NEW YORK – Fall books mean more than literary fiction. The top releases this season range from a fairy tale newly told to memoirs about a famous writer's indomitable mother and life after marriage to a famous rock star. Some books were a decade or more in the making, while former Vice President Kamala Harris' “107 Days” was finished in a matter of months.
Here are 10 new books to look for.
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“Hansel and Gretel,” Stephen King
You may think you know the Grimms' fairy tale about two children lost in the woods. But a new edition this fall promises a fresh and modern take: the words are by Stephen King and the illustrations from the archives of the late Maurice Sendak, who had worked on a 1990s opera adaptation. Warns King in the book's introduction: “You will say that I have taken liberties with the story told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm — I have, and I don't apologize.” (Sept. 2)
“Mother Mary Comes to Me,” Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy's memoir offers anguished tribute to her longtime tormentor and heroine: her late mother, Mary Roy, the educator and activist who founded a renowned high school in India and otherwise rarely missed a chance to disparage but still inspire her famous daughter. “I had constructed myself around her,” the author writes. “I had grown into the peculiar shape that I am to accommodate her. I had never wanted to defeat her, never wanted to win. I had always wanted her to go out like a queen.” (Sept. 2)
“The Wilderness,” Angela Flournoy
Angela Flournoy's acclaimed debut, “The Turner House,” was set around an aging family home in Detroit. In “The Wilderness,” she traces the cross-country lives of five Black women from youth to middle age. The author also offers a mini-tour of airports, from the underwhelming sites of landing at Charles de Gaulle in Paris to the view of pyramids in Cairo. A universal truth, she writes: “If the surrounding city has a decent Black population, then a good number of them will be working at the airport.” (Sept. 16)
“107 Days,” Kamala Harris
Publisher Simon & Schuster is promising a compelling campaign memoir from former Vice President Kamala Harris that addresses “everything we would want her to address.” That presumably includes Harris’ thoughts on the mental and physical condition of President Joe Biden, whose decision to withdraw his candidacy led to Harris’ historic, frantic and unsuccessful run against Republican Donald Trump. Harris has called the book, written with the assistance of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, the result of looking back “with candor and reflection.” (Sept. 23)
“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai's first novel in nearly 20 years, since her Booker Prize-winning “The Inheritance of Loss,” is on the Booker longlist and is also a story of contrasting lives: a successful novelist returning to her native India and a New York-based journalist — a copy editor for, of all places, The Associated Press. (Desai has not yet named a real-life counterpart as inspiration.) Separated by geography, they are connected by the will of their families, who would very much like to arrange a marriage. (Sept. 23)
“Softly, As I Leave You,” Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley has been so defined by her years with Elvis that the 2023 biopic “Priscilla” ends with their breakup in 1973. But readers of “Softly, As I Leave You” will learn that she forged a long and successful career on her own. She was Bobby Ewing’s ex-fiancee, Jenna Wade, in “Dallas” and the love interest for Leslie Nielsen in the “Naked Gun” spoofs. (Presley appears briefly in the current remake.) She even revealed a knack for marketing. When Elvis’ Graceland estate was in disrepair in the years following his 1977 death, she opened it to the public and helped make the property among the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Currently in a legal battle with a former business partner, Presley also writes of enduring other tragedies besides the death of her ex-husband, notably the loss of daughter Lisa Marie Presley two years ago. (Sept. 23)
“We Love You, Bunny,” Mona Awad
Six years ago, Canadian author Mona Awad’s bestselling “Bunny” was praised by Margaret Atwood, among others, for its blend of horror and academic satire set around a clique of creative writing students who call each other “Bunny.” In her follow-up novel, onetime outsider Samantha Heather Mackey is herself a bestselling author and the bunnies have a few things to say about her material. “So funny that you described me as a maniacal hair braider,” one of them tells her. “I laughed until I cried blood.” (Sept. 23)
“The Impossible Fortune,” Richard Osman
Richard Osman is an all-around success story, an author, producer and personality who has been a fixture for years in British television. He now enjoys critical acclaim and millions of sales as the creator of the “Thursday Murder Club” mystery novels, in which four pensioners in a retirement community take on cases new and old. The fifth in the series, “The Impossible Fortune,” blends wedding plans and a sudden disappearance that has Osman’s sleuths in search of answers. (Sept. 30)
“Shadow Ticket,” Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel is his first in more than a decade. Now 88, the author most famous for the epic “Gravity's Rainbow” has rarely settled for a simple storyline. Like his comic novel “Inherent Vice,” there's a detective at the center of the narrative, one Hicks McTaggart, who will “find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them.” (Oct. 7)
“Unfettered,” John Fetterman
Few Washington legislators are more recognizable than Sen. John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8-inch, hoodie-wearing Pennsylvania Democrat whose physical and mental health struggles and his battles with both Republicans and his own party have kept him in the news since he ran for the Senate in 2022. His publisher, Crown, is calling “Unfettered” a “raw and visceral” and “unapologetic account of his unconventional life.” (Nov. 11)