Confession time.
I get almost as much enjoyment out of adding books to my library wait list and my Goodreads bookshelves as I do actually reading them. It has become a calming ritual for me — logging into the library site, browsing the new titles, searching for ebooks and audiobooks, juggling my wish list and checkouts and clicking on the suggested titles. It’s a rabbit hole that is nearly as addictive as Pinterest … and infinitely more satisfying. I think it’s satisfying because I definitely eventually maybe will read these books. Whereas Pinterest — well, it sure does look pretty, doesn’t it?
In a recent book-clicking session I noticed a plethora of good books coming out this fall. To channel Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail, who say there’s something about fall that makes them want to buy school supplies (“I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils”), I would mirror that by saying there’s something about fall that makes me want to binge read in the school library.
Yes, I realize it’s June. That doesn’t mean we can’t anticipate. Pre-order. Wait impatiently. Here are 10 books that have made my “to-read” queue, and they should be in yours, too.
Fall Book Preview 2014
The Miniaturist
Aug. 26
Blurb excerpt: On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office — leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin. But Nella’s world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist — an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
Station Eleven
Sept. 9
Blurb excerpt: One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.
Falling Into Place
Sept. 9
Blurb excerpt: On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? The nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl.
I’ll Give You the Sun
Sept. 16
Blurb excerpt: Jude and her brother, Noah, are incredibly close twins. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude surfs and cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and divisive ways.
Rooms
Sept. 23
Blurb excerpt: Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, leaving behind his country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His estranged family — bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna— have arrived for their inheritance. But the Walkers are not alone. Prim Alice and the cynical Sandra, long dead former residents bound to the house, linger within its claustrophobic walls.
How to Build a Girl
Sept. 23
Blurb excerpt: It’s 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there’s no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde — fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer — like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes — but without the dying young bit.
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
Oct. 14
Blurb excerpt: Sick of deeply personal accounts written in the first person? Seeking an exciting, interactive read that puts the “u” back in “aUtobiography”? Then look no further than Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography! In this revolutionary, Joycean experiment in light celebrity narrative, actor/personality/carbon-based life-form Neil Patrick Harris lets you, the reader, live his life.
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future
Oct. 14
Blurb excerpt: Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she’s never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way … until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person’s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions — and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying.
Shopaholic to the Stars
Oct. 21
Blurb excerpt: Becky Brandon has stars in her eyes. She and her daughter, Minnie, have joined husband Luke in LA — city of herbal smoothies, multimillion-dollar yoga retreats, and the lure of celebrity. Red carpet premieres, velvet ropes, paparazzi clamoring for attention — suddenly Becky has everything she’s ever wanted. Or does she?
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Nov. 4
Blurb excerpt: Gather your poison, steel tipped quill, and the rest of your school supplies and join Mademoiselle Geraldine’s proper young killing machines in the third rousing installment in the New York Times bestselling Finishing School Series by steampunk author, Gail Carriger. Sophronia continues her second year at finishing school in style — with a steel-bladed fan secreted in the folds of her ball gown, of course.
What do you think? Do any of these books sound good to you? Which books would make your fall reading list?
Disclosure: I am using affiliate links in this post, which means I would make a small commission if you should click and buy. Thank you for supporting Little Gold Pixel!
