Lists
by Powell's Staff, September 2, 2022 8:46 AM
It's the time of year when the weather is (slowly, oh too slowly) cooling down, schools are back in session, and fall books are making their way to the shelves. There are so many great books coming out, and we just couldn't contain our excitement for them. (I bet if you searched for the word "excited" on this page, the number would be in the double digits.) We pulled together our most anticipated books being released this coming season: perfect if you want to get a head start on your holiday shopping, or just want to make sure you're fully stocked for when the rainstorms start rolling through.
Jump ahead to: SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER | NOVEMBER | DECEMBER
SEPTEMBER
Our Members Be Unlimited
by Sam Wallman
So, so excited about this one! The first book-length comic from Australian comics journalist, cartoonist, and labor activist Sam Wallman is a stunner — a bold visual history of workers’ struggles; a mini-memoir of Wallman’s time working as a picker (and shop floor organizer) in an Amazon warehouse; and a compelling intro-slash-invitation to union activism. Buy one for yourself and one for a coworker! — Tove H.
Kick the Latch
by Kathryn Scanlan
After the one-two punch of Aug 9—Fog and The Dominant Animal, I will go wherever Kathryn Scanlan leads. Scanlan describes Kick the Latch as “a composite portrait of a self.” The self here is a woman’s life at the racetrack — the wins, the losses, the good, the bad, and all of the idiosyncratic moments in between. Scanlan is the master of delivering something wry and sharp and large in a small package. I can’t wait. — Kelsey F.
Lungfish
by Megan Gilliss
Oh, I have been rabid for this one since I heard about it. They had me at “Meghan Gilliss is a former bookseller and library worker,” but they won me over with the promise of a lyrical look at grief and addiction and our inextricable ties to and force of the natural world around us. Tuck lives on a remote island with her daughter, whom she has to care for while sorting through the lies she was told about her reality in order to find her way forward. This book promises to be textured and lovely, thought-provoking and intoxicating. Read Gilliss now so you can have bragging rights later. — Kelsey F.
Bliss Montage
by Ling Ma
New from the author of 2019 stand-out, Severance, with a cover looking like that?! Let's go! I almost never finish short story collections but I absolutely could not put this one down. Weird, wry, wonderful, searching, and observant — Ling Ma is a delight to read. — Sarah R.
Get ready for the virtual event of the season! Tune in at 5 p.m. on September 15 to hear more about Bliss Montage from Ling Ma directly, and sit in on her sure-to-be-amazing conversation with Alexandra Kleeman (who wrote the unforgettable Something New Under the Sun). This event is presented in partnership with Skylight Books (Los Angeles), Politics and Prose (Washington, D.C.), Brookline Booksmith (Brookline, MA), and BookPeople (Austin). Register for this free event to make sure you get a reminder email.
Nona the Ninth
by Tasmyn Muir
Locked Tomb fans you do not need me to hype this up for you. I know you're already excited. But, if you're new here, please let these niche keywords entice you: CHAOTIC! SAPPHIC! SKELETON! ACTION! (in SPACE!). — Sarah R.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
by Kate Beaton
Known for her very literate whimsy (Hark! A Vagrant), this graphic memoir is a completely different side of Kate Beaton. After college, she worked in the Alberta tar sands, surrounded almost entirely by men in poorly supervised settings. Beaton's deeply personal account of the realities and impacts of years in a hostile environment is beautiful and brave. — Keith M.
Less is Lost
by Andrew Sean Greer
In this worthy follow-up to Andrew Sean Greer's Pulitzer Prize–winning Less, we again follow Arthur Less on a journey of self-discovery, this time on a road trip through the United States. Less is Lost is a witty, poignant, and often hilarious book. — Adam P.
O Caledonia
by Elspeth Barker
Elspeth Barker is one of those rare writers whose charisma can be felt through the page. Originally released in 1991, her only novel is an enigmatic, poetic, and humorous story that plays with genre and Gothic aesthetic. Our young heroine, Janet, is ill-fated and yet the story is not about her end; it is an illumination and a celebration of her life in spite of the end. To fans of castles, brooding landscapes, witty narrative, or the Bronte sisters: run, don't walk, to the shelves for a copy of O Caledonia! — Katie P.
How to Resist Amazon and Why
by Danny Caine
One happy byproduct of Amazon’s unending cartoon-villain-like quest for world domination: we get an updated and expanded edition of Danny Caine’s wonderful book! This is the hours-long conversation I wish I could have with every customer about what Amazon's business model means for small businesses, and what small businesses mean for the communities they serve; about the hidden implications of those low, low prices and hyperfast shipping times; about the trajectory we're on as a society and what we can do — as consumers, as workers, as community members — to right our course. Thorough, critical, and heartfelt without ever being preachy, this new edition will give readers plenty to think about, but also plenty to celebrate, with new sections devoted to the artistic, legislative, and worker-led actions Amazon has inspired in recent years. While I’m hopeful for a future in which reissues of this book aren’t needed, I’m grateful for this one now. — Tove H.
The Book of Goose
by Yiyun Li
"
The Book of Goose is already getting the coveted Ferrante comparison, but Yiyun Li is the sort of phenomenal author who's best comp is her past work — she's incomparable. I'm so excited to get my hands on her latest book, a historical, literary tell-all novel that centers on an obsessively intimate girlhood friendship with at least one dark, life-altering secret. If you’ve read any of her past work, you’re already excited about this book. If you haven’t, get ready to order them all after finishing The Book of Goose. — Michelle C.
The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance #3)
by Naomi Novik
I’ve been screaming about the cliffhanger from The Last Graduate for a whole year so you better believe I am on the edge of my seat for this conclusion to Noami Novik’s remarkable Scholomance triology. If you haven’t picked up this series yet now is the time: its got a magic school (that’s definitely trying to eat you), genuine friendship, one of the coolest magic systems around, and also MY HEART. — Sarah R.
Motherthing
by Ainslie Hogarth
What an icky book, in the best possible way. Whip-smart writing on Hogarth's part. Some of the lines prompted me for the first time ever to take a highlighter to a printed book (don't worry, I didn't). Both a commentary on motherhood and inherited family trauma, Motherthing takes a foreboding and insidious plot and turns it into something else. Something, dare I say it, cheerful. Dark-horse book of the year for me. — Stacy Wayne D.
Shrines of Gaiety
by Kate Atkinson
I am a remorseless Kate Atkinson devotee. I would follow her anywhere. Now I know that anywhere includes the city of London, immediately following World War 1, and a world where a family will do whatever they need to in order to survive on their own terms. Sharp, witty, sparkly, fun — I loved it. — Kelsey F.
Best of Friends
by Kamila Shamsie
"Best friends since childhood...unlike in nearly every way" turned powerful adults "who have each cut a distinctive path" — Yes, perfect. A bookish setup after my own heart. This new novel from Kamila Shamsie (Home Fire) bounds from turbulant late 80s Karachi to near-present London and promises to explore the forces that push a lifelong friendship to its breaking point. — Sarah R.
OCTOBER
The Hero of this Book
by Elizabeth McCracken
Elizabeth McCracken has long been a writer's writer, but in the last few years she's been on a tear and gotten some much-deserved wider recognition. If you haven't read her yet, this new novel about mothers and, well, writers is a great place to start. If you have already read her, then you're already reaching for the preorder button, I'm sure. — Keith M.
Our Missing Hearts
by Celeste Ng
Our Missing Hearts has so many selling points — a poignant quest to find a disappeared parent, living under authoritarian culture laws, an underground network of librarians, to name a few. Crucially, it's also written by Celeste Ng, who has a perfect track record with Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere. I'm fully expecting to be captivated by her every word, to sob uncontrollably at least once, and to come through with a changed perspective on family and a glimmer of hope for a better world. — Michelle C.
A Minor Chorus
by Billy-Ray Belcourt
I can't wait to read Billy-Ray Belcourt's first novel, A Minor Chorus, about a queer, Indigenous scholar who goes back to his Northern Alberta reservation to write a novel and reconnect with his family and childhood friends. Belcourt has written poignantly of the queer, Indigenous experience and the "Ministry of Historical Ignorance" in his prize-winning poetry collections, This Wound is a World and NDN Coping Mechanisms. There is so much wonderful Indigenous literature coming out, recently, and I am here for it. — Jennifer K.
The Mountain in the Sea
by Ray Nayler
Ok so the editor is calling this speculative scifi/thriller about intelligence and personhood (both non-human and artificial): "Sy Montgomery's Soul of an Octopus meets Ted Chiang's Arrival." Hello. WHAT. I am THERE. — Sarah R.
Weasels in the Attic
by Hiroko Oyamada
Hiroko Oyamada is my new hero! She consistently writes the most wonderful, strange fiction (The Factory, The Hole) and it's so short and bite-sized, usually about 80 pages. How she fits all that she's exploring into such a small package, I don't understand. Weasels in the Attic consists of three deeply linked stories that share most of their characters and are perhaps separated in time by six months. Each story has its own fascinating vibe, but they add up to the hilarious, disturbing eco-horror she's known for, plus something new: maternal horror across species lines. There were a number of laugh-out-loud moments, my favorite being, "Once the weasels show up, you're done for." — Jennifer K.
Dinosaurs
by Lydia Millet
Lydia Millet's previous book, A Children's Bible, was much-lauded — and it deserved every laud! I'm so excited that she has another novel so soon; this one is about a broken-hearted man in the desert, a family in a literal glass house, and the nature of community. — Keith M.
Marigold and Rose: A Fiction
by Louise Glück
My favorite poet's first work of prose fiction? I was sold before I started the previous sentence. This book explores the interior lives of twin infants, and true to her poetry, Louise Glück makes it about exactly that and so much more — everything, in fact. Here is my basic opinion about her works: carve them into stone so we never lose them. — Keith M.
Some of Them Will Carry Me
by Giada Scodellaro
Do I talk too much about how much I love Dorothy Project? Because no matter how long I pontificate about them, it won’t be long enough. This collection promises to be a collage of everything I love in a book: art, social commentary, recipes, folklore, lyrical language. Just: everything delicious. Here’s Katie Kitamura (another writer I would trust with my life): “This is a book of wonders, full of intricate beauty, and Giada Scodellaro is an extraordinary talent.” And that cover is a stunner, too. — Kelsey F.
A Horse at Night: On Writing
by Amina Cain
If we look beyond conventional metrics of literary success, what is it exactly that makes a writer a writer? How have the mundane realities of everyday life influenced the creation of the books we love? If, like me, you are fascinated by these questions — perhaps scrolling often to the Personal Life sections of your favorite authors' Wikipedia pages — Amina Cain's latest book is sure to enchant you. Against a backdrop of luminaries, from Woolf to Ferrante, Cain reflects on the journey of coming to writing with refreshing immediacy, attuning us away from the myth of untouchable genius and instead towards the intimacies, frictions, friendships, and pleasures that irrevocably inflect (and are inflected by) one's creative life. — Alexa W.
Seven Empty Houses
by Samanta Schweblin (tr. Megan McDowell)
Schweblin has quickly become a writer whose new books I look forward to like all of Twitter used to look forward to watching Succession together at the same time. Her work is so uncanny, evocative, occasionally abrasive, beautifully startling, consistently surprising. And I’m a sucker for any kind of house-related metaphor, so when I saw this title was announced? Baby, I am all in. — Kelsey F.
Liberation Day
by George Saunders
Obviously Saunders! What better gift for our shelves than a new collection from one of our greatest living short story writers? Every one of his stories blows your mind twice: the first read is a treasured emotional experience that will echo in your memory forever, and the magic only grows as you get more familiar with the work and try to comprehend how he captured this precise, perfect nugget of humanity in writing. — Michelle C.
It Starts With Us
by Colleen Hoover
The much anticipated sequel to It Ends with Us, Lily and Atlas's story continues as they embrace this second chance. With the dual perspectives of Lily and Atlas, we see Lily navigating civil co-parenting while Atlas reminisces about his past that ultimately led him to Lily. I loved the first book and am very excited to see these two characters come back together after facing so much adversity. — Crystal T.
Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver
Since her much-loved debut novel, The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver has captivated wide audiences with a masterful capacity for evoking striking voice and depth in her characters. Her newest volume promises to be no slouch, with a charismatic young hero named "Demon" and a cover that reads like a visual curio cabinet. Loosely inspired by Dickens' David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead explores resilience in a young boy growing up in rural Appalachia and the tolls of the opioid crisis. — Katie P.
NOVEMBER
Wading in Waist-High Water
by Robin Pecknold
Even as a casual Fleet Foxes fan, I've been completely sucked into the example pages I've seen from Wading in Waist-High Water. It's a special treat to read the annotated works of an artist! I'm already reminded of two of my favorite versions of this phenomenon (Bill Watterson's 10th Anniversary of Calvin and Hobbes; DVD commentaries) because these notes are so rich, fun, and include both thoughts from when they were written and how Pecknold's perspective changed after these songs went into the world. Also: I'm a Brandon Taylor completionist, and I am eagerly anticipating putting on my most autumnal sweater to read his perfect intro. — Michelle C.
Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light
by Joy Harjo
Can you believe that Joy Harjo has been gifting us with her poetry for 50 years?! In this collection, Harjo selects (and annotates!) 50 of her best poems from the span of her career. A perfect entry point for new readers, and full of insight for existing fans. — Sarah R.
My Pinup
by Hilton Als
This short book is the great Hilton Als reflecting on his relation with the late, great Prince. And also on his relationship to Prince. It's electrifing and melancholy and erudite and a reminder of the power of great performers at their peak. — Keith M.
Toad
by Katherine Dunn
NEW KATHERINE DUNN ALERT. Powell's booksellers adore Geek Love (the only title to be included on two of our 25 essential books lists — the original, and PNW authors). Toad was written in the 70s, and centers on Sally, an older reclusive woman looking back on her heady college days when she was suddenly surrounded by eccentric trust-fund kids. Inspired by Dunn's time at Reed, it promises both misadventures and tragedy, and I'm particularly excited to see how this plays out in the in-between space of a college campus. This is going to be a weird, dark, funny, prescient campus novel from a true master. I cannot express enough how excited I am for this book.
Bonus: Read the Willamette Week's tribute to Dunn. — Michelle C.
Mark your calendar! We're hosting a special book launch event for Toad on November 1 at 7 p.m. at Powell's City of Books, featuring editor Naomi Huffman and Lydia Kiesling (who wrote the amazing The Golden State).
Small Game
by Blair Braverman
Blair Braverman can do anything. Powerful memoir about finding herself in the frigid north? Check. Extremely endearing twitter threads about which of her sled dogs is the softest. Yep. In her debut novel, Small Game, a group of strangers on a survival reality show find themselves stranded and cut off, and not in the way they were expecting. Thrilling, smart, introspective, and hopeful — I'm glad to see Braverman in the world of fiction! — Sarah R.
The World We Make
by N. K. Jemisin
N. K. Jemisin is undoubtedly one of the most creative voices out there today. Her Great Cities Duology wraps up with The World We Make and I have decided I am obsessed with New York and the concept of cities personified. Jemisin's writing is vibrant and powerful and I always lose myself in her books. I definitely believe that this is urban fantasy at its best. — Rose H.
Saha
by Cho Nam-Joo
Cho Nam-Joo's Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was artful, relevatory commentary. Her new novel explores the forces that drive the value of real estate and how those same forces places values on people — and the consequences for those held in low esteem. — Keith M.
Kiss Her Once For Me
by Alison Cochrun
A Powell's meet-cute, snow days, and a queer love trapezoid is apparently the perfect equation for a holiday romance book because I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading this and wishing it was already winter. Ellie trying to make ends meet while struggling with her art career is so relatable to me, and I fell in love with Jack's quirky family. Not your typical holiday romance novel and that's what makes it so good. — Rose H.
Join the book launch event for Kiss Her Once For Me on November 1 at 7 p.m. at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, featuring author Alison Cochrun and Anita Kelly (of the delicious Love and Other Disasters).
Now Is Not the Time to Panic
by Kevin Wilson
Back in 2019, Taffy Brodesser-Akner opened her NYT review of Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here with: "Good Lord, I can’t believe how good this book is." I'm so grateful to that review for convincing me it was finally time to read Wilson and hopefully I can do the same for someone else right now. In his new novel, two teens come together one summer and make an art project that triggers a waterfall of dangerous repercussions and changes their lives forever. — Sarah R.
Novelist as a Vocation
by Haruki Murakami
Murakami has countless dedicated fans around the world, many of whom have probably long been hungry to learn more about his creative process. So far, in the US, we’ve gotten translations of his musings on running, music, and t-shirts, but this will be the first time (outside of the occasional interview) that we get to read Murakami’s thoughts on his own writing and the nature of the novel as a whole. I’ve always been inspired by his work, making this my most anticipated release of the year. — Mar S.
Portable Magic : A History of Books and Their Readers
by Emma Smith
This is less of a commentary on the power of the written word and more of a love story dedicated to the history of physical books. I personally prefer holding an actual book in my hands and flipping through pages, so finding out how books evolved from scrolls to mass market paperbacks is super fascinating. Thoroughly researched and well written, I had so much fun learning all the different ways the book has taken shape throughout time. — Rose H.
She and Her Cat
by Makoto Shinkai (tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori)
Based on a short film by the critially acclaimed director of Your Name, this collection explores "the frailty of life, the pain of isolation, and the limits of communication" and it does it with one of the most whimsical and wonderful framing devices possible: alternating narration between cats and their owners. As someone who stares at my cat and says "look at you! No thoughts, head empty" all the time I am delighted. — Sarah R.
DECEMBER
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
by Sabrina Imbler
How Far the Light Reaches is a life-changing memoir that takes the form of scientific essays about the sea and its many creatures. That would be enough to hook me, but Sabrina Imbler's debut is getting some incredible and intriguing praise that make me think this will be the perfect transformative book to read as winter sets in. (Just one example: Megha Majumdar said it "marks the arrival of a phenomenal writer creating an intellectual channel entirely their own, within which whales and feral goldfish swim by the enchantment, ache, and ecstasy of human life.") — Michelle C.
Stella Maris
by Cormac McCarthy
He made us wait way too long for some new books, but the wait was worth it, because he's giving us two! The Passenger and Stella Maris (and even a boxed set for fancy gifting). Can you believe it? McCarthy is a generous king. You already know we're excited for these. — Lucinda G.
Cursed Bunny
by Bora Chung (tr. Anton Hur)
Bora Chung's English debut (translated by Anton Hur) is a collection of tightly written, compulsively addictive stories that are full of sinister dread. Cursed Bunny is speculative fiction that forces a confrontation with our current reality, and I'm so excited to be deeply, pleasantly disturbed by this work. Listen to Frances Cha (If I Had Your Face): "Disturbing, chilling, wrenching, and absolute genius. I wanted Chung to write a story about a reader getting a deep look inside her fantastic swirling mind." — Michelle C.
Things We Found When the Water Went Down
by Tegan Nia Swanson
Okay, let me give you some buzzy elements, see how you like them: a nordic eco-noir, artifacts and collage, a missing mother accused of murder, ephemera like police transcripts and journal entries, grief and a spooky small town and a frozen lake. Sounds pretty great, right? Add them all together and you’ve got Things We Found When the Water Went Down. I, for one, have a set an alert in my phone for this one. — Kelsey F.
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Need more book recommendations? Check out our first 2022 book preview and our second 2022 book preview, as well as our midyear roundup. We also have an incredible roster of events; we hope to see you there!
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