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 2023. If you ask us, the perfect October read is like the perfect Halloween candy basket: filled with treats, and no empty calories. So what are the best new book releases of October 2023? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found: the best, most-anticipated new novels, poetry and essay collections and nonfiction books coming out in October 2023.
what are the most-anticipated new book releases coming in October 2023?
Wondering what to read in October 2023? We’ve surveyed the landscape, and rounded up a list of the best new books coming this October – which are also some of the best new books of fall 2023.
Traditionally, October is a big month in book publishing, as publishers gear up for the holidays, and serious tomes arrive in time to be considered for 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 2023.
35 new novels and nonfiction book releases in October 2023
Here’s our pick of what to read from the crop of eagerly anticipated new book releases coming in October 2023: 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 nonfiction book releases October 3, 2023
1. Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem.
The author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn returns with Brooklyn Crime Novel, a “sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood.”
2. Our Strangers: Stories by Lydia Davis.
Available only at independent bookstores and libraries, at the author’s request, Our Strangers is the latest collection of short fiction from the widely-admired storyteller. “Artful, deft, and inventive . . . these stories delves into topics ranging from marriage to tiny insects.”
3. Death Valley by Melissa Broder.
Death Valley is the latest novel from the author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, described as “a darkly funny novel about grief that becomes a desert survival story.” A woman arrives alone at a motel in the California high desert to escape the pain of her father’s and her husband’s worsening health. On a hike, she encounters a giant cactus that seems to have a doorway that beckons to her. So she enters. And then it gets interesting.
4. The History of Sketch Comedy: A Journey Through the Art and Craft of Humor by Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key.
The History of Sketch Comedy promises “an illuminating journey through all facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and the ascension of comedy films and TV specials—all the way through to a look at the future of sketch on social media platforms.” Who better than Key to be our guide?
5. Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina.
We can’t really explain why, but we love owls. So we’re keen to read Alfie and Me, the story of a couple who took in a near-death baby screech owl expecting to help her heal and then send her on her way, but who end up sharing their lives with her. And vice versa. Coinciding with the quarantine rules of 2020, this unusual friendship is the basis for a deeper meditation on humanity and nature.
6. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon.
The history of humanity as seen from the perspective of women, Eve is – in the author’s own words – a revolutionary rethinking of the theory of evolution and a provocative look at scientific exploration. She writes: “We need a kind of user’s manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story.”
7. Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet by Taylor Lorenz.
Extremely Online sounds . . . extremely interesting. In it, the author – a Washington Post reporter – “documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It’s the real social history of the internet.” We’re in.
8. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis.
The prolific biographer is back, and he continues to have an uncanny ability to be in just the right place to report on a topic both timely and supremely interesting. In Going Infinite, the subject is “Sam Bankman-Fried, the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby.” His spectacular rise and fall (as of this posting, he remains in jail awaiting trial) is riveting. Like Elizabeth Holmes, Bankman-Fried became the buzzed-about and widely praised face of entrepreneurship and savvy risk-taking in America. And then he became the face of a cautionary tale about hubris and fraud and the risks of believing a story that seems too good to be true.
9. A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
A Man of Two Faces is a personal memoir from a brilliant novelist. Unsurprisingly, he’s able to make his life story relatable by widening the aperture to include meditations on refugeehood, colonization, Vietnam and America.
10. How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair.
How to Say Babylon is the story of the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing. Governed by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, it’s an inspiration testament to the importance of finding one’s own voice.
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new novels and nonfiction book releases October 10, 2023
11. The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok.
A woman arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support. She’s fleeing a controlling husband and in search of the daughter who was taken from her at birth. Meanwhile, a young female publishing executive juggles the demands of her high-powered career, her husband, and the adopted Chinese daughter she adores. The two are on a collision course, with only one thing in common: their love for a child.
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12. The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda.
The author of Kitchen and Dead-End Memories returns with the story of a 19-year old woman haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Following her instincts, she moves in with her mysterious aunt. An instant bestseller in Japan when it was first published in 1988, this the first time the book has been available in English.
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13. Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.
The first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author since Unaccustomed Earth, Roman Stories features nine tales. In each, the complex and contradictory city of Rome—”metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting.”
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14. The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella
Here’s the can’t-resist premise of this latest novel from the prolific author: two burned out professionals meet at a ramshackle resort on the British seaside. They’re the only two guests, and they have distinctly different recovery plans. “She: manifesting, wild swimming. He: drinking whisky, getting pizza delivered to the beach.” Hmmm . . . wonder how this all ends . . .
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15. Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business by Roxane Gay.
The acclaimed author of Bad Feminist and Hunger returns with a compilation of essays from the past 10 years. From broad societal issues (mass incarceration, women’s rights, online disinformation) to highly personal matters (can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze?). We’re here for all of it.
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16. Activate Your Greatness by Alex Toussaint.
The author, a star Peloton instructor (and the object of our long-term crush), hops off the bike. In his first book, he shares his trademark inspiration and motivation to teach us how to activate our greatness in every aspect of our lives.
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17. Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
The author of Memorial and Lot returns with a new novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.
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new novels and nonfiction book releases October 17, 2023
18. Tremor by Teju Cole
In the new novel from the author of the magnificent Open City and Known and Strange Things comes the story of Tunde, a West African man working as a photography teacher on a renowned New England campus. Like the author, “he is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories . . . together these stories make up his days. In aggregate these days comprise a life.”
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19. Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Worthy chronicles the dramatic twists and turns in the life of Smith – actress, founder of the Red Table Talk series, wife of Will Smith and mother of three. Will she discuss The Slap? We hope so.
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20. The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Gregg Hecimovich.
“A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a preface by Henry Louis Gates Jr.”
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21. Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass
“In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. A trial of Japanese leaders seemed to be the only way forward. For more than two years, lawyers for both sides presented their cases before a panel of clashing judges from China, India, the Philippines, and Australia, as well as the United States and European powers. Yet rather than clarity and unanimity, the trial brought complexity, dissents, and divisions that provoke international discord between China, Japan, and Korea to this day.”
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22. The Hidden Language of Cats: How They Have Us at Meow by Sarah Brown.
As feline parents ourselves, we anxiously await the publication of The Hidden Language of Cats. The book promises to “reveal the previously unexplored secrets of cat communication.” Each chapter dives into a different form of communication, including vocalizations, tail signals, scents, rubbing, and ear movements. Most importantly, it will help us understand “how our cats perceive us.” A little nervous about that one, but we await our enlightenment.
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23. The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind by Joseph Nocera and Bethany McLean.
The collaborators behind the business book All the Devils are Here return with an assessment of how American capitalism functioned during the age of COVID 19. The country was unprepared for a global pandemic – who’s to blame for that, and how to we avoid a repeat?
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24. The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft by Peter Bellerby.
“A profound convergence of art and science, a globe is the ultimate visualization of our place in our galaxy and universe. To be a globemaker requires a knowledge of geography, skilled engineering, drawing, and painting, and only a few people in history have ever really mastered the craft.” This is the history of how one modern company achieved it.
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25. Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin.
Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine in Detroit was a spot during the 1980’s “where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal.” This memoir is a loving recounting of what it was like for the author as he came of age in the family who own the restaurant.
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26. Black Friend by Ziwe.
In this debut collection of essays, the author “combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories, which grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods,” this is a serious look at being Black in America that’s also hysterically funny.
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new novels and nonfiction book releases October 24, 2023
27. Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward.
With a title taken from a line in Dante’s Inferno, Let Us Descend is a novel that reimagines American slavery. Told through the eyes of a young girl sold down the river by the white enslaver who fathered her, the hellscape of slavery comes to terrifying life.
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28. I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast.
The first rule of dinner party etiquette is: never discuss what you dreamed about recently. ‘Cause, like, nobody cares. But in this charming new book from the illustrator, we are treated to exactly that. “Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through ‘Dream-Theory Land’ guided by insights from poets, philosophers, and psychoanalysts alike.” We’ll make an exception to the rule for this. ‘Cause we love her work, and if she’s going there, we’ll follow.
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29. Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard.
So, surely you’ve heard by now that American men spend a hugely disproportionate amount of time thinking about Rome and the Roman Empire. Like, it crosses their minds every day. Small wonder that this book is already a bestseller and it isn’t even for sale yet. It’s a “sweeping account of the social and political world of the Roman emperors by ‘the world’s most famous classicist'” – who, we note, is female.
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30. Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant.
Our friend, the University of Pennsylvania professor and author of Think Again, returns with a new book that should lift our collective spirits. In a world obsessed with whiz kids and precocious geniuses, we may feel that by the time we’re adults, our best days are already behind us. But that’s not true, says the author. “We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.” This is a robust framework for exceeding expectations (including our own). “Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop.”
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new novels and nonfiction book releases October 31, 2023
31. Absolution by Alice McDermott.
“American women―American wives―have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage.” In Saigon in 1963, two women form a wary alliance. Sixty years later, the daughter of one of them reaches out to the other and we follow their exploration of the aftermath of the war – and what absolution might entail.
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32. Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins by Jennet Conant.
Who was Maggie Higgins? Her story is not as well-known as it should be. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, Higgins arrived on the world stage after publishing her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. “Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence―the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting.” Male rival reporters were part of the reason her legacy is not better known – along with her untimely death. Now her talent and daring are back in the spotlight.
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the most-anticipated new book releases coming in October 2023
That’s our list of the best releases and most-anticipated new novels, poetry and essay collections and nonfiction books coming out in October 2023. What’s at the top of your list, dear reader?
