New month, new books! Book Light is our Dandelion Chandelier curated list of the most-anticipated new releases for September 2019. The perfect September read is as crisp and bracing as an autumn breeze. So what are the best new books coming in September 2019? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found.
What are the Best Books Coming in September 2019?
The new book releases of September 2019 are surprisingly light in spirit on the whole. There are novels of squabbling sisters, quixotic journeys and the potential power of Doctor Zhivago to change the world. There are memoirs and remembrances of witty and stylish men. And serious and smart women.
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Of course, it’s never all sweetness and light. Margaret Atwood returns with the next chapter in the saga she began with The Handmaid’s Tale. Nick Lemann weighs in on the high human cost of capitalism. Jonathan Safran Foer does the same for climate change. It’s not all sparkling sassiness in September.
Like this list of the most-anticipated books in September 2019, one of the things we love most about September is how it straddles two worlds. Summer is fading, but it’s not quite gone. Autumn is approaching, but it hasn’t yet arrived. What’s in the middle is uncertain, unpredictable and sometimes enchanting. Here, we have new novels from luminaries like Emma Donoghue, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson, Alice Hoffman and Ann Patchett. New essays from brilliant writers like Rachel Cusk and Leslie Jamison. And even a memoir from the infamous Edward Snowden.
Not sugary sweet, and not dark and gloomy, the new book releases of September are collectively that special blend that we love this time of year: spicy, juicy, rejuvenating and utterly satisfying.
It’s going to be a great month to read.
New books coming out in September 2019
Here’s our pick of the top new books – novels, essay collections, and non-fiction – that we cannot wait to read this September. You can pre-order them now if you like. We’ll love you whether or not you buy them via our site, dear reader. But if you choose to do that, we get a little pocket change to keep the lights on here at Dandelion Chandelier. Just wanted to be sure you knew.
best new book releases September 3, 2019
1.
The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine. The titular grammarians of this novel of manners are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe. They’re identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They communicate in a secret language of their own as children. As adults making their way in ’80’s Manhattan, their love affair with words grows even stronger. But somehow it also begins to push them apart. – Publication date: September 3, 2019
2.
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie. In this modern re-imagining of Don Quixote, a mediocre spy thriller writer creates a character who sets off across the country to meet the TV star he’s in love with – Publication date: September 3, 2019
3.
Bill Cunningham: On the Street: Five Decades of Iconic Photography by The New York Times. For those who love fashion and those who love New York, one of the most-anticipated books September 2019 is this one. It’s the first published collection of photographs by the late icon of street style, Bill Cunningham. It brings together beloved and iconic photos previously published in The New York Times. And also never-before-seen work that spans five decades – Publication Date September 3, 2019
4.
Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire by Susan Ronald. Did you know that there was an actual person behind the name of the leading luxury magazine holding company? This is the first biography in over thirty years of Condé Nast, the pioneering publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair and rival of media magnate William Randolph Hearst. His life and career were as high profile and glamourous as his publications. Moving to New York in the early twentieth century with just the shirt on his back, he soon became the highest paid executive in the United States. – Publication Date September 3, 2019
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best new book releases September 10, 2019
5.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her—freedom, prison or death. With The Testaments, the wait is over. Atwood picks up 15 years after Offred stepped into the unknown. – Publication date: September 10, 2019
6.
Akin by Emma Donoghue. In her first contemporary novel since Room, the author returns with a new story of family and loss. A retired chemistry professor and widower journeys with his 11-year-old great-nephew from New York to the French Riviera, where his life is thrown into disarray when he tries to uncover his mother’s wartime secrets – Publication Date: September 10, 2019
7.
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann. In today’s economy, stable institutions have given way to frictionless transactions, celebrated no matter what collateral damage they generate. How did this happen? The author explains how by examining three highly influential individuals. First, Adolf Berle, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s chief theorist of the economy, who imagined a society dominated by large corporations. Second, Harvard Business School’s Michael Jensen, who insisted in the 1970’s that firms should maximize shareholder value, whatever the consequences. And finally, Silicon Valley titan, LinkedIn cofounder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman. Whose hope is that “networks” can reknit our social fabric – Publication Date: September 10, 2019
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8.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell. The latest from the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers is an excursion through history, psychology, and scandal. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland. And throws our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know – Publication Date: September 10, 2019
9.
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power. In this memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author offers an urgent response to the question “What can one person do?” It traces her incredible journey from immigrant to war correspondent to Cabinet official in the Obama Administration. In 2013, Power became US Ambassador to the United Nations, the youngest American ever to assume the role What can one person do? Quite a lot, actually – Publication Date: September 10, 2019
10.
Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant by Anne Gardiner Perkins. In the winter of 1969, the first group of female high school students was invited to apply to Yale University. When they arrived on campus in the fall, they were isolated, mocked, barred from certain bastions of power and in some instances assaulted. This is the story of how these young women fought back – Publication Date: September 10, 2019
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The Divers’ Game: A Novel by Jesse Ball. In this dystopian novel by the author of Census, the world has given up on the concept of equality. Society is divided between two groups, one of which is allowed to kill the other as they like with no consequences. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? – Publication date: September 10, 2019
12.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. Set in a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures in the early 1900’s, this is whimsical debut novel tells the story of January Scaller. The young girl is the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke; she feels invisible in his grand home. Then she finds a book, with a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger – Publication date: September 10, 2019
best new book releases September 17, 2019
13.
Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser. Many argue that no writer embodies the American twentieth century as fully as Susan Sontag. And this new biography is one of the most-anticipated new books September 2019. Just as Camp: Notes on Fashion is winding down at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, here’s a chance to learn the story of the woman who wrote the essay that inspired it all.
Sontag was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down. She was in Vietnam, Israel and Sarajevo during times of war. And in New York when contemporary art became a global commercial enterprise. This is an intimate portrait of a complex and fascinating woman who was witness to many of the defining elements of modern Western culture – Publication date: September 17, 2019
14.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer. Will future generations distinguish between those who didn’t believe in the science of global warming and those who said they accepted the science but failed to change their lives in response? The author argues in a passionate and intensely personal way that the task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves – Publication date: September 17, 2019
15.
Permanent Record by Edward Snowden. The National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of secret documents in 2013 has written a memoir– Publication date: September 17, 2019
16.
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Woodson’s first novel for adults since Another Brooklyn is about two families from different social classes that are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy. – Publication date: September 17, 2019
17.
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott. Inspired by a true story, this debut novel is about women tasked at the height of the Cold War with smuggling Doctor Zhivago out of the U.S.S.R., where its publication was blocked. – Publication date: September 17, 2019
18.
A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier. Set in England in 1932, a young woman grieves the loss of her beloved brother and her fiancé in the Great War. Violet has become a “surplus woman,” one of a generation doomed to a life of spinsterhood after the war killed so many young men. This is the story of how she finds a way to come into her own on at the dawn of World War 2 – Publication date: September 17, 2019
best new book releases September 24, 2019
19.
Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin. After beginning her attempt to adopt a black child as a single parent, the author experienced the full weight of expectations and stereotypes about motherhood and race in America. In this account of her parenting journey, she examines the history of adoption in the African American community. And shares the daunting reality of raising children of color in the current environment – Publication date: September 23, 2019
20.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me returns with a novel. Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage, and orphaned soon after. But he is gifted with a mysterious power after he almost drowns. As an adult, he enlists in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all the while intent on freeing the family he left behind. First, though, he must master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. By the way, the novel’s striking cover image was painted by the artist Calida Garcia Rawles – Publication date: September 24, 2019
21.
Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays by Leslie Jamison. Among Jamison’s subjects are 52 Blue, deemed “the loneliest whale in the world”; the eerie past-life memories of children; the devoted citizens of an online world called Second Life; the haunted landscape of the Sri Lankan Civil War; and an entire museum dedicated to the relics of broken relationships. – Publication date: September 24, 2019
22.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. One of the most-anticipated books coming in September 2019 is Patchett’s new novel. Set over the course of five decades, its a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. A patriarch propels his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Fast forward, and his two children have been exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. Thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from, the two siblings struggle to move on – Publication date: September 24, 2019
23.
A Book Lover’s Guide to New York by Cleo Le-Tan, Contribution by Olympia Le-Tan, Illustrated by Pierre Le-Tan. This charming book is an illustrated guide to New York City tailored for the book-obsessed explorer. It showcases the city’s best bookshops; libraries; homes and haunts of world-famous writers. And scenes from literary classics set in New York. It’s all accompanied by drawings from the famed New Yorker cover artist Pierre Le-Tan. – Publication date: September 24, 2019
24.
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman. In 1941 Berlin, a mother takes her 12-year-old daughter, Lea, to a renowned rabbi to save her life. The rabbi’s daughter provides salvation by creating a golem, sworn to protect Lea. – Publication date: September 24, 2019
the Best New Books Coming in September 2019
Those are our picks for the best and most-anticipated books coming in September 2019. What’s at the top of your list?
Join our community
For access to insider ideas and information on the world of luxury, sign up for our Dandelion Chandelier newsletter, here. And see luxury in a new light.
