The books you need to know this October
Can you believe there are so many books publishing every single month? It’s a lot to comb through, so lucky for us Megan Collins, Trend Forecaster, Cultural Expert, and avid reader has combed through the latest releases so you don’t have to. She’s got 7 new releases for October that are perfect for cuddling up in your favorite cardigan and diving into.
I’m so excited to share with you seven new releases that I’ve added to my TBR in anticipation of fall, the time when I do most of my reading. It’s true; I've checked the data. Don’t let the heavy emphasis on romance novels in the beginning fool you, we end with a semiotic analysis of fashion. It’s all about balance. Plus, in a rare occurrence, this month's selections feature not just one but two male authors: Pulitzer Prize Winning author Andrew Sean Greer and renowned podcast host Bobby Finger!
The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh
At the urging of my friend Kaley, and my genuine enjoyment of Bridgerton the Netflix series, I’ve been trying to get more into romance novels. When I read that the plot involved a prophecy from a psychic and a family curse I knew 2 things. First, that it reminded me of Holes, and second that I wanted to read it.
DESCRIPTION: Everyone in Orange County's Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed.
It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave her marriage for true love--so a fearsome Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never find love or happiness, and the Duong women would give birth to daughters, never sons.
Oanh's current descendant Mai Nguyen knows this curse well. She's divorced, and after an explosive disagreement a decade ago, she's estranged from her younger sisters, Minh Pham (the middle and the mediator) and Khuyen Lam (the youngest who swears she just runs humble coffee shops and nail salons, not Little Saigon's underground). Though Mai's three adult daughters, Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao, are successful in their careers (one of them is John Cho's dermatologist!), the same can't be said for their love lives. Mai is convinced they might drive her to an early grave.
Desperate for guidance, she consults Auntie Hua, her trusted psychic in Hawaii, who delivers an unexpected prediction: this year, her family will witness a marriage, a funeral, and the birth of a son. This prophecy will reunite estranged mothers, daughters, aunts, and cousins--for better or for worse.
A multi-narrative novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.
The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas
As someone who’s been tracking our relationship to technology since my unhealthy obsession with Frogger in 1st grade, I’m very familiar with the concept of “parasocial relationships.” These are one-sided relationships now common in the digital era where one party—usually a viewer, follower, subscriber, etc.—is heavily invested in someone who does not share their interest and investment (nor are they expected to do so.)
The American Roommate Experiment plays on this phenomenon as a meet-cute. It seems like an interesting (if extreme) take on how technology can further complicate the already impossible-to-navigate world of love and dating, with a happy ever after (I'm assuming).
DESCRIPTION: Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. She just quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer. She hasn't told her family and now has terrible writer's block. Then, the ceiling of her New York apartment literally crumbles on her. Luckily she has her best friend Lina's spare key while she's out of town. But Rosie doesn't know that Lina has already lent her apartment to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been stalking--for lack of a better word--on Instagram for the last few months. Lucas seems intent on coming to her rescue like a Spanish knight in shining armor. Only this one strolls around the place in a towel, has a distracting grin, and an irresistible accent. Oh, and he cooks.
Lucas offers to let Rosie stay with him, at least until she can find some affordable temporary housing. And then he proposes an outrageous experiment to bring back her literary muse and meet her deadline: He'll take her on a series of experimental dates meant to jump-start her romantic inspiration. Rosie has nothing to lose. Her silly, online crush is totally under control--but Lucas's time in New York has an expiration date, and six weeks may not be enough, for either her or her deadline.
The Old Place by Bobby Finger
As a longtime fan (and lowkey evangelist) of the “Who? Weekly” podcast, I am beyond excited that co-host Bobby Finger has written and released his first novel! I’m especially looking forward to the book because it couldn’t be further removed from celebrity culture yet seems to have all the same critical thinking, media literacy and (let’s be real –gossip) that I have come to love and respect from the self-aware podcast.
DESCRIPTION: A bighearted and moving debut about a wry retired schoolteacher whose decade-old secret threatens to come to light and send shockwaves through her small Texas town.
Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement--or, district-mandated exile as she calls it--Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days. The annual picnic is coming up, but that isn't nearly enough since the menu never changes and she had the roles mentally assigned weeks ago. At least there's Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee and whose reemergence in Mary Alice's life is the one thing soothing the sting of retirement.
Mary Alice and Ellie were a pair since the day Ellie moved in next door. That they both were single mothers--Mary Alice widowed, Ellie divorced--with sons the same age was a pleasant coincidence, but they were forever linked when they lost the boys, one right after the other. Years later, the two are working their way back to a comfortable friendship. But when Mary Alice's sister arrives on her doorstep with a staggering piece of news, it jeopardizes the careful shell she's built around her life. The whole of her friendship with Ellie is put at risk, the fabric of a place as steadfast as Billington is questioned, and the unflappable, knotty fixture that is Mary Alice Roth might have to change after all.
I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers
From the striking and artistic cover to the chilling description Courtney Summers has me intrigued to say the least…
DESCRIPTION: All sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants is everything, but the poverty and hardship that defines her life has kept her from the beautiful and special things she knows she deserves. When she stumbles upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, Georgia teams up with Ashley's older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again, and their investigation throws Georgia into a glittering world of unimaginable privilege and wealth--and all she's ever dreamed. But behind every dream lurks a nightmare, and Georgia must reconcile her heart's desires with what it really takes to survive. As Ashley's killer closes in and their feelings for one another grow, Georgia and Nora will discover when money, power, and beauty rule, it's not always a matter of who is guilty but who is guiltiest--and the only thing that might save them is each other. A spiritual successor to the breakout hit Sadie, I'm the Girl is a brutal and illuminating account of how one young woman feels in her body as she struggles to navigate a deadly and predatory power structure while asking readers one question: if this is the way the world is, do you accept it?
Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
Less Is Lost is the sequel to one of my favorite books and go-to recommendations, Less by Andrew Sean Greer. The original novel follows author Arthur Less as he seeks to get over his soon-to-be-wed ex-boyfriend by embarking on an odyssey of his own across the globe. It’s funny and charming and I’m absolutely delighted that I get to spend another few hundred pages with this character. This sequel seems to be tackling issues of American masculinity head-on and I think Greer’s perspective will help me immensely as I continue to research this topic and how it impacts culture at large.
DESCRIPTION: For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly well: he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing lasts: the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a zigzagging adventure across the US.
Less roves across the "Mild Mild West," through the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace, with an ever-changing posse of writerly characters and his trusty duo - a human-like black pug, Dolly, and a rusty camper van nicknamed Rosina. He grows a handlebar mustache, ditches his signature gray suit, and disguises himself in the bolero-and-cowboy-hat costume of a true "Unitedstatesian"... with varying levels of success, as he continues to be mistaken for either a Dutchman, the wrong writer, or, worst of all, a "bad gay."
We cannot, however, escape ourselves--even across deserts, bayous, and coastlines. From his estranged father and strained relationship with Freddy, to the reckoning he experiences in confronting his privilege, Arthur Less must eventually face his personal demons. With all of the irrepressible wit and musicality that made Less a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning, must-read breakout book, Less Is Lost is a profound and joyous novel about the enigma of life in America, the riddle of love, and the stories we tell along the way.
Remember earlier this year when we talked about Pinterest’s predictions? One of them was a rise in interest in Ancient Greece. From my trend forecaster perspective, this has proven to be confirmed with books like Madeline Millers’ Song of Achilles and Circe taking bookclubs by storm. Mythology has officially entered the chat. In Ithaca, Claire revisits a tale we’re all familiar with: The Odyssey and tells it from the perspective of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. Talk about the female gaze!
DESCRIPTION: From the multi-award-winning author Claire North comes a daring reimagining that breathes life into ancient myth and gives voice to the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. It's time for the women of Ithaca to tell their tale . . . . Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne--not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca's shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women--and their goddesses-- that will change the course of the world.
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell
Speaking of the female gaze… lately, I’ve been thinking about something that Elizabeth Banks said on an episode of Armchair Expert “power wears a dress.” In a discussion about the making of the (admittedly less-than-stellar) Charlie’s Angels (2019) the director said that rather than adopt the sartorial uniform of her male peers, she opted to wear dresses. This idea that women can embody powerful roles without having to do it exactly as the men who came before them would have was very fascinating to me. I’m hoping to spend more time thinking about how and what our clothes can communicate about gender roles, norms, and shifts as I read Skirts.
DESCRIPTION: In a sparkling, beautifully illustrated social history, Skirts traces the shifting roles of women over the twentieth century through the era's most iconic and influential dresses.
While the story of women's liberation has often been framed by the growing acceptance of pants over the twentieth century, the most important and influential female fashions of the era featured skirts. Suffragists and soldiers marched in skirts; the heroines of the Civil Rights Movement took a stand in skirts. Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe revolutionized modern art and Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes in skirts. When NASA put a man on the moon, "the computer wore a skirt," in the words of one of those computers, mathematician Katherine G. Johnson. As women made strides towards equality in the vote, the workforce, and the world at large, their wardrobes evolved with them. They did not need to wear the pants to be powerful or progressive; the dress itself became modern as designers like Mariano Fortuny, Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, and Diane von Furstenberg redefined femininity for a new era.
Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell's Skirts looks at the history of twentieth-century womenswear through the lens of game-changing styles like the little black dress and the Bar Suit, as well as more obscure innovations like the Taxi dress or the Pop-Over dress, which came with a matching potholder. These influential garments illuminate the times in which they were first worn--and the women who wore them--while continuing to shape contemporary fashion and even opening the door for a genderfluid future of skirts. At once an authoritative work of history and a delightfully entertaining romp through decades of fashion, Skirts charts the changing fortunes, freedoms, and aspirations of women themselves.