September brings some of the biggest books of the year. There are new novels from Pulitzer and Booker Prize winners, a follow-up from the author of Pachinko, and several ambitious visions of the future. Here are 10 releases worth adding to your list.
1. Under Story by Chloe Benjamin
The author of The Immortalists returns with a science-fiction love story that bends time and reality. A screen adaptation is already in development. Read it if you like: big-idea fiction with a romantic heart.
2. The Disappearers by Marlon James
The Booker winner returns to Jamaica in 1988 with the story of a group of gay men who try to stage a play in a deeply hostile environment. Read it if you like: intense, sweeping literary fiction.
3. Switzy by Emma Cline
An aging executive travels to a Swiss euthanasia clinic, looking back on his life as his mind unravels. It’s a dark look at wealth, privilege and mortality. Read it if you like: sharp, unsettling character studies.
4. Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang
An American college student spends a summer in Taiwan exploring her Chinese heritage, amid academic pressure, tricky friendships and questions of translation and identity. Read it if you like: coming-of-age stories about culture and belonging.
5. Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson
Former POW turned journalist Harry Flynn helps organize the 1951 Festival of Britain as the country tries to rebuild, while its deeper problems stay unresolved. Read it if you like: historical fiction with wit and heart.
6. Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
In a near future where the U.S. has broken apart in civil war, an apartment party offers a brief escape until impossible things start to happen. Read it if you like: fans of Station Eleven and speculative fiction.
7. American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee
A family of five navigates South Korea’s high-pressure world of private tutoring academies across the 1990s and 2000s. Read it if you like: multigenerational family sagas.
8. The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar
A narrator recovering from a hit-and-run gets pulled into intrigue on a college campus, and soon can’t tell what’s real. Read it if you like: twisty psychological fiction.
9. Ply by Hernan Diaz
Centuries after civilization collapses, electricity is controlled by a monopoly, and one man secretly steals it until an invention draws dangerous attention. Read it if you like: inventive, literary science fiction.
10. The Wreckers by George Makana Clark
A quest for artifacts tied to Portuguese colonizers spans three continents and two centuries, with pirates, disasters and a lost kingdom along the way. Read it if you like: globe-trotting historical adventure.
Our pick
If you only read one this month, go for American Hagwon. Min Jin Lee’s family stories are some of the most moving fiction of the last decade. For book clubs, Switzy and Exit Party will spark the most discussion.
