8 Books To Get Excited About This Fall

It’s almost fall, which means high schoolers are about to get saddled with enough textbooks to Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame them down to the ground once they put on their Jansports, college kids are going to basically make a monthly car payment on a semester’s worth of anthro and poli-sci texts, and we who are not currently enrolled in school just get to use our paychecks and purse space for fun books. Sorry, kids, enjoy your education!

Below, a list of smart and awesome books coming out this fall that I’ve handpicked for you guys BECAUSE I LIKE YOU ENOUGH TO DO BOOK RECS. Read up and get your smart and awesome on.

1. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (September 2nd, 2014)

We all remember the craziness that was Cloud Atlas, right? (Come on, you guys AT LEAST saw the movie?!?) My literary dreamboat (the DREAMIEST of boats) David Mitchell is back with more telling-massive-stories-that-span-space-and-time-in-the-most-major-of-ways. This one’s dealing with a mystical battle that makes pit stops in Medieval Switzerland, punk-rock England, and wartime Baghdad. Mitchell, I’m ready, Cloud-Atlas me to infinity and beyond.

2. Dataclysm (Who We Are When We Think No One’s Looking) By Christian Rudder (September 9th, 2014)

One of the founders of OkCupid learned a LOT by looking at the dating site’s data and wrote a pop-nonfiction book just for meeeeeeee! (Yes, and okay, probably you too if you like Malcolm-Gladwell-y shenanigans as much as I do.)

3. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (September 16th, 2014)

Let me just say one thing about Sarah Waters to the uninitiated: WATERS IS EVERYTHING. She writes the darkest (and often dirtiest) historical fiction and her work is compulsively readable and smart as all get out. This one takes place in 1920s London, and follows a dirt-poor widow and her spinster daughter who take in a couple as boarders. Waters, I’m ready for you, girl.

4. Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood (September 16th, 2014)

Look. You might not be a short-story girl. And that’s fine. Not all of us are. But these are MARGARET ATWOOD stories. Margaret Atwood, the Grandmother of the Dystopian Novel. I want my local bookstore to do a Harry Potter midnight release of this book. Probably not going to happen, but what would I be without my dreaaaams?

5. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer (September 30th, 2014)

Let me say something about Meg Wolitzer. I’m obsessed with her ass. Like, I don’t even know her and if she needed a ride to the airport, I would drop whatever I was doing and Uber her butt to LAX in a hot minute. Belzhar is Wolitzer’s first YA novel, and is inspired by Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar and I am so excited about this book I don’t even KNOW what to do with myself.

6. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham (September 30th, 2014)

Okay, we all know how excited I am about Lena Dunham’s memoir. I can stop wagging my tail and getting my muddy paw prints all over the furniture now.

7. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore (October 28th, 2014)

New Yorker writer and Harvard historian Lepore tackles the greatest super heroine ever and I am first in line to buy a copy.

8. Yes Please by Amy Poehler (October 28th, 2014)

Amy Poehler FINALLY gets her bossy-pants on and gives Halloween a run for its money in the annual “Most Exciting Thing To Happen In October” competition.