New month, new books! Book Light is our Dandelion Chandelier curated list of the most-anticipated new book releases every month, and next up is October 2022. If you ask us, the perfect October read is like the perfect Halloween candy basket: sweet and sour; salty and crisp; and almost (but not quite) too much. So what are the best new book releases of October 2022? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found: the best, most anticipated new novels, poetry and essay collections and non-fiction books coming out in October 2022.
what are the most anticipated new book releases coming in October 2022?
Wondering what to read in October 2022? We’ve surveyed the landscape, and rounded up a list of the best new books coming this October – which are some of the best new books of fall 2022.
Traditionally, October is a big month in book publishing, as publishers gear up for the holidays, and serious tomes arrive in time for consideration on all the “best books of the year” lists. And while it’s not quite the deluge of prior years, there are a lot of important new book releases coming in October 2022.
The best and most anticipated new novels and non-fiction books coming in October 2022.
new fiction and poetry
In the world of fiction, there are new novels from luminaries like George Saunders, Cormac McCarthy, Orhan Pamuk, Elizabeth McCracken, Barbara Kingsolver and Celeste Ng. And several buzzed-about debuts (we’re looking at you, Which Side Are You On).
new non-fiction
Biographies and memoirs abound, from a new work about the lift and influence of Stevie Nicks to a new treatise about Abraham Lincoln. There’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Bridgerton. Plus a compilation of essays about women’s intuition. And a manifesto about the importance of getting enough sleep if you truly want to succeed as an advocate for social justice.
As we all head back into the kitchen for the holiday and baking seasons, there are some fantastic new cookbooks and nonfiction books about the culinary arts, including a new cookbook from the great Claudia Fleming.
the most anticipated new novels and non-fiction Books coming out in October 2022
Here’s our pick of what to read from the crop of eagerly anticipated new book releases coming in October 2022: the best books from a range of genres, including novels, essay collections, poetry and nonfiction. You can pre-order them now if you like.
new novels and non-fiction book releases October 4, 2022
1. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng.
The bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere returns with Our Missing Hearts, which tells the story of 12-year-old Bird Gardner, who lives with his father in a near future governed by laws written to “preserve American culture.” Bird’s mother, a Chinese American poet whose work has been banned from libraries, left the family when he was nine. When a mysterious drawing spurs a quest to find her, Bird relies on an underground network of librarians and ancient folktales to guide him.
BUY NOW
2. Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk.
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is back with Nights of Plague, a novel that imagines a pestilence ravaging a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire, Mingheria, circa 1900. “Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives—brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria—the island revolts.”
To stop the epidemic, the far-away sultan sends his most accomplished medical expert to the island; he just happens to be an Orthodox Christian. Out of mistrust, some of the Muslims refuse to take precautions or follow quarantine rules. And then a murder occurs. The ensuing chaos causes the world’s powers to blockade the island to prevent a global pandemic. And the islanders realize that they have to solve their problems on their own.
BUY NOW
3. The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken.
The author of Bowlaway returns with a new novel about family and loss. Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother’s life and their relationship. The publisher notes that “What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write.”
BUY NOW
4. The Night Ship by Jess Kidd.
Based on a real-life event, The Night Ship is a novel illuminating the lives of two characters across three centuries. One is a girl who is shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia. The other is a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the same island three hundred years later.
BUY NOW
5. Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong.
The debut novel Which Side Are You On centers on Reed, a 21-year-old burgeoning community organizer, who wants to dedicate himself fully to the Black Lives Matter movement after an Asian American police officer kills a Black man. His mother (the former leader of a Korean-Black coalition) acts as a guiding light, forcing him to think through these larger questions.
BUY NOW
6. Life is Everywhere by Lucy Ives.
In Life is Everywhere, it’s Manhattan, 2014. An unseasonably warm Thursday in November (but not Thanksgiving Day). And Erin Adamo is locked out of her apartment. Her husband has just left her and her keys are in her coat, which she abandoned at her parents’ apartment after a fight with her father. Erin takes refuge in the library of the university where she is a grad student. Her bag contains two manuscripts she’s written, along with a monograph by a faculty member who’s recently become embroiled in a scandal. Erin isn’t sure what she’s doing, but a small, mostly unconscious part of her knows: within these documents is the key she needs to get her life back.
BUY NOW
7. Jackal by Erin E. Adams.
In the debut thriller/horror novel Jackal, a young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside a white rust belt town in the middle of a wedding reception. But she’s not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .
BUY NOW
8. Mirror in the Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks by Simon Morrison.
Mirror in the Sky is a biography of Stevie Nicks, one of the best and most popular songwriters of the twentieth century. We learn of her life both before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-lit “Night of 1000 Stevies” celebrations. Now we cannot get that title song of our heads! That’s what a great songwriter she is.
BUY NOW
9. Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition by Amber Tamblyn.
The new anthology Listening in the Dark includes essays from Lidia Yuknavitch, Jia Tolentino, Samantha Irby, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Amy Poehler, America Ferrera, Ada Limón, Huma Abedin and many others. All of them share how intuition has helped to shape and alter their life choices.
BUY NOW
new novels and non-fiction book releases October 11, 2022
10. Tell Me the Truth About Love by Erik Tarloff.
“A novel about sexual love, love between friends, between exes, between parents and children, between lovers old and new,” Tell Me the Truth About Love contains multitudes. Toby Lindeman, a divorcee living in San Francisco, seems to be living the dream: handsome, charming and emotionally free. He’s great at his job as a fundraiser for the opera, and content to skitter across the surface of life. But then he falls in love with the most inappropriate woman possible: the mistress of the powerful man on whom his own future seems to depend.
BUY NOW
11. Dinosaurs: A Novel by Lydia Millet.
A follow-up to A Children’s Bible, Dinosaurs features “an accidental millionaire who walks from New York to Arizona, a house with one wall made of entirely of glass, a castle next door (where the millionaire lives), a lot of beguiling wildlife, a Friendly Man, an outrageous request, and a nighttime confrontation in which one party is dressed as a bat.”
BUY NOW
12. Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey.
Hersey especially addresses the soul-deep weariness of Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved. The system of slavery that treated humans like machines for production, Hersey says, is the same system that drives today’s punishing, profit-driven economic system. Rest Is Resistance is a call to move toward racial justice and community healing by engaging in activities that have nothing to do with productivity, such as daydreaming and napping.
BUY NOW
13. All Things Aside: Absolutely Correct Opinions by Iliza Shlesinger.
In All Things Aside, the comedian shares her thoughts about many of the pressing matters of modern life. “Topics range from dissecting social expectations to the notion that products marketed specifically to women are scams, and all manner of things in between. She even dares to ask herself the all-important question that every modern woman is forced to consider at some point: Am I actually an annoying person?”
BUY NOW
new novels and non-fiction book releases October 18, 2022
14. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
The author of Unsheltered and Flight Behavior has penned a new novel set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. Demon Copperhead is inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Both convey the tragedy of childhood poverty in an industrialized nation, fueled by anger and compassion and a desire to humanize the struggles of marginalized children the world over.
BUY NOW
15. Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders.
The Booker Prize winner returns with his first collection of short stories since the bestselling Tenth of December. Liberation Day is “a collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice with stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.”
BUY NOW
16. Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro.
Signal Fires opens on a summer night in 1985. Three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car, shattering lives in a horrific accident. For one family, the circumstances of the fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret – one so dangerous it can never be spoken.
BUY NOW
17. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham.
In And There Was Light, the Presidential speechwriter, television commentator and Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln. It’s an in-depth account of how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. The timing is apt, as this year marks 100 years since the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.
BUY NOW
new novels and non-fiction book releases October 25, 2022
18. The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the first of a two-volume series. The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss. At the site of a plane crash, he locates the remains of those lost. But missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. What follows is a meditation on grief, loss and the unbearable weight of guilt.
BUY NOW
19. The Singularities by John Banville.
The Singularities opens with the scene of a man with a borrowed name stepping from a red sports car—also borrowed—onto the country estate where he grew up. This mystery man has just completed a prison sentence, and in that moment of freedom, it feels “as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways.” Soon he’s in conflict with the family who now owns his ancestral home – and with their household staff. Then, a mystery woman enters the fracas.
BUY NOW
20. Sign Here by Claudia Lux.
Sign Here is perhaps the ultimate workplace novel, especially as Halloween draws near. Here’s the publisher’s description: “Working in Hell is about what you’d expect; managers are awful, the food is bad and the drinks are worse, and good luck finding a pen that works. But Peyote Trip just has to get one more member of the Harrison family to sign away their soul and his plan of escape will be in motion. Sadly, just like on Earth, nothing in this hilarious and surprisingly sweet journey through Hell goes as planned.”
BUY NOW
21. Stroller by Amanda Parrish Morgan.
The latest entry in Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series is about all things stroller: its history as both a parenting and status symbol; the ways strollers aid and impede parents; and how, as an object, the stroller has come under scrutiny by those who believe more firmly in baby wearing. The stroller, like most things associated with parenting, is deeply political and emotional and cultural.
BUY NOW
22. The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
The Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Emperor of All Maladies returns with a new book about cells. Covering everything from their discovery in the 1600s through today’s rapidly developing technology for healing and manipulating our maladies on a cellular level, The Song of the Cell provides the chance to learn about the latest in medical science from an author skilled at making complicated facts understandable. And actionable.
BUY NOW
23. Inside Bridgerton by Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers.
Inside Bridgerton is the behind-the-scenes story of the hit Netflix series. The executive producers offer fascinating insights in how the show came together. All just to tide us over until Season 3!
BUY NOW
24. Delectable: Sweet & Savory Baking by Claudia Fleming and Catherine Young.
Just in time for holiday baking season comes a new cookbook from an acclaimed desert chef. It’s her first in twenty years, since she penned The Last Course. A culinary classic, that one was a collection of recipes from the menus at Gramercy Tavern. With Delectable, a new collection of recipes, everything is closer to home. All of these were developed and tweaked in her own kitchen: 140+ sweet and savory recipes she perfected for friends and family.
BUY NOW
most anticipated releases of new novels and non-fiction books in October 2022
Those are our picks for what to read this month: 25 of the best and most anticipated new book releases coming in October 2022. What’s at the top of your list? Whatever you decide, stay safe and strong and have a great month, dear reader.
