The Most Anticipated BIPOC Books of the Fall

I led a book discussion on Coates’ Between the World and Me for a library I worked at in the DC Metropolitan area a few years ago, and remember being surprised by how dense it felt to read. The language was beautiful, and I found myself relieved with how well Coates explained aspects of the Black experience, but damn if it wasn’t depressing. That’s the thing though—discussing the reality of Blackness in America can be depressing, but Coates does it so well. At the risk of sounding clichéd, his latest is so timely. It’s a collection of essays that explores how the stories we construct distort reality. He travels to Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine, contending with myth and reality in each place.

A new Murakami is always going to make waves, and this is his first in six years. Fans of the author will find the Town here familiar. It’s where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where shadows go on their own way. There’s love, noir, pop culture, jazz, libraries, and the intriguing otherworldliness that we’ve come to expect from Murakami.

Multi-award-winning Erdrich’s latest follows messy lives against a backdrop of resources being sucked dry through climate changes and the 2008 recession. Gary is a young man about to inherit two farms, and is set on marrying lapsed Goth Kismet Poe, while Hugo’s messy, red-headed behind wants to steal her for himself. Amidst the drama, the people of the Red River Valley try their best to survive, while things like visions of angels and drastic changes complicate things.

I haven’t come across anyone who’s read Braiding Sweetgrass by Kimmerer who doesn’t recommend it emphatically. Here, the Indigenous scientist considers the gift economy and how we can better position ourselves when it comes to reciprocity and community, based on lessons from nature. Which is, of course, in direct contrast to the capitalist-driven culture of scarcity we currently live in.

I read Tahir’s All My Rage for a book club discussion for our Hey YA podcast, and it had me screaming- crying-throwing-up. It was so real and touching and infuriating. With Heir, Tahir returns to YA fantasy with a story that follows three young people—an orphan, an outcast, and a prince— as they try their best to navigate what is, at times, a brutal empire. Sirsha is a tracker who speaks to the elements, and who was banished from her tribe for a terrible crime. Desperate to survive, she takes on a job hunting down a child killer. Aiz on the other hand, is from the slums, in prison, and her wrath is brewing. Finally, there’s the empire’s crown prince, Quil, whose reluctance to take on the responsibility of leading the empire is quelled by the emergence of an enemy threat. All three must contend with the darkness of the empire, treacherous love, and moral grayness.

When’s the last time you read a romance novel set in Việt Nam? Right, me neither, which is partially why Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour sounds like so much fun. But let’s rewind a bit and get into Evie, who has just been fired from a poetry professorship by her secret boyfriend—which makes me want to hold her hand gently while I tell her some things. In any case, for a second, it seems like things are kind of looking up when her Auntie Hảo leaves her a memory-filled row house in San Francisco. But there’s a catch: to actually inherit it, she’ll have to go on a matchmaking tour in her family’s native Việt Nam. That’s where Adam comes in. He’s busting his you-know-what in order to prove himself as the CMO of his sister’s matchmaking business and joins the inaugural tour. It’s there that he meets Evie, and his grumpy uptightness is countered by her chaotic whimsy. As they keep getting thrown together in places like the busy streets of Hồ Chí Minh City and against the backdrop of the beautiful waterfalls in Đà Lạt, animosity turns into something sweeter.

I am geeked about this YA Black-led, dark academia vampire romantasy with Ethiopian influences (yes, girl). It’s been compared to Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, which is a particular brand of dark fantasy I really appreciate. In it, lost heiress Kidan Adane infiltrates Uxlay University, where students dedicate themselves to studying to preserve peace between humans and vampires. But Kidan is there because her family was killed and her sister kidnapped, with all signs pointing to Susenyos Sagad, the vampire bound to her family, being the culprit. But Susenyos—and giving into her own darkness—is alluring, and after a murder happens that echoes her sister’s disappearance, Kidan finds herself dangerously deeper in the vampire underworld.

Also, the copy I got is so pretty. It’s got designed edges and everything.