Time to shelve the beach reads and get a bit more serious. As fall approaches, it brings with it scores of Significant New Books—perfect for stimulating your brain on chilly days and nights. From genre fiction (Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, the best Stephen King in years) to nonfiction (memoirs by Carmen Maria Machado, Edward Snowden, and the guy who played C-3PO), here are the tomes we’re most looking forward to reading this season. Don’t worry, we also threw in some comics and a book about spacefaring lesbian necromancers.
Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi (Sep. 3)
Let’s get the conflict of interest out of the way right off the bat: Mary H. K. Choi is a WIRED contributor and friend of the show. She also happens to write damn fine young-adult fiction. In her follow-up to Emergency Contact, Choi crafts a tale of love and identity out of the coincidental meeting of a bodega worker named Pablo and a pop star named Leanna Smart. What transpires peels back all of the layers of the unsure time between one’s teenage years and “figuring it all out” while also pulling apart the connective tissue between real life and social media. (It’s also a beautiful portrait of the culture of New York City, but that’s just a bonus.) This is the kind of book you get a crush on as you read. You’ll love every second of it. —Angela Watercutter
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Sep. 10)
Although it’s been 34 years since the publication of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian triumph, The Handmaid’s Tale, its sequel, The Testaments, arrives exactly on time. As in the real world, Atwood’s fictional theocracy, Gilead, is passing from the hands of one generation to the next—though, in both cases, “passing” seems too gentle and final a word. The intergenerational tension feels more like wrenching, or perhaps punting. Without giving too much away, The Testaments is a book with three narrators: one naive young girl living within Gilead; another one living outside it, in a version of Canada wracked by its controversial relationship with Gilead, which sits at its southern border; and an old, conniving, endlessly fascinating Aunt observing and puppeteering the end of her own time. It is everything you want from Atwood. It’s more plot-driven than its predecessor, but the prose is just as quick and clever and apt to stamp itself onto your brain. Its dystopia is perfectly plausible, a deft rendition of the problems panting against our present. It’s good, and more tequila shot than bitter pill: It may burn on the way down, but it promises a brighter, blurrier future. —Emma Grey Ellis
The Institute by Stephen King (Sep. 10)
There is a boy and he is special. He is smart, so smart, smarter than all the other kids, and he can make things move—just a little bit, but still—and he gets snatched in the night by bad people and they take him to a place that maybe would remind you of The Shop (or it is Hawkins National Laboratory? Or Bolvanger?). And this place is not a nice place. Other children are there and some can read your mind a little, and some can read your mind a lot, and eventually they disappear to another different, deeper area of The Institute. It’s a Stephen King novel, so you had better believe things do not get better the further the children get taken into the facility. But our boy, like I said, he is so very smart, and suddenly a group of kids is figuring some shit out. It’s a combination of The Great Escape and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Stand By Me and Firestarter, all the best bits of those ones. The cleverness and the workarounds and the creepy nurses and the strokes of luck and moments of horrible revelation. Oh, and yes, it’s a little bit Stranger Things too, which is a nice criss-cross-universe fist-bump. No monsters, though, nothing slimey or fanged or screaming. (Maybe a little bit of screaming.) No gobbets. Just blank-faced soul-severed adults torturing children in the name of a greater global good, which is demonic, yes, and it grabs you, but if I tell you there’s a man in a boxcar who has a bag with a breakfast sandwich, and that he is the closest thing this earth has to an angel—well, it’s worth reading The Institute just for that. —Sarah Fallon
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Sep. 10)
I like death magic. You won’t find me covered in dirt and swaying cross-legged in the moonlit clearing of a dark forest as I summon spirits from the beyond—probably—but I did play a badass white-haired bone witch years ago in the original Guild Wars, and I’ve never quite managed to fill the necrotic heart-hole she left behind. Until, that is, I read the first sentence of Tamsyn Muir’s witchy, badass debut, Gideon the Ninth: “In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly prince of Death!—Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.” My beloved returns! Well, not quite: Gideon’s not the necromancer; her nemesis, the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, is. When we meet her, she’s massaging one of her scaphoids—which I now know is a little baby bone in the wrist—before she conjures an army of skeleton warriors to incapacitate Gideon. Escape plans foiled, Gideon is forced to suck it up and help the Reverend Daughter on an off-world quest to become an immortal. Muir’s clearly having a ball here, rattling off stupid-amazing cliches like “old as balls” and “bag of ass” at every opportunity, and you’ll have just as much fun reading it. Oh, and did I mention they’re lesbians? —Jason Kehe
Sharenthood by Leah Plunkett (Sep. 10)
Children have become an internet currency. I mean that literally, because a recent Pew study found that featuring children on your channel is the surest path to YouTube success, but also figuratively, socially. Parents mine kiddy confusion and babyish impertinence for jokey tweets and Facebook posts; they record sonograms and first steps for squee-ful sharing on Instagram and YouTube; they monitor each other’s online parenting and offer advice, solicited and otherwise. Critics have dubbed this practice “sharenting.” In her new book, Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online, Leah Plunkett illuminates children’s digital footprints: the digital baby monitors, the daycare livestreams, the nurse’s office health records, the bus and cafeteria passes recording their travel and consumption patterns—all part of an indelible dossier for anyone who knows how to look for it. Plunkett thinks the offspring surveillance ought to stop and has suggestions for how to kick the sharenting habit. They are worth considering. Otherwise you could end up like Gwyneth Paltrow: bawled out in the comments section by your own teenager, who understands digital privacy better than you do. —Emma Grey Ellis
Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (Sep. 17)
The announcement of Edward Snowden’s upcoming memoir last month came as a surprise, and little is still known about what it contains. Frustrating, maybe, but also fitting for the man who snuck highly classified secrets out of the National Security Agency, revealing a sweeping system of global surveillance to an unassuming public. At the very least, we know Permanent Record will offer a look not only at Snowden’s time as an NSA contractor but also his motivations to “bring down” that invasive system. Hopefully it’ll also give some insights into his time in Russia, where he’s spent the last six years living and working with groups like the Freedom of the Press Foundation to protect civil liberties. Mostly just be glad you no longer have to settle for Oliver Stone’s version of the Snowden story. You can hear it—or read it—from the man himself. —Brian Barrett
(Ed. note: We triple-checked, and it’s true: Snowden’s memoir has the same title as Choi’s YA book. They must be the same person.)
Nancy: A Comic Collection by Olivia Jaimes (Oct. 1)
Yes, Nancy, the comic strip that’s been around since the 1930s. And yes, an explanation might be in order. So: In 2018, a pseudonymous cartoonist took over duties on the daily strip, and it is hilarious. I know this sounds weird, but one of the dustiest comics of your parents’ (and grandparents’) childhoods has been revitalized beyond what you thought was possible, and a big part of that is because Nancy’s kind of an asshole. She’s on her phone too much, she’s a terrible friend, and Aunt Fritzi basically hates her—all of which gloriously upend the Lovable Scamp archetype. Even beyond the character work, Jaimes excels at going meta, at beboppin’ and scattin’ all over the fourth wall and turning sequential art into last-panel payoffs that surprise you into out-loud laughter. (The elusive OLL!) With this first collection, you don’t even need to painstakingly sift through the online archive. —Peter Rubin
The End of the World by Don Hertzfeldt (Oct. 1)
If you were into watching obscure videos on the internet in the early 2000s, you might’ve come across animator Don Hertzfeldt’s wonderfully bizarre Rejected. That short got nominated for an Oscar, as did his similarly unhinged World of Tomorrow. In between those projects, Hertzfeldt collected dozens of thoughts and illustrations on Post-It notes, many of which are compiled here in The End of the World. To say that the book is a story is to misunderstand what Hertzfeldt does. There are tales, but he’s a collector of thoughts, neuroses, memories—which together form a fever dream of an illustrated book that is as heart-wrenching as it is off-kilter. (Sample panel: a sketch of a balloon with the caption “Balloons are the offspring of ghosts and tires.”) If nothing else, give this to a friend as weird as you are so you can pick it up off their coffee table from time to time. —Angela Watercutter
Bury the Lede by Gaby Dunn and Claire Roe (Oct. 8)
It’s nice to be reminded how vast the world of graphic novels is—how, in a field seemingly dominated by Superhero Collections and Weighty Emotional Shit, hidden jewels still lurk. Case in point: this thoroughly enjoyable crime-and-journalism tale from writer/podcast host/comedian Dunn, which feels like (and I mean this in the best way) a millennial version of Spotlight. Dunn draws on her own cub-reporter days at the Boston Globe to depict Madison Jackson, a college student trying to make an impression during her internship in a big-time newsroom. When a murder suspect inexplicably confides in Jackson, what seems like a cut-and-dry case turns into something far deeper and darker. It’s not just police-scanner hawking and ethically questionable moves, though there are those. It’s Jackson’s life outside the investigation, which Dunn explores with deftness and levity, that really brings the book to life. Roe’s art shines too, light and shadow turning fearless reporters into noir heroes. It’s easy to love journalism stories as a journalist, but in a time when the craft is so reviled by those it exposes, it’s even more satisfying to revel in how the shoe-leather gets made. —Peter Rubin
Sandworm by Andy Greenberg (Nov. 5)
OK, I’m biased. But the fact that I’ve worked with Andy Greenberg for years also means I’ve seen up close what a diligent, insightful, outrageously talented reporter and writer he is. In Sandworm, he brings those talents to bear in uncovering the story of a group of Russian hackers who have pulled off some of the most brazen cyberattacks of the 21st century. And they’re still active today. Sandworm offers both a ripping narrative of a hack that broke the world and a worrying glimpse at cyberwar’s rapidly evolving future. You don’t even have to take my word for it; you can already read an excerpt that details the havoc unleashed by the NotPetya ransomware epidemic in 2017. If that doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will. —Brian Barrett
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Nov. 5)
With Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado completely turned the world of short-story genre fiction upside down. (This is not a convoluted Stranger Things reference, just a fact.) Her writing is vibrant, it breathes, and her characters are as well-drawn as they are enigmatic. There is no reason to think Machado’s forthcoming memoir, In the Dream House, will be any less well-crafted. The book is described as Machado’s “engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse,” and it’s all of that and then some. Machado brought bravery, heart, insight, and even humor to her relationship with her mother in the essay she wrote for this year’s What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About; In the Dream House is the same, on a much grander and more introspective scale. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Machado doesn’t stray from her genre roots—there are still plenty of Star Trek references and deconstructed fairy tales. —Angela Watercutter
I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story by Anthony Daniels (Nov. 5)
Here’s some inside baseball for you: Journalists love an “inside story” (which is only occasionally about baseball). If we get inside a company? Inside story! If we get inside a human-trafficking ring? Inside story! Personally, I hate the cliche—spatialized scoops?—and have been fighting a losing battle against it for years. I make an exception, however, for the subtitle of Anthony Daniels’ new memoir, I Am C-3PO (and I also, generally, hate subtitles). That’s right—Daniels was quite literally inside that gleaming gold shell! His is the truest kind of inside story! OK, I’ve made my point. C-3PO always made his point too, didn’t he? Without regard for time or place. He spoke his mind, insofar as “he” had a “mind.” Well, of course he had a mind. He had a better head on his shoulders than most of his fellow spacefarers (until he lost his head in one of those prequels). After all these years, lines of his from the original trilogy still ring in my head and come out in my everyday speech. “Goodnessgraciousme.” “Shut. Me. Down.” I love the guy, and I can’t wait to love the man—whose autograph I still have on a poster in my childhood bedroom—on the inside. —Jason Kehe
White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson (Nov. 12)
It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that since the very beginning of the American project, blackness—as labor, entertainment, and physical desire—has been for sale. Or, maybe sale isn’t the exact designation I’m searching for here. Instead, how about: Blackness, since its modern inception, was identified as a perverse form of American capital by white purveyors who refused to abdicate power. Of course, “to those who been knew,” as author Lauren Michele Jackson perfectly styles it in her savvy, utterly fantastic debut, White Negroes: When Cornrows Were In Vogue … And Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation, this breed of culture-scavenging is nothing novel. Presaged by academic pioneers like Harry J. Elam Jr—who forewarned how it “remains exceedingly attractive and possible in this post-black, post-soul age of black cultural traffic to love black cool and not love black people”—Jackson remixes a familiar pedagogy with refreshing insight, digging into the tangled politics of appropriation. She traverses everything from Kim Kardashian and pop music to the impact of Vine and meme-making. “Silicon Valley can ignore every sign of life on this planet,” she writes, “but will never escape the blackness of the web.” She’s not wrong. —Jason Parham
