Contemporary & Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Romance | Thrillers & Mysteries | Horror & Gothic Fiction | Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism | Young Adult | Nonfiction
Contemporary & Literary Fiction
And So I Roar
Abi Daré
A stunning, heartwrenching new novel from Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice. When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother—terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria—and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Dutton
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Five-Star Stranger
Kat Tang
In Kat Tang’s exciting and resonant debut, a “Rental Stranger”—a companion hired under various guises—walks the line between personal and professional in surprising new ways. Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about the commodification of relationships in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. This is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Scribner
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Jellyfish Have No Ears
Adèle Rosenfeld
Since she was little, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deaf―her life with this invisible disability has been one of in-betweenness. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor suggests getting a cochlear implant. The operation will be irreversible, making the decision all the more fraught. The technology would give Louise a new sense of hearing―but it would be at the expense of her natural hearing, which, for all its weakness, has shaped her unique relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Greywolf
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The Rich People Have Gone Away
Regina Porter
A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman—in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community. Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Hogarth
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Unspeakable Home
Ismet Prcic
The highly anticipated second novel from award-winning writer Ismet Prcic, who, decades after escaping his war-torn home country looks back on his childhood, imploded relationships, and battles with addiction—offering powerful insight into the human cost of conflict.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
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Burn
Peter Heller
From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, a novel about two men—friends since boyhood—who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violence. Drenched in the beauty of the natural world and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Burn is both a blistering warning about a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation found in our chosen families.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Knopf
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A Great Marriage
Frances Mayes
When a perfect wedding is called off just days before the big event, it sends two people—and their families—reeling, in this poignant novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Women in Sunlight.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Ballantine
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Mina’s Matchbox
Yoko Ogawa
From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time—and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Ballantine
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Black Butterflies
Priscilla Morris
A timeless story of strife and hope set during the conflict in the Balkans in the early ’90s—a searing debut novel about a woman who faces the war on her doorstep with courage, fierceness, and an unshakable belief in the power of art.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Knopf
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Feast Is A Freedom
Alejandro Puyana
In the tradition of Isabel Allende’s career-launching debut, The House of the Spirits, a multigenerational, Latin American saga of love and revolution in which a rebel who commits a youthful betrayal receives a late-life chance at redemption and a new life: a tour de force from the new master.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
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There Are Rivers in the Sky
Elif Shafak
From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Knopf
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Historical Fiction
Our Narrow Hiding Places
Kristopher Jansma
An elderly woman recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. Our Narrow Hiding Places is a sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war—and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Flatiron
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The Seventh Veil of Salome
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine—but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Del Rey
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The Fertile Earth
Ruthvika Rao
An unforgettable story of love and resistance surrounding two young people born across social lines, set against a tumultuous political landscape in India.The Fertile Earth is a vast, ambitious debut that is equal parts historical, political, and human, with the enduring ties of love and family loyalty at its heart. Who can be loved? What are the costs of transgressions? How can justice be measured, and who will be alive to bear witness?
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Flatiron
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The Unicorn Woman
Gayl Jones
Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Beacon Press
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The Volcano Daughters
Gina María Balibrera
A searingly original debut about two sisters and their flight from genocide—which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to San Francisco’s Cannery Row—each haunted along the way by the ghosts of their murdered friends, who are not yet done telling their stories. Endlessly surprising, vividly imaginative, bursting with lush life, The Volcano Daughters charts a new history and mythology of El Salvador, fiercely bringing forth voices that have been calling out for generations.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Pantheon
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Romance
Four Weekends and a Funeral
Ellie Palmer
When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to discover that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family. Little did she know this meant packing up Sam’s apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it’ll only take four weekends . . .
Publication Date: August 6
Publisher: Putnam
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The Pairing
Casey McQuiston
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Casey McQuiston’s latest romantic comedy, two bisexual exes accidentally book the same European food and wine tour and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they’re over each other―except they’re definitely not.
Publication Date: August 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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The Truth According to Ember
Danica Nava
A Chickasaw woman who can’t catch a break serves up a little white lie that snowballs into much more in this witty and irresistible rom-com by debut author Danica Nava.
Publication Date: August 6
Publisher: Berkley
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The Break-Up Pact
Emma Lord
Two best friends who haven’t spoken in ten years pretend to date after break-ups with their respective exes go viral, in this delightfully fun and deeply emotional novel from New York Times bestselling author Emma Lord. Two viral break-ups. One fake relationship. Five sparkling, heart-pounding dates. June and Levi can definitely pull this off without their hearts getting involved. Because everyone knows fake dating doesn’t come with real feelings. Right?
Publication Date: August 13
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
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Worst in Show
Anna E. Collins
Best in Show meets You’ve Got Mail in this rivals-to-lovers romcom following a woman ready to do whatever it takes to save her grandpa’s shop—even if that means training a wild pup for a dog show, side-by-side with her greatest rival.
Publication Date: August 13
Publisher: Forever
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Love and Other Conspiracies
Mallory Marlowe
The hardest thing for a paranormal conspiracy theorist and a web series producer to believe in is finding love in this swoony debut romantic comedy.
Publication Date: August 20
Publisher: Berkley
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Morbidly Yours
Ivy Fairbanks
TikTok sensation Morbidly Yours, an opposites-attract romantic dramedy about a shy, demisexual Irish mortician who must marry by his 35th birthday to keep his beloved family business, and the Texan widow escaping her past who moves in next door.
Publication Date: August 20
Publisher: Putnam
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Rules for Ghosting
Shelly Jay Shore
To save his family’s failing funeral home—and his own chance at a queer love story—a reluctant clairvoyant must embrace the gift he long ignored in this poignant and tender debut.
Publication Date: August 20
Publisher: Dell
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I’ll Have What He’s Having
Adib Khorram
A smart, sexy “perfect romance” about mistaken identities, a no-strings fling, and the way one night—and one person—can change your life forever from the bestselling author of Darius the Great Is Not Okay.
Publication Date: August 27
Publisher: Forever
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Thrillers & Mysteries
House of Glass
Sarah Pekkanen
On the outside they were the golden family with the perfect life. On the inside they built the perfect lie. A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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After Oz
Gordon McAlpine
This gripping and emotionally riveting tale is a dark and timely retelling of The Wizard of Oz, where one little girl is forced to face head on the prejudices of the Midwest in the late nineteenth century.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Crooked Lane
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I Need You to Read This
Jessa Maxwell
The author of the “clever, atmospheric, and creepy” (Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author) The Golden Spoon returns with a sly and addictive new mystery about an advice columnist searching for answers about her predecessor’s murder.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Atria Books
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Riptide
Colleen McKeegan
From the author of The Wild One, a heartfelt and suspenseful novel about two sisters returning to their childhood beachfront home who are forced to confront their traumatic past when a body washes ashore.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Atria Books
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The Queen City Detective Agency
Colleen McKeegan
Following an unforgettable cast of characters and a jaded female P.I. enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy in 1980s Mississippi, The Queen City Detective Agency is a riveting, razor-sharp Southern noir that unravels the greed, corruption, and racism at the heart of the American Dream.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: William Morrow
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Wordhunter
Stella Sands
An utterly original and compulsively readable detective story about a woman who uses her uncanny ability to analyze words and speech patterns to help solve crimes.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Harper
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The Snap
Elizabeth Staple
Dangerous secrets. A toxic workplace. And an unsolved murder. . . . A football professional reckons with the choices that made her career in the boys’ club world of sports possible in this riveting and sharp Friday Night Lights meets I Know What You Did Last Summer debut.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Doubleday
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Worst Case Scenario
T.J. Newman
When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
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The Divide
Morgan Richter
A failed actress turned grifting psychic searches for her missing doppelgänger and is plunged into a web of murder and corruption among Hollywood A-listers.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Knopf
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You Will Never Be Me
Jesse Q. Sutanto
When cracks start forming in an influencer’s curated life, she finds out that jealousy is just as viral as a video in this riveting suspense novel by bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Berkley
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Horror & Gothic Fiction
Blood Like Mine
Stuart Neville
Mystery-thriller writer Stuart Neville dips his toes into the murky waters of horror with this cat-and-mouse pursuit across sinister landscapes of the American West. A desperate on-the-run mother refuses help for herself and her young daughter. Meanwhile, an FBI agent tracks a serial killer who’s left behind a trail of corpses. Their collision course promises to get bloody.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Hell’s Hundred
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House of Bone and Rain
Gabino Iglesias
In the latest from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil Takes You Home, a group of young men seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered in a Puerto Rican slum; Stand By Me with a haunted, obsidian-dark heart.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Mulholland Books
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Sacrificial Animals
Kailee Pedersen
Inspired by Kailee Pedersen’s own journey being adopted from Nanning, China in 1996 and growing up alongside her family’s farm in Nebraska, this rich and atmospheric supernatural horror debut explores an ancient Chinese mythology.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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We Love the Nightlife
Rachel Koller Croft
Locked in a toxic female friendship, two vampires careen toward catastrophe in this dark and dazzling page-turner, set amidst London’s glittering disco scene.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Berkley
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The Madness
Dawn Kurtagich
Award-winning author Dawn Kurtagich masterfully weaves a captivating tale of suspense and horror, in which Dr. Mina Murray returns to the windswept shores of Wales to help her childhood friend fight the mysterious illness that plagues her. When the lines between reality and delusion begin to blur, Mina must face off against a monstrous legacy—or be consumed herself.
Publication date: August 27
Publisher: Graydon House
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Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism
The Coven
Harper L. Woods
From indie darling Harper L. Woods comes The Coven, a sexy, deliciously imaginative fantasy romance where The Magicians meets Ninth House with vampires.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Bramble
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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins
P. Djèlí Clark
Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins. Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Tordotcom
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Hum
Helen Phillips
Named Most Anticipated by Goodreads, LitHub, and Book Riot, this dystopian thriller captures an urgent and unflinching portrayal of a woman’s fight for her family’s security in a world shaped by global warming and rapid technological progress. Written in taut, urgent prose, Hum is a work of speculative fiction that unflinchingly explores marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
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The Mercy of Gods
James S.A. Corey
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Expanse comes a spectacular new space opera that sees humanity fighting for its survival in a war as old as the universe itself. How humanity came to the planet called Anjiin is lost in the fog of history, but that history is about to end.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Orbit
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A Sorceress Comes to Call
Helen Phillips
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes A Sorceress Comes to Call―a dark reimagining of the Brothers Grimm’s “The Goose Girl,” the story of a mother-daughter relationship in deep, weird trouble. Mom is a sorceress, and daughter Cornelia is desperate to escape rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Tor Books
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Hera
Jennifer Saint
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of Ariadne, Elektra, and Atalanta, a propulsive, empowering retelling of Hera, reclaiming her as a feminist hero. In this enthralling retelling, Greek mythology’s most famous and maligned goddess finally tells her own story, as power, passion, and divine strength collide in the heart of Olympus.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Flatiron Books
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Lady Macbeth
Ava Reid
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Del Rey
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Medusa
Nataly Gruender
An intimate look into the life of a legendary mythical villain who has so often been stripped of her voice and humanity in this debut novel, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe and the works of Jennifer Saint. You know how Medusa’s story ends, but you’ve never heard her tell her own story… until now.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Grand Central
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She Who Knows
Ava Reid
Part science fiction, part fantasy, and entirely infused with West African culture and spirituality, this novella offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a teenager whose coming of age will herald a new age for her world. Set in the universe African-futurist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, this is the first in the She Who Knows trilogy.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: DAW
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Voyage of the Damned
Frances White
A mind-blowing murder mystery on a ship full of magical passengers. If Agatha Christie wrote fantasy, this would be it!
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: MIRA
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The Crimson Crown
Heather Walter
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the wickedest of them all? Snow White’s dark queen tells her side of the story in the first book of a queer, witchy duology that reimagines the classic fairy tale—from the author of Malice.
Publication date: August 27
Publisher: Del Rey
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Short Stories & Essays
Mystery Lights
Lena Valencia
Set against the stark background of the Southwestern desert, Lena Valencia’s Mystery Lights glows with the promise―and fear―of the world we know and the worlds we don’t, following women and girls as they navigate dangers both supernatural and existential. From the all-too-real horror of a sexual predator on a college campus to a lost sister transformed by cave-dwelling creatures, Mystery Lights grapples with terrors both familiar and fantastic, introducing an electrifying new voice in contemporary fiction while bringing to light the many faces of the forces that haunt us.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Tin House Books
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There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven
Ruben Reyes, Jr.
An electrifying debut story collection about Central American identity that spans past, present, and future worlds to reveal what happens when your life is no longer your own. Blazing with heart, humor, and inimitable style, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven subverts everything we think we know about migration and its consequences, capturing what it means to take up a new life—whether willfully or forced—with piercing and brilliant clarity.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Mariner Books
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You’re Embarrassing Yourself: Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies
Desiree Akhavan
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut. Equal parts funny and heartfelt, these seventeen essays chart an artist’s journey from outcast to overnight indie darling, to (somewhat) self-aware adult woman. The result is a collection that captures the pathetic lows and euphoric highs of our youth—and how to survive them.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Random House
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Planes Flying over a Monster: Essays
Daniel Saldaña París
From one of Mexico’s most exciting young writers, a cosmopolitan and candid essay collection exploring life in cities across the world and reflecting on the transformative importance of literature in understanding ourselves. In ten intimate essays, Daniel Saldaña París explores the cities he has lived in, each one home to a new iteration of himself.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Catapult
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Memoirs & Biographies
A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy
Tia Levings
“Today it hit me when he hit me, blood shaking in my brain. Maybe there wasn’t a savior coming. Maybe it was up to me to save me.” Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles––a series of secret, special rules to obey. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love & Sex Work
Charlotte Shane
Through the lens of her years spent as a sex worker, Charlotte Shane offers a provocative and tender reckoning of what it means to be a heterosexual woman and a feminist in a misogynistic society. Braiding the personal and the universal, Shane’s memoir is a merciless and moving love letter to straight men and an indictment of habitual dishonesty, a condemnation of every social constraint acting on heterosexual unions, and a hopeful affirmation of the possibility for true connection between men and women.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System—and Pocketed $40 Million
Tanya Smith
A riveting true story of an unsuspecting woman who creates an ingeniously clever white-collar scheme that manipulates the Federal banking system out of millions—who eventually loses everything that is most important to her.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
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A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson
Camille Peri
He was an ambitious but drifting writer from a prominent Scottish family. She was a tough Nevada silver miner’s wife, with children, when they met. Who could have predicted that Fanny Van de Grift and Robert Louis Stevenson would go on to create one of history’s great literary marriages? A portrait of two extraordinary people and a testament to the power of love to foster the human spirit, A Wilder Shore unfolds with all the richness and complexity of a timeless epic, capturing the resilience, courage, and devotion that sparked some of our most celebrated and enduring literary masterpieces.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Viking
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Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home
Chris La Tray
The poet laureate of Montana tells the story of embracing his identity as a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Both personal and historical, Becoming Little Shell is a testament to the power of storytelling, to family and legacy, and to finding home. Infused with candor, heart, wisdom, and an abiding love for a place and a people, Chris La Tray’s remarkable journey is both revelatory and redemptive.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
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Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-center walls. But even those who are inspired by Lorde’s teachings on “the creative power of difference” may be missing something fundamental about her life and work, and what they can mean for us today. In Survival Is a Promise, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminates the eternal life of Lorde. Her life and work become more than a sound bite; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
Amanda Jones
Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.
Publication date: August 27
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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On James Baldwin
Colm Toíbin
Colm Tóibín’s personal account of encountering James Baldwin’s work, published in Baldwin’s centenary year. Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He had completed his first year at an Irish university and was struggling to free himself from a religious upbringing. He had even considered entering a seminary and was searching for literature that would offer illumination and insight. Inspired by the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tóibín found a writer who would be a lifelong companion and exemplar.
Publication date: August 23
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
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The Traitor’s Daughter: Captured by Nazis, Pursued by the KGB, My Mother’s Odyssey to Freedom from Her Secret Past
Roxana Spicer
The masterful narration of a daughter’s decades-long quest to understand her extraordinary mother, who was born in Lenin’s Soviet Union, served as a combat soldier in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets. The Traitor’s Daughter is intimate and exhaustively researched, vividly conversational, and shot through with Agnes Spicer’s irrepressible, fiery personality. It is a true labour of love as well as a triumph of blending personal biography with sweeping history.
Publication date: August 27
Publisher: Viking
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Nonfiction
All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, & Fine Art
Orlando Whitfield
A dazzling insider’s account of the contemporary art world and the stunning rise and fall of the charismatic American art dealer Inigo Philbrick, as seen through the eyes of his friend and fellow dealer.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Pantheon
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The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
Evan Friss
An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations. The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Viking
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Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, A Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice
Barbara Bradley Hagerty
How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder. By turns fascinating and enraging, personal and provocative, Bringing Ben Home is the powerful story of one innocent man who refused to admit that he was guilty of murder, and how his plight became part of a paradigm shift in how the legal system thinks about innocence as it institutes new methods to overturn wrongful convictions to better protect people like Ben Spencer.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Riverhead
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Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West
John J. Sullivan
A memoir of service by the American ambassador who was on the diplomatic front lines when Putin invaded Ukraine, Midnight in Moscow is the first behind-the-scenes account of how U.S.-Russia relations hit their nadir—and a playbook for our unfolding confrontation.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
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Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant: How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me about the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America
Stephanie Kiser
Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant is alternately poignant and funny, a portrait of a generation of Americans struggling to find work they love balanced against the headwinds of global uncertainty and an economy stacked against anyone trying to work their way up from the bottom. It’s a provocative story of class, caregiving, friendship, and family―and a juicy, voyeuristic peek behind the curtain of obscene wealth and the privilege and opportunity that comes with it.
Publication date: August 6
Publisher: Sourcebooks
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Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery
Theodore H. Scwartz
In this warm, rigorous, and deeply insightful book, Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz explores what it’s like to hold the scalpel, wield the drill, extract a tumor, fix a bullet hole, and remove a blood clot—when every second can mean life or death. Drawing from the author’s own cases, plus media, sports, and government archives, this seminal work delves into all the brain-related topics that have long-consumed public curiosity, like what really happened to JFK, President Biden’s brain surgery, and the NFL’s management of CTE. Dr. Schwartz also surveys the field’s latest incredible advances and discusses the philosophical questions of the unity of the self and the existence of free will.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Dutton
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Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History
Anthony E. Kaye with Gregory P. Downs
Nat Turner, Black Prophet is the fullest recounting to date of Turner’s uprising, and the first that refuses to tame or overlook his divine visions. Instead, it takes those visions seriously, tracing their emergence from the world of nineteenth-century Methodism, with its revivals, camp meetings, interracial churches, and Black preachers. The rebellion and its aftermath would hasten the end of this world, as Southern states further restricted the personal freedoms of the enslaved, even as the ongoing threat of revolt shaped the country’s politics. With this work of narrative history, the late historian Anthony E. Kaye and his collaborator Gregory P. Downs have given us a new understanding of one of the nineteenth century’s most decisive events.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
Ellen Atlanta
A generation-defining exposé of toxic beauty culture―from Botox and Instagram filters to lip flips and editing apps―and the realities of coming of age online. From Love Island to lip filler, blackfishing to the beauty tax, Pixel Flesh is a fascinating account of what young women face under a dominant industry. Nuanced, unflinching, and razor sharp, this book unmasks the absurdities of the standards we suddenly find ourselves upholding, and acts as a rallying cry and a refusal to suffer in silence, forming the definitive book about what it truly feels like to exist as a woman today.
Publication date: August 13
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
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The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty
Valerie Bauerlein
Power, privilege, and blood—this is the definitive and thrilling true story of Alex Murdaugh’s violent downfall, from a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who has become an authority on the case. The Murdaugh name ignited respect—and fear—for a hundred miles. Through masterful research and cinematic writing, The Devil at His Elbow is a transporting journey through Alex’s life, the night of the murders, and the investigation that culminated in a trial that held tens of millions spellbound. With her stunning insights and fearless instinct for the truth, Bauerlein uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case that have not been told.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Ballantine Books
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Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough
Valerie Bauerlein
For the past fifteen years, Ian Frazier has been walking the Bronx. Paradise Bronx reveals the amazingly rich and tumultuous history of this amazingly various piece of our greatest city. From Jonas Bronck, who bought land from the local Native Americans, to the formerly gang-wracked South Bronx that gave birth to hip-hop, Frazier’s loving exploration is a moving tour de force about the polyglot culture that is America today.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death
Spencer Henry & Madison Reyes
Based on the popular podcast, Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death is a smart, funny look at the American culture of death and how we’re remembered. It’s safe to say everyone thinks about death—whether they want to or not. But have you ever wondered about what sort of keepsakes you can make with your remains, or given any thought to the most scandalous deathbed confessions throughout history? Well Madison Reyes and Spencer Henry have, and they’ve spent countless hours scouring the darkest corners of the internet, digging through newspaper archives, devouring documents, and picking the brains of death industry experts to bring you Obitchuary, a darkly funny and deeply poignant exploration of all things death.
Publication date: August 20
Publisher: Ballantine Books
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