These 10 new or recent releases, perfect for an autumnal read to rev the engines for Litquake October 8-24, hail from across the literary landscape with serious, starry-eyed, and spirited storytelling. Our intrepid book reviewer Lou Fancher guides you across their terrain. See more terrific Fall Arts Previews here. Remember to check out our Big Week event picks every week for more great literary event coverage. And don’t forget to vote for Best of the Bay!
How We Disappear by Thomas S. Mullaney (W. W. Norton & Company)
A Stanford professor and Guggenheim fellow writes about the global history technology and information. Mullaney’s new book arrives at a time when many folks think a selfie while slurping on a matcha-bacon-kelp smoothie is an expression of vitality. Mullaney takes readers on a fascinating journey that includes personal anecdotes about establishing true meaning, and how human lives are vulnerable to being erased. As the body and mind build, exist, and break down, memories, morality, consciousness, and truths of precious life become dear. Mullaney writes with significant expertise, and crafts a heartfelt tribute to the land of his ancestors with this slim, mighty book.
Under Story by Chloe Benjamin (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)
Highest accolades from reviewers are rolling in for Benjamin’s edgy tale of a biologist laying low as a dishwasher at an isolated climate research base in Antartica. The protagonist’s former husband turns out to be one of the physicists visiting the base, and the twosome totter and tumble into the Arc, a glowing, surreal world where time spins forward and backward, where their love and the future of the climate spin like ball on a roulette wheel. Under Story has it all: a love story, a touch of sci-fi, and a stirring call to pay attention to Planet Earth. Benjamin is San Francisco-born and currently based in the Bay Area, so the literary success of this book should fill local readers with hometown pride.
Friends and Family by Natalie Baszile (Viking)
This Bay Area writer and filmmaker knows how to lay out an action-driven story with memorable characters. Her award-winning debut novel, Queen Sugar, inspired the television series coproduced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey. A marvelous nonfiction book celebrating African American farmers followed, and cemented her reputation for deeply researched, historically accurate stories that illuminate the lives and communities of Black people in America. Her second novel burrows into the prickly heat of two friends whose beliefs about identity, race, and loyalty are tested. Baszile is one of those writers who make it seem easy, hiding the sweat that goes into her final story. But this book encourages the reader to simply enjoy, and to take a few treasured ideas to contemplation of one’s own friendships.
How To Exi(s)t, A Poet’s Memoir by Truong Tran (City Lights Books)
Poet and memoirist Tran writes titles that deliver a gut punch, and might just change your world. His Book of the Other: Small in Comparison was like an expedition into a cave where silence screamed to be heard, breathable air turned to stone through angry, humorous, and evocative essay. His new book is another endeavor in breaking free, examining every aspect of his identity from his relationships with family, colleagues, students to discriminatory white agendas. In one essay, he writes, “I want some readers to experience the desire to unread the book.” Embrace the honesty, cherish the humor, hold onto Tran’s flame, and be brave enough to swim in the pain of existence in this powerful new memoir.
What Do People Do at the Science Museum? by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Proving a book for young readers can light up the imagination while also being packed with facts, Tokuda-Hall uses one simple question as this tome’s launch pad. With it, the Oakland-based, best-selling writer and former president of Authors Against Book Bans establishes museums as the forum for inquiry. The roles of geologists, curators, engineers, biologist, conservators, exhibition designers, and others emerge as exciting occupations. Lifting the veil on the people behind a museum’s vibrant environment and inner machinations is certain to hook young minds. Future careers are likely in the making thanks to Tokuda-Hall, who seems to have never lost her own childlike curiosity.
Major Taylor by Frederick Noland (Drawn & Quarterly)
In his graphic biographies, public art, and comics, Noland tells the often-buried stories of Black people. Bringing history to life through vivid images and well-paced text, the Oakland-based writer and illustrator continues to raise the bar with his latest book on the heroic bike racer Major Taylor, who moves through the sport’s elite world during the Jim Crow era. Taylor is confronted with racism and other oppositional forces, but never yields his determination to be the best in the business. Learning about biking is part of the pleasure here, but the 372-page book’s true reward comes from its creator’s deft art and in discovering a Black man whose story might otherwise have been lost.
Cooking From Scratch by Toya Boudy (Countryman Press)
There are many good cookbooks this year, but the one by this Louisiana-based chef and author simply stuck. Written with community in the forefront and healing as a centering device, Boudy calls on generations of inherited wisdom in recipes for buttermilk roasted chicken, French lady cake, and other soups and salads, elixirs and tonics, tinctures, homemade bath and body products, and even cleaning supplies. Ingredients are easily available, recipes straightforward, photographs by Sam Hanna perfect companions for Boudy’s dishes. With them, the stories of her elders unfold in a joyful celebration. This cookbook latched onto my memory and never let go.
John of John by Douglas Stuart (Grove Atlantic)
This Stuart’s Booker Prize finalist novel will totally destroy your schedule—about 10 pages in, your concerns for everyday activities may well vanish. The plight of Cal, a young man whose success at art school is clearly not happening, sweeps him back to his childhood home, the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. His father, a tweed weever with an avowed Free Presbyterian faith awaits like a thundercloud; threatening Cal’s freedom, gay identity, and future. His grandmother also plays a pivotal role, and all three maneuver around the filial and family love streaming throughout the tale. Douglas’ novels often have young, queer, working-class men growing up during dire economic situations. Searching for identity and a sense of place in patriarchal societies, the characters desire community and acceptance. Stuart is an author you can trust for a worthy journey—be the final destination hope, despair, or something less tangible.
Switzy by Emma Cline (Random House)
Another Booker finalist writes of a man ensnared in the claws of what readers will recognize as Alzheimers, although Cline herself never uses the word. At this point, most of us are aware of the condition’s slide; a oneway slope leading to loss of names, faces, memories, and the one person we know best—ourselves. The book’s central character is determined to find dignity in dying, and travels to Switzerland (the titular “switzy”) to complete euthanasia. For more than 300 pages, Cline beckons to us to stick our heads into the lion’s mouth. With prose so compelling and side stories that only increase the suspenseful slant, it’s impossible to pull back. An addictive book has hit the stands and may well figure large at this year’s Booker Awards.
Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton (Chronicle Books)
Although originally published in 2020, this hefty volume published by San Francisco-based Chronicle Books deserves a place on this list in light of the singer’s recent death, which broke the nation’s heart. Through the stories behind and lyrics of 175 of Parton’s songs, her book delivers deserved tribute to one of the great Americans. Given today’s not-so-great roster of high profile personalities, the generosity and novel stories behind 80 years of Parton’s hard living are something to cherish. Her contributions to country music, the LGBTQ+ community, medical science, children’s literacy, and other fields just coming to be known are world-changing. Visually arresting, with never-before-seen photographs and classic memorabilia from the singer’s archives, Songteller comes in hardcover, paperback, and a limited edition. A book to hold and keep for long-lasting enjoyment.
