The 32 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024

Spend the coziest months of the year with your next great read. The most anticipated books of fall include best-selling author and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari’s brief history of information, a new essay collection from Ta-Nahesi Coates, and Rachel Kushner’s savvy send-up of the classic spy thriller. 

Start spooky season early with Mariana Enriquez’s follow up to her best-selling 2023 novel, Our Share of Night, which TIME named one of its best of the year. Send a chill down your spine with the new thriller from The Last Thing He Told Me author Laura Dave. And dig into the complex histories of several celebrities in memoirs from Ina Garten, Cher, and Lisa Marie Presley, whose autobiography was finished by her daughter, Riley Keough, following her death last year. 

Other notable releases include Haruki Murakami’s first full-length novel in six years, an ambitious new book from Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers, and Malcolm Gladwell’s long-awaited sequel to his best-selling debut The Tipping Point, which is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. 

From Elizabeth Strout’s 10th novel to the first installment in Sabaa Tahir’s new YA fantasy duology, these are the books that will get you excited for sweater weather. 

Madwoman, Chelsea Bieker (Sept. 3)

Clove, the protagonist of Chelsea Bieker’s second novel, Madwoman, has told everyone, including her capitalist husband, that her parents died when she was 17. In actuality, her mother Alma is serving time in a California prison for killing Clove’s abusive father. Now, in the wake of the Me Too movement, Alma’s case is being reevaluated and she needs her estranged daughter to testify about the events of the night her father died. The truth could set both women free, if Clove is willing to face the trauma of her past.

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We're Alone, Edwidge Danticat (Sept. 3)

In award-winning author Edwidge Danticat’s latest work of nonfiction, We’re Alone, the personal is the political. Across eight intimate essays, the author tackles her Haitian roots, the COVID-19 pandemic, and America’s societal woes. With heart, humor, and outrage, she writes about xenophobia, Haiti’s climate refugees, and the horrors of experiencing a mass shooting hoax at a Miami mall. Danticat also pays tribute to her favorite writers—Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin—who showed her that the best storytellers are also activists.

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Small Rain, Garth Greenwell (Sept. 3)

Garth Greenwell’s third novel, Small Rain, begins with a life-changing medical emergency. Amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a 40-something-year-old poet finds himself bowled over by an excruciating ache that lands him in the ICU. In Greenwell’s novel about what it really means to be alive, the poet must navigate the dysfunctional American health care system to find the root of his mysterious pain.

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The Life Impossible, Matt Haig (Sept. 3)

A retired math teacher books a one-way ticket from England to Ibiza in Matt Haig’s follow-up to his best-selling 2023 novel, The Midnight Library. Grace Winters is set to inherit the home of her late friend Christina, whose death is a mystery to her. Once there, the widowed protagonist embarks on a weird and wondrous journey, kick-started by the notes Christina left behind. In this fantastical exploration of grief, forgiveness, and second chances, it’s only by tracing Christina’s final days that Grace taps into the magic of her own life.

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Under the Eye of the Big Bird, Hiromi Kawakami (Sept. 3)

Under the Eye of the Big Bird is a disquieting work of speculative fiction from celebrated Japanese author Hiromi Kawakami. Set in a distant future in which humans face imminent extinction, the 2016 book, newly translated by Asa Yoneda, offers a poignant look at a dying civilization looking to rebuild. Across 14 loosely connected stories, Kawakami poses questions about cloning, reproduction, identity, memory, and evolution, while also offering solutions to combat mankind’s downfall.

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Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner (Sept. 3)

With Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner, the best-selling author of The Mars Room and The Flamethrowers, puts her own macabre spin on the classic espionage novel. A seductive and perceptive former FBI agent infiltrates a commune of eco-terrorists in rural France. As the 34-year-old agent provocateur inches closer to taking down the radical farming cooperative, she finds herself falling under the spell of their octogenarian leader who communicates only by email, is obsessed with Neanderthals, and is skeptical of modern civilization. It’s a slow-burn spy novel with a philosophical and environmental bent.

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Colored Television, Danzy Senna (Sept. 3)

Danzy Senna’s follow up to the best-selling novel Caucasia is a dark comedy about the price of faking it until you make it in Hollywood. When Colored Television begins, struggling multiracial author Jane Gibson has finally finished her second novel, which her artist husband has dubbed the “mulatto War and Peace.” But when she’s told that her manuscript is unsellable, she takes a meeting with a hotshot Hollywood producer who is all too happy to make use of her literary credentials and personal background for a new project. Yet once Jane signs on, she starts to worry that this isn’t her big break, but instead a sign that she’s finally sold out in this satire about ambition, aspiration, and reinvention.

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Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari (Sept. 10)

From Yuval Noah Harari, the best-selling author of Sapiens, comes a brief history of how humans have obtained information over the last 100,000 years. But “brief” is a bit of a misnomer; Nexus, at a whopping 849 pages, tackles the unintended consequences of the information systems developed between the Stone Age and our present day. Harari dives into how information—and, all too often, misinformation—spread during the early modern witch-hunts, Nazism, and this burgeoning age of artificial intelligence. Throughout, he urges humanity to fix its communication problems before it’s too late.

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Bone of the Bone, Sarah Smarsh (Sept. 10)

With her best-selling 2018 memoir, Heartland, journalist Sarah Smarsh offered a compassionate look at working-class poverty in America. The Kansas native continues that legacy with Bone of the Bone, an insightful collection of essays that were published between 2013 and 2024. The 36 works in this compendium, first featured in publications including the Huffington Post, McSweeney’s, and the New Yorker, examine the misconceptions of the red-and-blue political divide, the classism of the U.S. dental care system, and the author’s firsthand experience working as a Hooters Girl.

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Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout (Sept. 10)

With her 10th novel, Tell Me Everything, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout returns to the sleepy coastal town of Crosby, Maine, the fictional setting of her 2008 best-seller Olive Kitteridge, to catch up with three of her most beloved characters. Amid a murder investigation, writer Lucy Barton, local lawyer Bob Burgess, and Strout’s brusque heroine Olive, now 90 years old and living in a retirement home, find solace in one another’s company. Tell Me Everything is a novel of well-observed connected short stories about fear, regret, and friendship.

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Entitlement, Rumaan Alam (Sept. 17)

Best-selling author Rumaan Alam’s fourth novel, Entitlement, examines the thin line between greed and ambition. After nearly a decade working as an underpaid inner-city teacher, Brooke Low, a 30-something New Yorker, takes a job with an octogenarian billionaire businessman. As the administrator of his foundation, she is tasked with dispersing his fortune as she sees fit. In this unsettling social thriller, Brooke becomes more and more fixated on buying an apartment she can’t afford, and careless decisions concerning her own finances and her wealthy boss’s put her at risk of losing everything.

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The Night We Lost Him, Laura Dave (Sept. 17)

Laura’s Dave’s seventh novel, The Night We Lost Him, is a twisty thriller that will keep you guessing. When Liam Noone, a thrice-married hotel magnate, falls off the cliffs surrounding his oceanfront California home, his death is quickly ruled an accident. But his daughter Nora, a recently engaged, Brooklyn-based architect, and his son Sam, a former baseball player now working in the family business, suspect foul play. Only after the estranged half-siblings stop bickering long enough to investigate their late father’s final days do they discover that he wasn’t the man they thought he was.

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A Sunny Place for Shady People, Mariana Enriquez (Sept. 17)

Mariana Enriquez’s short story collection, A Sunny Place for Shady People, puts the focus on women living in a surreal version of modern-day Buenos Aires. Across 12 unnerving tales, which have been translated by Megan McDowell, the best-selling Argentine author and journalist writes of perimenopausal body horror, Kafkaesque transformations, and a town overrun by ghosts. The most chilling of these stories may be the titular one, which takes its inspiration from the case of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student who, in 2013, was found dead in the water tank on the roof of L.A.’s sordid Cecil Hotel.

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A Reason to See You Again, Jami Attenberg (Sept. 24)

Jami Attenberg, the best-selling author of I Came All This Way to Meet You, returns with a domestic drama that follows one chaotic family across a span of 40 years. After the death of their Holocaust surviving patriarch in 1972, the women of the Cohen family struggled to connect. Eldest daughter Nancy married too young, little sister Shelly moved out West to become a tech tycoon, and their mom, Frieda, headed down to Miami to drink her sorrows away. But, in this wry novel about love, loss, and inherited trauma, the dysfunctional trio must find a way to come back together in order to move past their grief.

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Playground, Richard Powers (Sept. 24)

Playground, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers’ latest ecological epic, is set largely on the French Polynesian island of Makatea. There, a mysterious American organization plans to launch floating autonomous cities into the ocean. The story follows multiple characters: an aging Canadian marine biologist, an art-loving military brat, a former literature student from Chicago, and the wealthy founder of a successful AI platform. Each of these interconnected people play a role in the company’s quest to convince the island’s dwindling population to vote yes on a futuristic initiative that promises to trigger a much-needed economic revival—but may also lead to environmental devastation.

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Intermezzo, Sally Rooney (Sept. 24)

Three years after the release of her best-selling third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney is back with another emotionally devastating offering about loss, desire, and complicated family dynamics. Intermezzo focuses on two estranged Irish brothers: Peter, a successful, outgoing lawyer in his 30s, and Ivan, a floundering chess prodigy more than 10 years Peter’s junior. As they work through the death of their father, the two men find themselves struggling to make intimate connections, dancing around their grief, and entering into thorny romantic relationships that prove they may not be so different after all.

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The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story, Olga Tokarczuk (Sept. 24)

For fans of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain: Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s ninth novel, The Empusium. Set in 1913, the book, first published in 2022 and recently translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, begins with a 24-year-old Polish student seeking treatment from tuberculosis. When he is turned away from a health resort in the Silesian mountains, he takes a room in a nearby inn where misogynistic men philosophize over shots of hallucinogenic local liqueur. As the young man lingers, he begins to sense a sinister presence lurking all around that threatens not only him, but all of humanity.

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The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Oct. 1)

Nearly a decade after the release of his first best seller, Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates set out to write a book about writing. The result is The Message, a collection of three intertwining essays about the power of storytelling, set in locations Coates identifies as conflict zones: Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine. Throughout the book, he writes passionately about book bans and Zionism, while also expressing his regrets over aspects of his 2014 Atlantic cover story, “The Case for Reparations.”

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The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich (Oct. 1)

The Mighty Red, the latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdich, is a tender mother-daughter story set in the Red River Valley of North Dakota. Kismet Poe has been an outcast all her life. So the edgy teen is surprised when she finds herself trapped in a love triangle with two boys—the local football hero and a home-schooled outcast—that neither she nor her superstitious trucker mom approve of. In this captivating multigenerational tale set amid the 2008 financial crisis, it’s the titular river—the site of a communal tragedy—that may hold the key to Kismet’s uncertain future.

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Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten (Oct. 1)

Despite having published 13 cookbooks since 1999, Ina Garten admitted back in April it wasn’t easy writing her debut memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. But that didn’t stop the Barefoot Contessa from sharing the most vulnerable moments of her life. Across 320 pages, she writes of her difficult childhood, her early years working in Washington, D.C., finding success as a Food Network personality, and her 56-year relationship with husband (and biggest fan), Jeffrey. A great big cheers to that.

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Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (Oct. 1)

The long-awaited follow-up to The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s groundbreaking 2000 debut, explores the watershed moments that define this new age of societal upheaval. With Revenge of the Tipping Point, Gladwell takes a closer look at how humanity has handled the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid crisis. With curiosity and humor, he questions why Los Angeles is home to so many successful bank robbers, what the fate of the cheetah has to do with child rearing, and how a forgotten 1970s TV show changed the world. Simultaneously, he reexamines the positions he took nearly 25 years ago on topics ranging from crime to fashion to see if they stood the test of time.

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Heir, Sabaa Tahir (Oct. 1)

Heir, the first installment of Sabaa Tahir’s latest YA fantasy, is set two decades after the events of her best-selling An Ember in the Ashes series. The action-packed spinoff weaves together the lives of three seemingly disparate individuals: Aiz, an orphan seeking vengeance for the murder of her people, Sirsha, an exiled tracker on the hunt for a child killer, and Quil, the reluctant prince coming to grips with recent family tragedies. (Also, keep an eye out for well-liked Ember characters.) As the world succumbs to the whims of a false prophet, the three must find a way to defeat him and take back their homeland.

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Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman (Oct. 8)

Meditations for Mortals is British author and journalist Oliver Burkeman’s guide to living life to the fullest. To do this, the Four Thousand Weeks author believes high achievers must liberate themselves from the anxiety of never-ending to-do lists. Using the principles of philosophy, religion, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman lays out 28 brief lessons, designed as a four-week course, that can help us identify what really deserves our time and attention. Meditations for Mortals offers a refreshing crash course in productivity that encourages us to do less.

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From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough (Oct. 8)

With her debut memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, the late Lisa Marie Presley finally gets the chance to tell her story in her own words. But it couldn’t have happened without the help of her daughter, actor Riley Keough, who wrote the autobiography using hours of audio her mom recorded before her death last year. The result is a bittersweet, no-holds-barred look at the woman who was so much more than the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

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Absolution, Jeff Vandermeer (Oct. 22)

Jeff Vandermeer returns with the surprise fourth installment of his best-selling and critically acclaimed Southern Reach series. Absolution takes place in Area X, the mysterious uninhabited region made famous in the original horror-fantasy trilogy published a decade ago. Split into three distinct sections, Absolution takes place both long before and after the conclusion of the original series, which is why Vandermeer says the anxiety-inducing novel could be classified as either a prequel or a sequel. Yet the new book doesn’t attempt to tie up too many loose ends.Instead it presents a host of new questions and a few unforgettable characters—a tormented former spy, a potty-mouthed investigator, and an aggressive alligator known as “The Tyrant”—that make it worth the wait.

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Masquerade, Mike Fu (Oct. 29)

While house-sitting for his tortured artist friend, newly single bartender Meadow Liu discovers a mysterious book by a Chinese author with his same name. It’s the first of many coincidences the protagonist encounters in Japan-based writer, translator, and editor Mike Fu’s debut, Masquerade, a surreal, queer, coming-of-age mystery set between New York and Shanghai. But after Meadow’s friend goes missing at a retreat, he begins to worry he is losing his mind. To find the truth, he must confront the ghosts, both literal and figurative, of his past.

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Miss Kim Knows, Cho Nam-Joo (Oct. 29)

Miss Kim Knows, celebrated Korean author Cho Nam-joo’s 2021 short story collection that has been newly translated by Jamie Chang, takes a close look at sexism in South Korea. These eight stories feature women of all ages who struggle with discrimination, domestic violence, dysfunctional workplaces, and domesticity. Nam-joo even takes inspiration from her own life for a story in which a Seoul-based author releases a divisive feminist novel. (Nam-joo was both celebrated and derided for her 2020 international best-seller, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, a revolutionary work that has sold over one million copies.) The result is a thought-provoking anthology for the #MeToo age.

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Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik (Nov. 12)

Didion and Babitz looks at the complicated relationship between late literary icons Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. To better understand the titular pair’s fraught connection, Lili Anolik, the author of the deeply reported 2019 Babitz biography, Hollywood’s Eve, uses the women’s own words. The book was largely sourced from personal letters and documents discovered in Babitz’s apartment following her death in 2021. (In an ironic twist of fate, Didion died less than a week after her contemporary.) What the book makes clear is that Didion and Babitz were more alike than either would have liked to admit.

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Cher: The Memoir, Part One, Cher (Nov. 19)

With part one of her self-titled debut memoir, Cher offers a deeply personal look at the early years of her life and career. From growing up with dyslexia to her partnership with her late ex-husband Sonny Bono, the 78-year-old promises to handle it all with the honesty and humor that has made her one of the funniest people on the internet. If her comments on The Tonight Show last year are to be believed, this memoir is sure to be extra juicy. She plans to release Part Two of her memoir next year.

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The Miraculous From the Material, Alan Lightman (Nov. 19)

Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman’s new book, The Miraculous From the Material, explores the science behind nature’s most awe-inspiring phenomena. From rainbows and snowflakes to the formation of the Grand Canyon and Saturn’s rings, the book features spectacular, full-color photographs and imaginative essays that make sense of all the beauty that surrounds us.

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The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer (Nov. 19)

The Serviceberry, by author and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society. The book, beautifully illustrated by John Burgoyne, begins with Kimmerer, who also wrote Braiding Sweetgrass, harvesting sweet berries alongside the birds. In that moment, she begins to question the morality of financial systems that thrive on scarcity and the hoarding of resources. In her quest for answers, she builds a compelling argument for a more ethical economy.

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The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami (Nov. 19)

Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, published in Japan last year and newly translated by Philip Gabriel, is a narrative told in three parts. The first section is based on his 1980 short story of the same name in which a young man pines for his teenage crush, traveling between the real world and another more fantastical one surrounded by a high wall. By part two, the protagonist, now an adult, has moved to a new town to work in a library, only to return to the walled city in the final act of this unique love story. The author’s superfans will be able to celebrate the release of latest novel—his first in six years—at one of his midnight launch parties. The events, taking place in bookstores across the U.S., will include Murakami-themed treats, merch, and trivia.

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Correction, Aug. 28

The original version of this story misstated the name of the translator of Miss Kim Knows. It is Jamie Chang, not Chung.