The end of the year is closing in upon us, and so too is the publishing year. But there are still plenty of great titles coming to shelves this fall, so let’s get to the highlights:
--Can lightning strike twice? Authors Andy Weir and Peter Wohlleben are hoping so. Weir scored a big hit with 2014’s The Martian, which started out as a free online novel and ended up a huge bestseller and a film starring Matt Damon. November 14 sees the publication of his second novel, Artemis, a thriller-heist comedy set on a moon colony. It’s already getting great reviews. Wohlleben had an even unlikelier bestseller with his 2016 The Hidden Life of Trees, an examination of the surprisingly social ecosystem of forests. The follow up volume, The Inner Lives of Animals, hits shelves November 7.
--It’s a good time to be a Wisconsinite, as authors and subjects from the state get some special attention this fall. Wisconsin State Journal sage Michael Perry makes a connection with his sixteenth century counterpart in Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy. (As an added bonus, you can philosophize with Perry for free at this year’s Wisconsin Book Festival.) Local author Jennifer Chiaverini continues her fictional portraits of groundbreaking women with Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace, appearing early December. An earlier Wisconsinite gets the full biographical treatment from Caroline Fraser in Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, certain to shed more light on the influential children’s author.
--This year has seen a bumper crop of politics books and the trend shows no sign of stopping. Former CBS anchor Dan Rather offers his thoughts on what patriotism is in What Unites Us, while actor Alec Baldwin takes his Trump persona up a level with the appropriately grandiose You Can't Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump (a So-Called Parody). Both books, appropriately, land on shelves almost precisely a year after Election Day 2016. For those who like their politics cooled by intervening years, Robert Dallek has a hefty one volume portrait of FDR coming out on November 7. Those nostalgic of the more recent past can look forward to former White House photographer Peter Souza’s visual biography of 44 in Obama: An Intimate Portrait.
Click on through for the full list of titles, including new works by favorites Louise Erdrich, P. D. James, Alexander McCall Smith and more. Happy reading!