What To Read

Every month, we share the books we can't wait to read. Our September staff picks include: literary all-star Sally Rooney's latest; Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk's Magic Mountain-inspired masterpiece; and a timely meditation on freedom from acclaimed historian Timothy Snyder.

FICTION

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Sep 24)

Selected by Fernanda Gorgulho

As the undisputed literary icon of the millennial generation, Sally Rooney has a knack for parsing the beautiful mess of our modern relationships and friendships, while tapping into the anxieties of a fast-changing world. Like every other Rooney fan, I'm lining up for her latest novel, which promises to entertain with her trademark sly humor while also capturing the zeitgeist.

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk (Sep 24)

Selected by Emmanuel Hidalgo-Wohlleben

I've been meaning to read Olga Tokarczuk's work for years but, frankly, I've been intimidated by the nearly 1,000 pages that make up her acclaimed Booker-winning The Books of Jacob. Her latest book The Empusium takes readers on a kind of magical mystery tour of early 20th-century Poland via philosophical musings, humor, and a pinch of horror. It's an alluring literary mashup, and at a measly 320 pages, this might be the time I finally dive into the wondrously creepy world of Olga Tokarczuk.

Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell (Sep 10)

Selected by Iliyah Coles

I love a good surrealist novel, and in this one, a Black man finds himself in a world where all the white people are gone. I'm so interested to see how it plays out, and whether or not Blackness itself is something that shifts without whiteness.

If Only by Vigdis Hjorth (Sep 3)

Selected by Fernanda Gorgulho

From Jon Fosse's Nobel Prize last year, to the booming cult of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Norwegian writers are having a (global) moment. Vigdis Hjorth, who caused a tabloid kerfuffle years back in Norway for an excoriating novel that her family renounced for hitting too close to home, is now a rising star globally after picking up an International Booker Prize nomination last year. Of all Vigdis Hjorth’s critically acclaimed works, it’s actually this 2001 roman à clef about a married woman’s torrid affair that’s widely considered to be her masterpiece, even eliciting comparisons to Annie Ernaux's Simple Passion and Tolstoy’s timeless classic Anna Karenina!

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Sep 3)

Selected by Fernanda Gorgulho

Rachel Kushner has been a blind spot in my reading repertoire, and her latest nomination for the Booker Prize was the nudge I needed to dive into her work. I'm going straight to her latest release: a literary noir spy story that the Booker judges called "a profound and irresistible page-turner about a spy-for-hire who infiltrates a commune of eco-activists in rural France. The prose is thrilling, the ideas electrifying."

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellers (Sep 3)

Selected by Lynda Hammes

I am the youngest of four sisters just like Coco Mellors, and am curious to see how she will tap into the distinctly deep (and often dysfunctional) bond of sisterhood. While I'm close with my sisters, it's a complex constellation, and I found myself already sucked in by the first line in the book: "A sister is not a friend."

NONFICTION

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder (Sep 17)

Selected by Emmanuel Hidalgo-Wohlleben

I'll read anything by historian Timothy Snyder. (If you're new to him, I highly recommend his masterpiece of harrowing WWII history, Bloodlands from 2010.) His latest book is a tour of political philosophy which grapples with what freedom really means at a time when freedom has become a watchword in the presidential campaign.

The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World by Ben MacIntyre (Sep 10)

Selected by Romina Raimundo

Anyone who remembers or has read about the Iran hostage crisis staring in 1979 knows that this diplomatic drama was as tense and thrilling as fiction. But Americans are often less informed about the siege that occurred at the London embassy during that same era. As a hardcore history buff, I can't wait to delve into this story by a master espionage storyteller.

POETRY

Exit Opera by Kim Addonizio (Sep 17)

Selected by Sam Haecker

Kim Addonizio’s guides to writing poetry are my go-to’s whenever I hit a particularly rough writer’s block. So I’m just as excited to see where her new collection takes us, be it Paris, Assisi, or Ancient Greece.

COOKBOOK

Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking by Nisha Vora (Sep 3)

Selected by Iliyah Coles

Okay, I'll admit I'm not vegan... yet. However, I'm slowly but surely making my way there, and Nisha Vora's "flavor-first" philosophy might be enough to make me drop the chicken.