Books seem to be available so quickly that the topics authors have written about this month are still trending on social media and in the news. Some books are self-published and the turnaround on that can happen fast, but even books from publishers seem to arrive on the market faster than they once did. You will find lots of nonfiction titles in this list that talk about Russia and obviously the news is the source of interest for that subject. You will also find books that may have been timed to appear close to Halloween. And you will find new books by popular authors also in this lengthy book list. Once again, I will have to choose selectively for my future reading endeavors as there are too many titles to cover. This time I find myself attracted to some of the biographies and memoirs.
November Editor’s Picks
Vacationland by John Hodgman (NF)
The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty
The Vanity Fair Diaries 1883-1992 by Tina Brown
An American Family by Khzir Khan
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Everything is Awful and Other Observations by Matt Bellassai
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
Literature and Fiction
Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory McGuire
Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner
Future Home of the Living God: A Novel by Louise Erdrich
The Revolution of Marina M: A Novel by Janet Fitch
The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda
Hunter of Stories by Eduardo Galeano, Mark Fried
Mysteries and Thrillers
The Unclaimed Victim by DM Pulley
The House of Unexpected Sisters (The New Ladies #1 Detective Agency Novel) by Alexander McCall Smith
The Midnight Child (Jack Reacher) by Lee Child
Hardcore Twenty Four by Janet Evanovich
Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir
The Quantum Spy: A Thriller by David Ignatius
The Extraditionist (A Benn Bluestone Thriller) by Todd Merer
End Game (Will Robie Series) by David Baldacci
The Rooster Bar by John Grisham
Wonder Valley: A Novel by Ivy Pochoda
Typhoon Fury by Clive Cussler
Science Fiction and Fantasy
The Sisters of the Crescent Empress by Leena Likitalo
Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir
The Nine (Thieves of Fate) by Tracy Townsend
Biographies and Memoirs
An American Family by Khizer Khan
Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis
The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spy Master James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley
The Vanity Fair Diaries 1985-1992 by Tina Brown
Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine by Joe Hagan
American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank by R. J. Smith
Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush
Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek
Vacationland by John Hodgman
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser (NF)
Nonfiction
It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree by AJ Jacobs
Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray
Garden of the Lost and Abandoned: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and the Children She Saved by Jessica Yu
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age by Leslie Berlin
Everything is Awful and Other Observations by Matt Bellassai (Comedy)
The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief and Compassion, Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben, Jane Billinghurst
What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
Dawn of New Everything: Encounters with Realty and Virtual Realty by Jason Lanier
The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks
Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry
October 8
Fiction
Manhatten Beach by Jennifer Egan
The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson
New People by Danzy Senna
Sisters by Lily Tuck
3 Novels set in Ireland – Past and Present
A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl
The Good People by Hannah Kent
The Trout by Peter Cunningham
Nonfiction
A Force so Swift by Kevin Peraino
The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt
Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon
World without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
The Choice (Memoir) by Edith Eva Eger
What She Ate by Laura Shapiro (6 women and what they ate)
October 15
Nonfiction
Grant by Ron Chernow
2 Books on Sleep
Snooze: The Lost Art of Sleep by Michael McGirr
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
More nonfiction
The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World by Michael Ignatieff
The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell
Cuz by Danielle Allen (a woman writes about a cousin she loved who spent his life in prison)
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace
The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell
The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home by Denise Kiernan
Fiction
Crime Fiction
Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land
Deep Freeze by John Sanford
The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen translated by William Frost
Cast Iron by Peter May
Other fiction
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Savage Country by Robert Olmstead
October 22
Fiction
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
For Two Thousand Years by Michael Sebastion
The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch
The Red Haired Woman by Orphan Pamuk
Nonfiction
“Riot Days”: A Memoir of Punk Protest and Prison Activism by Maria Alyokhina (member of Pussy Riot)
The Future is History by Masha Gessen
Stalin, 2nd vol., Stephen Kotkin
Red Famine by Anne Applebaum
Lenin by Victor Sebestyen
4 Books on Revolution
Arc of Utopia: The Beautiful Story of the Russian Revolution by Leslie Chamberlain
Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through by VI Lenin, Ed Slavojzizek
The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921 by Eric Lee
Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and Police in Petrograd by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
(There are more lists of “great” books about Russia in the NYT Book Review for Oct. 22, but they are not new)
October 29
Fiction
Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn
Thriller Roundup
Dead on Arrival by Matt Richtel
The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius
The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond
Shadow of the Lions: A Novel by Christopher Swann
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
Other fiction
The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Best True Crime Stories
Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America’s Greatest Unsolved Murder by Pia Eatwell
The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder that Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty by Philip Jett
Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson
Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree that Gripped Belle Epoque Paris by John Merriman
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (for teens and parents)
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years by Christopher Frayling
The Apparitionists by Peter Manseau
After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry
Ghost of the Innocent Man by Benjamin Rachlin
4 Suspense Novels
The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld
The Blind by AF Brady
Keep Her Safe by Sophie Hannah
The Second Sister by Claire Kendal
November 5, 2017
Nonfiction
The Impossible Presidency by Jeremi Suri
The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman
Democracy and Its Crisis by AC Grayling
I Hear She’s a Bitch by Jen Agg
Friends Divided by Gordon Wood (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson)
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian by Richard Aldous
Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend by Christina DeStefano translated by Marina Harss
Crime Fiction
Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
The Midnight Line by Lee Child
After the Fire by Henning Mankell
Fiction
All the Dirty Parts by Denise Handler
Smile by Roddy Doyle
11 New Recommended Books
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Sticky Fingers by Joe Hagan
Five Carat Soul by James McBride
The Apparitionists by Peter Manseau
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn
Black Dahlia, Red Rose by Pia Eatwell
After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry
The Dark Net by Benjamin Parcy
Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption by Benjamin Rachlin
Prince: A Private View by Afshen Shahidi
October 9
The Shattered Lens: A War Photographer’s 81 Days of Captivity in Syria – A Story of Survival by Jonathan Alperyrie with Stash Luczkiw (NF)
Tool of War by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Education of a Young Poet by David Biespiel (NF)
In the Distance by Herman Diaz (F)
The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (F)
The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe (YA-F)
The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost by Peter Manseau (NF)
Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People by Deborah Dash Moore (NF)
A Working Woman by Elvira Navarro translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney (F)
The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age by Andrew O’Hagan (NF)
Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation: From 1470 to the Present by Serhii Piokhy (NF)
Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush (NF)
The Gourmand’s Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy by Justin Spring (NF)
October 16
American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee (NF)
The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (Thriller)
Extreme Cities: The Perils and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change by Ashley Dawson (NF)
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (NF)
Righteous: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide (F)
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (NF)
Venom: The Secrets of Nature’s Deadliest Weapons by Ronald Jenner and Eivind Undheim (NF)
Where the Past Begins by Amy Tan (Memoir)
Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (NF)
Renoir: An Intimate Biography by Barbara Ehrlich White (NF)
October 23
The Thin Light of Freedom: Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America by Edward L Ayers (NF)
The Safe: A Novel by Christophe Boltanski translated from the French by Laura Marris (NF)
Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Mass Surveillance and Drone Warfare by Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil (NF)
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher de Hamel (NF)
American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Einoury and Kevin Maurer (NF)
The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums by Will Freidwald (NF)
Meant to Be by Julie Halpern (YA Fantasy adults might enjoy)
Literally Me by Julie Houts (F)
The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks (F)
Dying to Live: A Detective Kubu Mystery by Michael Stanley (F)
October 30
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende (F)
The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheists Point of View by Tim Crane (NF)
Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott (F)
In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s by Joseph Jebelli (NF)
Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin (NF)
After the Fire: A Novel by Henning Mankell (F)
Calder: The Conquest of Time by Jed Perl (NF)
November 6
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays by Hanif Abdurraqib (“providing the reader with the sensation of seeing the world through fresh eyes”) (NF)
Mrs. Ormond: A Novel by John Banville (F)
Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish, and the Art of Growing a Backbone by Juli Berwald
Fool’s River (A Poke Rafferty Thriller) by Timothy Halliman (F)
Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufman (NF)
Nobu: A Memoir by Nobu Matsuhisa (NF)
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad (NF)
Freya by Anthony Quinn (F)
Bonfire: A Novel by Krysten Ritter (Thriller) (F)
The Illiac Crest by Christina Rivera Garza translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (F)
So Many Books, Choose Wisely 