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The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

Including the latest from Jennifer Egan, Claire Messud, and Hillary Clinton.
The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

There's a lot to look forward to in this season's crop of titles: The runner-up in last year's presidential race weighs in on what went wrong with her campaign; Margaret Atwood's protégé delivers a brilliant sci-fi novel that, as Atwood says, will make you "think twice about everything"; and Canadian literary talent is on full display with beautifully rendered books from both emerging and established writers. Enjoy!

Fall Books 2017

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

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Strangers with the Same Dream, Alison Pick, $33

Young Jewish settlers fleeing Old World violence converge with idealized visions of their own country—but the ghosts of their past, plus the very real presence of Palestinians, challenge that utopia. Danielle Groen On sale September 2. 

Strangers With the Same Dream by Alison Pick

That’s My Baby, Frances Itani, $33 

When we last left Deseronto, the town of Itani’s Deafening and Tell, a young couple struggling with the Great War’s horrors had become the unexpected parents of an adopted child. In That’s My Baby, that child, Hanora, has grown into a headstrong journalist hell-bent on cracking the mystery of her birth, charging across the Atlantic in an ocean liner to the streets of a London heading back into war. DG On sale September 5. 

That's My Baby by Frances Itani

The Ninth Hour, Alice McDermott, $37 

In a crumbling tenement, a man soon to be a father takes his own life; in a nearby convent, nuns help his 18-year-old widow raise her child. The Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor prove to be pretty handy in McDermott’s new novel, arranging friendships and courtships across three generations of New Yorkers. DG On sale September 19. 

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

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A Column of Fire, by Ken Follett, $45  

Jammed with power grabs, family strife, passion and castles, Follett’s epic Kingsbridge series has more than enough pages to fill a Game of Thrones–sized hole in your heart. A Column of Fire brings the historical trilogy into the Elizabethan Age, when a star-crossed romance runs the very real risk of people losing their heads. DG On sale September 12. 

A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

The Revolution of Marina M., by Janet Fitch, $39 

The new novel from the author of White Oleander opens on New Year’s Eve, 1916, in St. Petersburg, Russia, where 16-year-old Marina Makarova dreams of romance, travel and writing poetry. But as the Bolsheviks gain ground in the newly named Petrograd, Marina finds herself siding with the revolutionaries, and must sacrifice family and privilege for principal. Dafna Izenberg On sale November 7. 

The Revolution of Marina M. by Janet Fitch

Lost in September, by Kathleen Winter, $30 

James Wolfe died on the Plains of Abraham but has magically reappeared in Montreal. DG On sale September 12. 

Lost in September by Kathleen Winter

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A Reckoning, by Linda Spalding

A companion to Spalding’s novel The Purchase, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2012, A Reckoning continues the saga of the Dickinson family, picking up the story in the mid-19th century. Naoko Asano On sale September 26.

A Reckoning by Linda Spalding

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

Once More with Feeling, by Méira Cook, $23 

The colourful locals of a western prairie town are haunted by what they once had. DG On sale September 23. 

Once More with Feeling by Méira Cook

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Someone You Love Is Gone, Gurjinder Basran, $25

Simran is steeped in loss: Her mother has died, her daughter is distant, her marriage is done. To make sense of her grief, Simran starts to look back, first to a cataclysmic childhood event, then further still, to her mother’s stormy youth. DG On sale August 29. 

Someone You Love is Gone by Gurjinder Basran

Brother, by David Chariandy, $25  

A black family comes of age and comes apart over a stifling Scarborough summer in 1991. DG On sale September 26. 

Brother by David Chariandy

All Is Beauty Now, by Sarah Faber, $30 

A well-to-do family posted in 1960s Rio de Janeiro are obliged by dwindling finances to pack up for Canada. Before they can return home, however, their eldest daughter vanishes from the beach — and her disappearance cracks open the careful secrets each member has kept. DG On sale August 29. 

All is Beauty Now by Sarah Faber

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Forest Dark, by Nicole Krauss, $32 

An elderly lawyer (who’s ditched all his possessions) and a young writer (who’s left her kids behind in Brooklyn) hunt for some kind of meaning in an Israeli desert. DG On sale September 12. 

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

What Happened, by Hillary Rodham Clinton, $40 

In this 500-plus page memoir, the would-be first female president of the United States offers her candid reflections on the 2016 campaign—the sexism she endured, the things she would do differently and how she really felt during that debate when Donald Trump followed her around the stage. DI On sale September 12.

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

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Something is Always on Fire: My Life So Far, by Measha Brueggergosman, $34

Brueggergosman is hilarious, beautiful and supremely talented. But things have not always been easy for her. In her memoir, the Canadian soprano shares some of her most personal struggles, including the loss of her twin babies and her failure to remain faithful in her marriage. DI On sale October 3.

Something is Always on Fire by Measha Brueggergosman

The Best of Us, by Joyce Maynard, $36 

Maynard was in her late 50s when she met her second husband, Jim, on Match.com. It was like a fairy tale come true, until, just a year into their marriage, Jim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In this loving memoir, Maynard celebrates having finally found her true partner, with all the joy and grief that the relationship brought. DI On sale September 5. 

The Best of Us by Joyce Maynard

The Book of Separation: A Memoir, by Tova Mirvis 

Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family, Mirvis followed the path laid out for her—marrying a man of the same faith and starting a family. But by the time she turned 40, she could no longer suppress her doubts about her religion—and her marriage. Mirvis’s account of life after leaving behind her husband and Orthodox Judaism—and how her children handled the accompanying questions of faith and identity—is a fascinating portrait of self-discovery. NA On sale September 19

The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis

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The Ghost Orchard, by Helen Humphreys, $30  

Humphreys’ very deep dive into a very tasty fruit, ($30) swings from colonial settlers, who made a quick buck off stolen indigenous trees; to Civil War–era artists, who rendered nearly 17,000 kinds of apples in watercolours; to John A. Macdonald’s still-functioning orchard, where you can munch on over a dozen varieties. DG On sale September 5. 

The Ghost Orchard by Helen Humphreys

At the Strangers’ Gate, by Adam Gopnik, $34  

Richard Avedon, Jeff Koons, SoHo gallerists, subway rats: They’re all present and accounted for in New Yorker writer Gopnik’s memoir that vividly conjures his early professional days in 1980s Manhattan but also offers a tender ode to his wife, Martha, and the extraordinary love that has nurtured their long-time marriage. DG On sale September 19. 

At the Strangers' Gate by Adam Gopnik

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

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The Golden House, by Salman Rushdie, $35 

A young filmmaker is drawn to a New York family, whose vast quantity of cash is matched only by its vast array of secrets. Spending time once again in Obama’s America feels like slipping into a warm bath — until a villainous narcissist with lurid hair is elected as his successor, jolting us rudely into the present. Reality bites. DG On sale September 9. 

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Sleeping Beauties, by Owen King and Stephen King, $40

In a small Appalachian town in the pretty-close-to-now future, the womenfolk have all drifted off to sleep, becoming cocooned in a gauzy shroud. The problem: This leaves the men to their increasingly dumb devices. The bigger problem, in King’s first collaboration with son Owen, is that when those men decide to rouse their Sleeping Beauties, the ladies (quite reasonably, we think) turn mega-violent. DG On sale September 26. 

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan, $37 

Egan’s first novel since she nabbed the Pulitzer follows diver Anna Kerrigan to the bottom of the East River, where she’s the sole woman working alongside men to repair U.S. battleships in the early ’40s. The work is a welcome distraction from life on land: Anna’s father has vanished, her sister is ailing and her burgeoning romance happens to be with a married mobster. DG On sale October 3. 

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

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The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud, $35 

Childhood friends Cassie and Julia share an easy intimacy born of endless summers together. Then high school rolls around and Cassie disappears twice from Julia’s life: first, when cute boys and popular girls pull them apart, and again when trouble at home compels Cassie to bolt. DG On sale August 29. 

The Burning Girl by Claire Messud

A Legacy of Spies, by John le Carré, $35 

Spy extraordinaire George Smiley belonged to a different world: The wars were colder, the scruples were fewer, the oversight basically non-existent. But times have changed, and now, 27 years after his last appearance, Smiley and his British Secret Service colleagues need to account for their operative sins. DG On sale September 5. 

A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carré

Smile, by Roddy Doyle, $22

Alone for the first time in years, looking for a bit of routine, Victor sips a pint every night at his local pub. Then a man sits beside him and claims a past connection, catapulting the protagonist of Smile deep into his memories, from his marriage to his stint as a radio host to his turbulent childhood at a Catholic school. DG On sale September 12. 

Smile by Roddy Doyle

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The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

Demi-Gods, by Eliza Robertson, $30 

Robertson’s first novel sets up a risky relationship between a girl and her stepbrother in the wilds of 1950s B.C. DG On sale September 5. 

Demi-Gods by Eliza Robertson

The Power, by Naomi Alderman, $34 

Margaret Atwood protégé, winner of the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and video-game writer —these are just a few descriptors of the ultra-talented Alderman. Her new novel imagines a world where teenage girls have lightning in their hands, and are using it to fell their assailants, their adversaries and even their lovers. Exhilarating and terrifying. DI On sale October 10. 

The Power by Naomi Alderman

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Uncommon Type, by Tom Hanks 

Fans of Hanks-the-actor will get a kick out of Hanks-the-writer, whose debut work of fiction features 17 short stories exploring everything from a man’s sudden ability to bowl nothing but perfect games to a billionaire’s obsession with time travel to a three-week love affair between two poorly suited friends. NA On sale October 17.

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

The Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, $33 

Hoffman’s Practical Magic introduced us to the Owens sisters — perfectly lovely women; shame about the family curse. Twenty-two years later, The Rules of Magic arrives to investigate the origins of that curse, and why exactly any man an Owens loves is doomed to kick the bucket. DG On sale October 10. 

The Rules of Magic

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Bellevue Square, by Michael Redhill, $32 

Jean Mason just wanted a fresh start in a new city, but Redhill’s new novel, set in Toronto’s Kensington Market, has other plans, throwing a sinister doppelgänger into her path. DG On sale September 19. 

Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill

Young Jane Young, Gabrielle Zevin, $30 

There’s something awfully familiar about this tale: A young political intern has an affair with her boss, leaving a reputation in tatters (hers, of course) but also revealing tenacious inner strength. DG On sale August 29. 

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions, Amy Stewart, $37 

In Stewart’s Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Constance Kopp disposed of seasoned bad guys and sexist assumptions as New Jersey’s first female deputy sheriff. Midnight Confessions brings her skills to the courtroom, where 1916 morals mean that women looking for economic or creative freedom are chucked into jail on charges of waywardness — leaving only Constance to defend them. DG On sale September 5. 

Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart

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The Best Fall Reads: 35 Books To Curl Up With This Season

Seven Fallen Feathers, by Tanya Talaga, $23 

When Toronto Star reporter Talaga went to Thunder Bay in 2011 to interview the grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation about the upcoming federal election, he kept asking her: “Why aren’t you writing about Jordan Wabasse?” Here, she has. Talaga has also written about the six other Indigenous high school students who died in the northern Ontario city between 2000 and 2011. DI On sale September 30.

Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga

No Refuge for Women: The Tragic Fate of Syrian Refugees, by Maria von Welser, $25 

With the stories of Syrian refugees no longer in the headlines, von Welser’s book is a necessary account of the ongoing crisis. In 2015 and 2016, the German journalist travelled to refugee camps in the Middle East and Europe and met with women who were fighting to keep themselves and their children safe in the face of poverty, sexual victimization, and an utterly uncertain future. DI On sale September 9.

No Refuge for Women by Maria von Welser

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All We Leave Behind: A Reporter’s Journey into the Lives of Others, by Carol Off

On assignment in Afghanistan in 2002, Off met a man named Asad Aryubwal, who risked his life to speak out against powerful Afghan warlords in a documentary she was making. When Aryubwal was forced to flee the country with his wife and five children, Off was swept up in the struggle to bring the family to Canada. Here, she details the Aryubwal family’s journey—and what happened when she stepped outside her role as a journalist to become part of the story. NA On sale September 19.

All We Leave Behind by Carol Off

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, by Katy Tur

“I’m about to throw up.” So begins the prologue to Tur’s account of Donald Trump’s presidential bid from her own perspective as an NBC reporter who wound up on the campaign trail. Tur, who suffered death threats and was personally insulted by the man himself, gives readers a riveting—and funny—look at what it was like to cover Trump’s shocking journey to the White House. NA On sale September 12

Unbelievable by Katy Tur

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