“Horror was rooted in sympathy… in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst.” – Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box
Dog Only Knows: The Dog Portraits of Alison Friend by Alison Friend
nonfiction / art / dogs.
A must-have gift book for every dog lover from acclaimed artist Alison Friend, featuring over 125 irresistible portraits—each uniquely mischievous, funny, and full of personality.
Meet Midge, who keeps her mind sharp with a Rubik’s Cube. Alan, who looks like a million dollars in his new harness. Lola, whose motto is “People to see, bums to sniff.” Chupa Chops—how did he unwrap that lollipop? The oh-so-earnest Clive, who does everything—biscuit eating, squirrel chasing, ball fetching—with a single-minded focus. Irrepressible Debbie, who loves cocktail night, and Little Louis, a chain-smoking existentialist who can’t stop chewing over the canine condition. Usually with an espresso.
Welcome to Alison Friend’s world of dogs, a singular and very special place created by an artist with a unique gift for depicting that ineffable thing we call “character”—dog characters, actually—using oil paint, empathy, techniques of the Old Masters, and an imagination like no other. With their big expressive eyes and Mona Lisa smiles, charming habits and childlike pleasures, the subjects of these portraits seem all too human yet fantastically doglike.
Capturing exactly—as Little Louis would tell you—the canine condition, though you’ve never seen it like this before.
“Friend is known for her witty pieces that portray our domestic pals in the style of the Old Masters, lending a sense of reverence to her furry subjects.” – Grace Ebert, Colossal
“Enter Alison Friend’s world of whimsy, where dogs can be whoever they want to be… [a] delightful book.” – B&N Reads
“Alison Friend is giving dog lovers everywhere something to wag their tails about… adorable (and hysterically relatable)… equal parts sophisticated and cheeky… With its humor, heart and unmistakable personality, Dog Only Knows is delightful reminder that our four-legged friends might just understand us better than we think.” – Dave Quinn, People
Finding My Way: A Memoir by Malala Yousafzai
nonfiction / memoir.
Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way—a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.
Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted, and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren’t perfect—they’re human.
In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her narrative—while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny—and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.
“Finding My Way sees Malala wresting back the story of her own life – rejecting the constrictions and contradictions of a sheltered childhood and sudden fame.” – Mythili Rao, The Guardian
“Think you know Malala? Think again… With razor-sharp wit and startling vulnerability, she recounts her fumbling adolescent friendships, her rowdy college days (yes, really!), and her early attempts at flirting—with a security detail in tow. By letting us in on her messy, endearingly awkward, and disarmingly relatable coming-of-age, she strips away the mystique of activism and shows that world-changers aren’t a world apart. This is Malala unfiltered, and she makes courage feel like something we can all reach for.” – Charley Burlock, Oprah Daily
“This compelling memoir is easy to read and reveals a more nuanced and human side of Yousafzai – one that many readers may not have seen before. It’s a story of self-discovery that highlights the extreme ups and downs of early adulthood which will resonate deeply with young women and anyone finding their footing in this unpredictable world. Whether you’re curious to know more about Malala’s life or just adore a coming-of-age narrative, you should add Finding My Way to your autumnal reading list.” – Camilla Foster, The Irish News
Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake ★
fiction / suspense / mystery / horror / comedy.
Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.
After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she’s taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.
Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner’s new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane’s clothes don’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she’s apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.
As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.
“Endlessly quotable, highly entertaining… perfect for book club consumption.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Girl Dinner is daring, ironic, and bold, interrogating the ways we consume content and talk about feminism… fans of thought-provoking stories starring complex, morally gray women will enjoy this read.” – Leah von Essen, Booklist
“Olivie Blake’s writing is superb, sharp and easy to digest… [Girl Dinner] could certainly be defined as required reading for lovers of feminist literature, or for anyone that is simply looking to taste something new.” – Saberin C., Grimdark Magazine
“Combining dark academia and biting satire, fantasy writer Blake’s first foray into horror is a delectable treat… What makes a ‘good woman’? Blake interrogates the question with sharp dialogue, fascinating yet flawed characters, grim humor, and bewitching prose. Secrets unravel slowly, ratcheting the tension up while Nina’s and Sloane’s mirrored storylines coalesce in an unexpected twist. Timely and funny, this is more psychological torment than gorefest and would make great book club material.” – Mia Wilson, Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
Good Spirits by B.K. Borison
fiction / romance / fantasy.
Ghost of Christmas Past Nolan Callahan intends to spend this holiday haunting like every other—get in, get out, return to his otherwise aimless existence as a ghost awaiting the afterlife. But when he’s faced with Harriet York, the sweetest assignment he’s ever had, he suddenly finds himself wishing for a future.
Harriet York has no idea why she’s being haunted. She’s a good person—or, at least, she tries to be. A people pleaser to her core, she always does what’s expected of her. But as she and Nolan begin to examine her past, they discover there are threads that bind them together— and realize there might be more to moving on than expected.
With the deadline of Christmas Eve fast approaching, will they find the key to their futures in each other’s pasts? Or will they stay firmly in the present, indulging in their unexpected, spirited connection?
“An emotional and lightly magical holiday romance from Borison that’s perfect for readers who enjoyed Ashley Poston’s The Seven Year Slip or Laurie Gilmore’s The Christmas Tree Farm.” – Elizabeth Gabriel, Library Journal
“Effectively employing a wealth of wit and whimsy, Borison works a bit of holiday magic in crafting this thoroughly satisfying romance that reads like a merry mash-up of A Christmas Carol and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, imbued with enough sensual heat to keep readers warm and toasty all season long.” – John Charles, Booklist
“Borison always delivers a sweet, heartwarming and completely memorable read and that was very much the case with Good Spirits… tender and memorable… Harriet and Nolan’s journey was laced with humour, vulnerability and just enough bittersweet tension to make the ending all the more satisfying… feels both magical and human and so completely easy to get lost in.” – Sara, Harlequin Junkie
King Sorrow by Joe Hill ★
fiction / horror / fantasy / suspense.
Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings. But his idyll—and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot—is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library.
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.
But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.
“Bestseller Hill masterfully sustains tension throughout this immersive doorstopper of a horror novel… Hill makes accepting the supernatural easy through his pitch-perfect characterizations and doses of black humor. This reinforces Hill’s reputation as a titan of the genre.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…Joe Hill‘s King Sorrow is just the novel I’ve been waiting for, a true achievement in fiction… Despite its massive scale, King Sorrow is an intimate story driven by friendship, grief, and the terrifying cost of power, a true work of art… a must-read and one of the best books of the year.” – Justin Soderberg, Capes & Tights
“Hill’s remarkably well-paced, character-centered epic, blanketed in unrelenting dread that escalates to pure terror every Easter, is perfectly suited for this moment. Pitting the computer age against folktales, King Sorrow is a story that seriously contemplates the costs of power.” – Becky Spratford, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Joe Hill’s first novel in ten years comes with a lot of expectation. Somehow, it more than exceeds them. King Sorrow is an epic in the manner of the very best ’80s and ’90s horror: expansive, maximalist, a soaring fantastical premise countered by the gravity of the characters… combines high fantasy, blockbuster action, espionage, politics, and a persistent voltage of romance. But horror connects it all, both in the monsters with wings and those on two legs. There are individual sections of King Sorrow that could stand alone with the best novellas of the year, but it’s the accumulating weight and momentum of the whole that makes this Hill’s masterpiece.” – Neil McRobert, Vulture
The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays by Harper Lee ★
fiction / nonfiction / short stories / essays.
Harper Lee remains a landmark figure in the American canon – thanks to Scout, Jem, Atticus, and the other indelible characters in her Pulitzer-winning debut, To Kill a Mockingbird; as well as for the darker, late-’50s version of small-town Alabama that emerged in Go Set a Watchman, her only other novel, published in 2015 after its rediscovery. Less remembered, until now, however, is Harper Lee the dogged young writer, who crafted stories in hopes of magazine publication; Lee the lively New Yorker, Alabamian, and friend to Truman Capote; and the Lee who peppered the pages of McCall’s and Vogue with thoughtful essays in the latter part of the twentieth century.
The Land of Sweet Forever combines Lee’s early short fiction and later nonfiction in a volume offering an unprecedented look at the development of her inimitable voice. Covering territory from the Alabama schoolyards of Lee’s youth to the luncheonettes and movie houses of midcentury Manhattan, The Land of Sweet Forever invites still-vital conversations about politics, equality, travel, love, fiction, art, the American South, and what it means to lead an engaged and creative life.
This collection comes with an introduction by Casey Cep, Harper Lee’s appointed biographer, which provides illuminating background for our reading of these stories and connects them both to Lee’s life and to her two novels.
“The stories are unmistakably Lee: they are full of childhood angst, race relations in the Deep South, father-daughter relationships.” – Liam Kelly, The Telegraph
“[A] welcome hybrid compendium… Each story illuminates Lee’s quintessential talents as the ‘balladeer of small-town culture’ and the chronicler of city life. They display narrative skills, an acute ear for dialogue (especially the vernacular), development of fully rounded characters and vivid descriptions of settings… The Land of Sweet Forever reinforces Lee’s indelible voice, contributing a rewarding addition and resource to the slim canon of her literary legacy.” – Robert Allen Papinchak, Los Angeles Times
“Of Lee’s last two books, this is undoubtedly the better one. Where Go Set a Watchman was a flawed work-in-progress never intended for public consumption, The Land of Sweet Forever has more obvious merits, allowing us to see the before and after of a literary sensation.” – Fiona Sturges, The i Paper
“[Collects Lee’s] tentative and funny stories… they glimmer with the instincts that would define her singular novel… They do not enlarge Harper Lee’s legend so much as humanise it. And in their own quiet way, they remind us that greatness often begins with the smallest acts of observation: a child watching, an adult remembering, a woman finally daring to write it down.” – Aishwarya Khosla, The Indian Express
The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly
fiction / mystery / suspense.
Following his “resurrection walk” and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty.
Representing the victim’s family, Mickey’s case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails. Along the way he joins up with a journalist named Jack McEvoy, who wants to be a fly on the wall during the trial in order to write a book about it. But Mickey puts him to work going through the mountain of printed discovery materials in the case. McEvoy’s digging ultimate delivers the key witness, a whistleblower who has been too afraid to speak up. The case is fraught with danger because billions are at stake.
It is said that machines became smarter than humans on the day in 1997 that IBM’s Deep Blue defeated chess master Garry Kasparov with a gambit called “the knight’s sacrifice.” Haller will take a similar gambit in court to defeat the mega forces of the AI industry lined up against him and his clients.
“The Proving Ground is the most relevant and compelling legal thriller of the decade, and Michael Connelly proves once again that nobody captures courtroom drama and the high-wire act of justice quite like him.” – Ryan Steck, The Real Book Spy
“…riveting… Connelly effectively dips his toe into topical waters here, touching on adolescent male loneliness and the dangers of AI without skimping on the propulsive plotting he’s known for. Newcomers and series fans alike will find this fast-paced legal procedural intensely satisfying.” – Publishers Weekly
“What the reader will encounter here is every bit as terrifying as in any previous Lincoln Lawyer thriller, made more terrifying by the contemporary threat of AI… Connelly works in extensive (and never tedious) background on the perils of AI by having an investigative writer join forces with Haller. As always, it’s fun to watch Haller argue, manipulate, and wheedle his way from pre-trial through the explosive trial itself. One of the best yet from best-selling author Connelly.” – Connie Fletcher, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Sisters Loved and Treasured: Stories of Unbreakable Bonds by Deborah Roberts
nonfiction / essays / family.
Beacons of support, understanding, and love, sisters are there for us through it all—childhood, the formative teenage years, and, if we’re lucky, through adulthood. But how often do we step back from our busy lives to acknowledge what they truly mean to us? Sisters everywhere deserve to feel that love.
In Sisters Loved and Treasured: Stories of Unbreakable Bonds, award-winning ABC News journalist and New York Times best-selling author Deborah Roberts curates a giftable collection of conversations, meditations, and anecdotes from her own sisters, celebrity friends, and everyday people alike who share deeply personal accounts of how their relationships as sisters shaped their lives.
“…lovely… includes thoughtful, heart-warming, and incisive interviews… Using her signature style of extensive interviews and research, Roberts was inspired to write the new book after reading a study that revealed that sisters have a profound impact on our mental health.” – Debra Wallace, Parade
“…Deborah Roberts that examines the bond between sisters and the ways—big and small, exciting and irritating, but always important—that unique relationship can impact an entire life. Have you told your sister lately what she means to you? Perhaps sending her a copy is a good start.” – Town & Country
“Among the book’s most poignant moments are those of resilience and reconciliation… In a time when connection can feel scarce, Sisters Loved and Treasured is a call to remember and rekindle the bonds that shape us most… this new collection once again underscores Roberts’s gift for finding heart and humanity in every story.” – Ny MaGee, eurweb
The Widow by John Grisham
fiction / mystery / suspense.
Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it.
Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit: murder.
Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer…
“Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Grisham’s latest is a perfect blend of plot and character: Simon and Eleanor come across as real, flesh-and-blood people—Eleanor, especially, is beautifully, heartbreakingly depicted—and the story is full of the kind of nail-biting suspense that makes us unable to put the book down.” – David Pitt, Booklist
“Where The Widow shines brightest, though, is where it’s most unlike what you might expect from Grisham… Gripping from the first client meeting to the final pound of the gavel, The Widow delivers a sharp, twist-packed whodunit where every clue points to the wrong man as John Grisham proves there’s no genre he can’t master.” – Ryan Steck, The Real Book Spy
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