5 New Books You Need to Check out in September
There’s one thing about not going back to school in the fall that I love—well, there are many things about it that I love, but not least of them is that there is no assigned reading. I get to choose whatever I want! No Wuthering Heights for the third time! No cold, damp Dickensian childhoods to slog through while the heat index somehow continues to rise. No! No more: now, I can forgo all the classics if I want to, because public school had their time. Now, I can read only new releases, if I choose to.
And these are the new releases that I’m choosing for the month of September:
Okay, so this one is technically releasing when it’s still summer, but it’s the perfect way to ease into spooky season. You might remember Emma Donoghue’s suspenseful historical novel, The Wonder, or her heartbreaking book Room. This book is sure to be just as breathtaking. A heavily researched novel, Learned by Heart is the love story of Anne Lister, a mischievous tomboy, and Elizabeth Raine, an orphaned English heiress exiled to India. They meet when they’re fourteen, in 1805 at the Manor School in York.
Okay, while I might not choose a lot of classic British Lit, the Gothic Novel falls into reading that does not need to be assigned to me because I love a slow and spooky burn. Plus, I adore a good re-release of a classic piece of Gothic horror, and Rebecca won the Anthony Award for “Best Novel of the Century.” Of the century! Plus, the first film adaptation of this book was the Academy Award winning 1940 film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. When our heroine is whisked away from her life of hard work as a lady’s maid by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter, she arrives at his enormous estate unprepared. That is, she does not anticipate that the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca will linger on… and perhaps her actual ghost, as well.
How did the Party of Lincoln end up forging alliances with “extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers?” David Corn goes deep into the crevasse of hidden history that culminated in the unignorable insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Helen is a graduate student in physics, studying to solve for high-temperature superconductivity to save the planet. When her mentor resigns from his position in disgrace, she follows her advisor to an island specifically for controversial scholars. It’s funded by a billionaire who provides sanctuary to other expelled academics, and naturally, new conflicts arise.
You might know her and love her as the comedienne from SNL, or maybe Supermarket Sweep or The Daily Show or Ghostbusters, but what you don’t know yet is the true story of her life… or, the underlying truth of hazy recollections “because a b*tch is fifty-five and she’s smoked a ton of weed.” From driving gig to gig in standup to wanting to shoot Whoopi Goldberg, this celebrity memoir that goes both hilarious and real.
Mary Kay McBrayer is the author of America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. You can find her short works at Oxford American, Narratively, Mental Floss, and FANGORIA, among other publications. She co-hosts Everything Trying to Kill You, the comedy podcast that analyzes your favorite horror movies from the perspectives of women of color. Follow Mary Kay McBrayer on Instagram and Twitter, or check out her author site here.