part in a heist of Harlem’s most esteemed hotel, he puts his whole life in jeopardy. In lavish prose, Whitehead paints a vivid picture of Harlem in the 1960’s such that his novel becomes a love letter to a bygone era. But will Ray Carney be able to survive the twists and double-crosses that comprise his life-story and make it to the better neighborhood he has always dreamed of?
What do you get when you mix an audacious heist, a biting social commentary and a moving love story? You get Rahul Raina’s “How to Kidnap the Rich”. This hilariously chaotic novel follows Ramesh Kumar, a brilliant yet impoverished young man who serves India’s upper-class by acing SAT tests for children. When his client Rudi Saxena places first in the national university entrance exams, he seeks to capitalize on his success, only for both of them to be kidnapped. What follows is a thrilling page-turner replete with caustic barbs against India’s upper-class. A searing, incendiary novel, “How to Kidnap the Rich” will surely captivate any reader who delights in double-crosses and thought-provoking satire.
Living at the intersection of blackness and queerness, George M. Johnson is uniquely situated to perceive the injustices faced by queer Black youth. Perhaps that is why he wrote “All Boys Aren’t Blue” as a series of essays designed to advise and guide young adults, though the book’s messages resonate for readers of all ages. From being bullied as a young child, to his first sexual experiences, to the support network that saw him through his life’s worst travails, this book covers territory from which most authors shy away, but ultimately in the service of love, Johnson seeks to confront this territory. In telling his story, Johnson provides reader’s a mirror in which they can see themselves reflected. Hopefully, they will also see, as Johnson ultimately did, a path towards healing.
This graphic novel explores the ambiguities of gender and sexuality, which is experienced at a young age in a political moment defined by anti-LGBTQ+ backlash. “Gender Queer” is the most banned book in the United States, according to the New York Times, thanks to conservative activist movements that object to its frank depictions of gender dysphoria, sex and sexuality. At heart, it is a compelling story of Maia Kobabe’s quest towards self-discovery as a non-binary person. Its gorgeous images and thoughtful meditations are the best alternative to a public debate around gender that grows more raucous by the day.
From blue-bearded millionaires to ravenous wolves, the women of “How to Be Eaten” have survived some of fairy tales’ most devilish, nefarious men. Adelmann’s second book and first novel follows the female characters of some of the Brothers Grimm’s most famous yarns as they attend a trauma therapy group, where they process the immense harm done to them by their male counterparts. By turns wicked and uplifting, this book ultimately indicts the reader’s craving for a clear-cut happy ending. Sadly, love in Adelmann’s telling is not as easy as the Brothers Grimm would have us believe.
Famed Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro turns his incisive, writerly gaze to the sci-fi genre with “Klara and the Sun”. Lonesome yet insightful, Klara is a robot who watches the world pass by from her perspective in a shop that dispenses Artificial Friends. When her life stands to change forever, she finds that her hopes may have been misleading her all along. Told in Ishiguro’s subtle and revelatory voice, “Klara and the Sun” is an accomplished addition to the author’s already impressive body of work.
Author Iain Sinclair is famous for pushing and obscuring the boundaries between different media. In this book, he uses his multidisciplinary approach in the service of nonfiction. “The Gold Machine” relays his travels with his daughter through Peru following the trail of his great-grandfather. What he finds is the wreckage wrought by British colonialism and the still-open wounds of a country recovering from history. At once hypnotic and bracing, “The Gold Machine” charts colonialism’s legacy in the most personal of terms.
Ocean Vuong has catapulted poetry into the public spotlight with his arresting voice, palpable heart and his search for passion. He follows his autobiographical debut “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” with a second poetry collection, which continues the themes he has explored in his earlier poetry and fiction. Written in the wake of his mother’s death, Vuong captures the debilitating stagnation of grief but hints towards the means by which it is overcome. Inspiring, breathtaking and true, “Time Is a Mother” renews the reader’s faith in poetry to tell the heart’s most revealing secrets.
10. Homegoing Yaa Gyasi
As debut novels go, “Homegoing” is ambitious. It covers seven generations of a family’s history, tells that story from fourteen different perspectives and does it all in 300 pages. Despite the odds, the book soars. An almost impossibly moving novel about two sisters prohibited from knowing each other by the structures of British colonialism, Effie and Esi lead vastly different lives but are still in part defined by the racist eras they inhabit. From the Atlantic slave trade to the jazz clubs of Harlem, “Homegoing” captures the grief of the Ghanaian diaspora while illustarting the beauty and love that emerged from tragedy.
Michael McCarthy
Michael is the CATALYST book editor and curator. His fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Barzakh Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Currently, he is transferring from Haverford College to University of Carlos III in Madrid, Spain, where he intends to major in the Humanities. He is also seeking publication for his poetry chapbook Steve: An Unexpected Gift, written in memory of his late uncle. He can be reached at @michaelmccarthy8026.