16 New Books for September
This month, we’ve got our eyes on What We Fed to the Manticore, If I Survive You, and 14 other titles by writers of the West.
BLACK POWERFUL: BLACK VOICES REIMAGINE REVOLUTION, CURATED BY NATASHA MARIN
Award-winning poet Marin follows up her celebrated Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures with this new collection that gives more than 100 Black people a channel to express experiences, musings, and meditations on power. This is a book of self-discovery, yielding maddening, thought-provoking, and rapturous proclamations. McSweeney’s, September 6.
THE BOOK OF JUDITH: OPENING HEARTS THROUGH POETRY, EDITED BY SARA PRESS, MARK FOSS, AND SPOON JACKSON
In this anthology, 33 contributors offer poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art in honor of poet Judith Tannenbaum, who taught incarcerated students. The Book of Judith is broken into four sections that showcase the boundless gifts the author gave to the world. New Village Press, September 13.
CAPTAIN OF HER SOUL: THE LIFE OF MARION DAVIES, BY LARA GABRIELLE
Davies’s legacy has been primarily defined by her relationship with William Randolph Hearst—until now. Gabrielle’s biography details Davies’s rise from her childhood in Brooklyn to her life in Hollywood. University of California Press, September 27.
CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM: HOW BIG TECH AND BIG CONTENT CAPTURED CREATIVE LABOR MARKETS AND HOW WE’LL WIN THEM BACK, BY REBECCA GIBLIN AND CORY DOCTOROW
At once a siren call and a battle cry, Giblin and Doctorow’s collaboration exposes the manipulative schemes practiced by megacorporations that stifle competition and strong-arm buyers and workers, especially creative types, economically. The latter part of the book includes strategies to fight for the future of a more fair and healthy economy. Beacon Press, September 27.
IF I SURVIVE YOU, BY JONATHAN ESCOFFERY
In this brilliant debut, Escoffery links stories that reveal the lives of Topper, Sanya, and their two young sons, who leave Jamaica together in the 1970s. As the boys grow up, the family reckons with the realities of life in the United States as Black immigrants—and they do it with gumption, hope, and lots of humor. MCD, September 6.
LESS IS LOST, BY ANDREW SEAN GREER
Just as his romantic life and career as a novelist start to make sense, a series of unfortunate events compels Arthur Less to accept writing assignments that send him, once again, away from home. As Less traverses the United States, he must face his past to find peace for himself in this hilarious but heartfelt follow-up to Greer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Less. Little, Brown, September 20.
LISTEN, WORLD! HOW THE INTREPID ELSIE ROBINSON BECAME AMERICA’S MOST-READ WOMAN, BY JULIA SCHEERES AND ALLISON GILBERT
Scheeres and Gilbert have written the first biography of Elsie Robinson, which details its subject’s rise from divorcée to gold miner to columnist at the Oakland Tribune, where she became one of the first women to gain widespread recognition for her reporting. Robinson’s writing was frank and progressive for her time, especially regarding criminal justice and women’s rights. Seal Press, September 27.
MARTIAN: THE SAINT OF LONELINESS, BY JAMES CAGNEY
Cagney’s latest collection of poems looks unflinchingly at the history of violence in the United States. Writing in irreverent exclamations of incendiary language, Cagney presents a work that is at once a lamentation for a country and an investigation of the human soul. Nomadic Press, September 27.
ON THE ROOFTOP, BY MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON
When a talent agent approaches with an offer to turn her daughters’ trio, the Salvations, into a national sensation, Vivian believes her many years of grooming and rehearsing her girls in 1950s San Francisco will pay off. Yet in Sexton’s novel, Vivian’s dream of stardom may no longer be shared with her daughters, each of whom entertains a vastly different vision for the future. Ecco Press, September 6.
PREDATOR: A MEMOIR, A MOVIE, AN OBSESSION, BY ANDER MONSON
An obsession with the 1987 film Predator drives Monson’s eccentric memoir. Having watched the action movie 146 times, the author shares frame-by-frame analysis that fans and newbies alike will find both interesting and bizarrely moving. Graywolf Press, September 6.
THE SEARCH FOR THE GENUINE: NONFICTION, 1970–2015, BY JIM HARRISON
From the late master comes a collection of new and published essays on the American West, with dispatches from Yellowstone and the Pacific Ocean and ruminations on fishing and the spiritual life. Grove Press, September 13.
THE SHINNERY, BY KATE ANGER
Set in Texas in the 1890s and inspired by Anger’s ancestry, The Shinnery is a vivid tale of the American West. When Jessa Campbell is sent away from her family farm to settle a debt, she begins a foolish love affair and ends up alone and pregnant, back where she came from. But a quest for revenge leaves her more unstable than ever as she must fight to keep both farm and family together. Bison Books, September 1.
SWEET, SOFT, PLENTY RHYTHM, BY LAURA WARRELL
A constellation of beautiful, strong female voices tell their stories of love, loss, hope, and anguish, all woven around the life of Circus Palmer, a jazz musician and ladies’ man. Some of these women are Palmer’s lovers, some are his exes, one is his daughter, but they’re all navigating the pitfalls of love. Pantheon, September 27.
THIS BELL STILL RINGS: MY LIFE OF DEFIANCE AND SONG, BY BARBARA DANE
Dane is an activist, jazz singer, organizer, and—in Bob Dylan’s words—hero, and this autobiography details some of her most amazing experiences, including demonstrations in Vietnam during the war, singing with Louis Armstrong, and starting her own record label. Heyday, September 27.
WHAT WE FED TO THE MANTICORE: STORIES, BY TALIA LAKSHMI KOLLURI
Kolluri’s collection crosses borders to explore the inner lives of creatures. Each of the nine animals at the center of these stories has been disrupted by human greed—climate change, war, displacement, poaching. Using the voices of a vulture, a donkey, a hound, and more, Kolluri evokes and mourns the natural world. Tin House Books, September 6.
WILD SONOMA: EXPLORING NATURE IN WINE COUNTRY, BY CHARLES HOOD
In this inspiring guidebook, Hood discovers the unexpected side of a region commonly defined by its wines. Showcasing the diversity of endemic species and the ecological resilience of the land, he offers a detailed tour of six locations in and around Sonoma County, while contributions from naturalist and longtime resident Lynn Horowitz and ecologist Jeanne Wirka—and vivid illustrations by John Muir Laws—bring the landscape to life. Heyday, September 13.
