Our Fall Preview is in the books, and the Kirkus Prize is right around the corner. September has been packed with must-read books for readers of any persuasion. Here are six of my favorites.
Let’s begin with delight. Award-winning poet and essayist Ross Gay returns with The Book of (More) Delights (Algonquin, Sept. 19), the charming follow-up to The Book of Delights. In his latest, the author delivers more than 80 heart-gladdening vignettes to soothe and nourish readers in rough times. In a starred review, our critic notes, “Keenly observed and delivered with deftness, these essays are a testament to the artfulness of attention and everyday joy.”
Readers fascinated by far-flung adventures will love Adam Goodheart’s latest book, The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth (Godine, Sept. 12). Goodheart, the author of 1861, takes us to North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal, home to the Sentinelese people, likely the most isolated tribe on the planet. It’s “a thrilling book that will leave you contemplating the concept of civilization,” according to our review.
Turning to memoir, Omega Farm: A Memoir (Scribner, Sept. 12), by Martha McPhee, recounts the author’s move from New York City to her family’s New Jersey farm, where she sheltered-in-place during the pandemic with her aging mother, who was suffering from dementia. “One of the book’s many strengths,” writes our reviewer, “is the author’s ability to see herself clearly: The passages in which she narrates her own bad behavior are fascinating, which is rare in the memoir genre.”
For all foodies, I highly recommend The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Lost Flavors of the Past (Greystone Books, Sept. 19), by Taras Grescoe, a kind of anthropological journey into foods from the past. From the study of olive oil, to intriguing elements of the Aztec diet, to bread-making methods taken from a Neolithic site, Grescoe seeks to understand our current shrinking biodiversity in food production and consumption. Throughout, the author “writes with color, energy, and humor,” says our review, “and the result is a fascinating book that leaves you hungry for more.”
“Many nondisabled people think that disabled people just want to be ‘normal.’ As this brief, outstanding text shows, that’s not only wrong, but cruel.” So writes our critic in their starred review of Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (Norton, Sept. 19), Ashley Shew’s potent manifesto against ableism. Ripping apart stereotypes of the disabled community, the author deftly interweaves personal experiences, research into high-tech prosthetics and other technology, and dashes of acidic humor, creating a book that is “essential reading for the disabled and nondisabled alike.”
In a time of unprecedented gun violence, Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson’s American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Sept. 26) offers “a superb history of an innovative weapon,” a lethal firearm that has been embraced by the NRA and right-wing activists across the country. This is not dry history; our review calls it “a meticulously researched and impressively informed book; despite careful explanations of technical details, the narrative moves along briskly and engagingly.”
Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor.
