Essential Stories for Your Book Club’s Fall Reading List

Jolene and Verna share complicated ties that have crystallized over time, and their ongoing stories have been inextricably linked. But when Verna marries Vincent, Jolene’s ex-husband, their paths may have finally, permanently diverged. A captivating, emotionally taut novel about the complexities of a friendship between two women—and how it shapes, and reshapes, both of their lives.

Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout explores the mysteries of marriage and the secrets we keep, as a former couple reckons with where they’ve come from—and what they’ve left behind. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.

A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse—one woman’s furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood. Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness reaffirms Claire Vaye Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.

Through an indelible array of lives, Yoon Choi explores where first and second generations either clash or find common ground, where meaning falls in the cracks between languages, where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment, and where displacement turns to heartbreak.

Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.

The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America.

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

Told entirely through clever and captivating Slack messages, this irresistible, relatable satire of both virtual work and contemporary life is The Office for the new world. In a time when office paranoia and politics have followed us home, Calvin Kasulke is here to capture the surprising, and absurd factors attacking our collective sanity…and give us hope that we can still find a human connection.

Inspired by the real-life disappearance of domestic workers in Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a poignant, deeply empathetic narrative of the human stories behind the headlines. With infinite tenderness and skill, Songbirds offers a triumphant story of the fight for truth and justice, and of women reclaiming their lost voices.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki—bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane, and heartbreaking.

An unforgettable love story, a provocative exploration of the role of art in times of political upheaval, and a deeply moving reminder of the power of the past to shape the present, A Play for the End of the World is a remarkable debut from an exciting new voice in fiction.

Diana O’Toole’s life is on track. She has an amazing job and her boyfriend, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos. But when a virus that felt worlds away appears in the city on the eve of their departure, Diana is left to go on the trip alone. In the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationship, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.

From the acclaimed author of Tin Man comes a captivating, lively new novel of people brought together across four decades of love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster.

This impressive debut novel is a uniquely imaginative sequence of ten interconnecting episodes—each from a different character’s perspective—inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy. Together they form a sparkling philosophical tale of love lost and found across the universe.