Buzzy new books from Jesmyn Ward, Tananarive Due and Daniel Clowes; biographies of Madonna and Sam Bankman-Fried; John Grisham’s sequel to “The Firm”; and much more.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall
Thrall first recounted the story of Abed Salama’s search for his 5-year-old son after a bus crash on the outskirts of Jerusalem in a 2021 piece for The New York Review of Books. Now he’s expanded it, weaving the wrenching human saga with a history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Metropolitan Books, Oct. 3
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon
Bohannon presents nothing less than a new history of the species by examining human evolution through the lens of womankind. It’s a provocative corrective that will answer dozens of questions you’ve always had — and even more you never thought to ask.
Knopf, Oct. 3
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, by Michael Lewis
When the cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in 2022, the journalist Michael Lewis had been spending time with its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, in order to write a book. Now his intimate look at the now-disgraced entrepreneur is scheduled to be published around the time that his trial on fraud charges is set to begin.
Norton, Oct. 3
A Haunting on the Hill, by Elizabeth Hand
This return to the horror-soaked setting of “The Haunting of Hill House” — which was greenlit by Shirley Jackson’s estate — features a group of friends who make the mistake of renting the moldering old mansion.
Mulholland Books, Oct. 3
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir, by Safiya Sinclair
Sinclair, an award-winning Jamaican poet (“Cannibal”) recounts her coming-of-age in a strict Rastafarian community in Montego Bay and the rebellion that grew within her, until she escaped — through education and through language.
37 Ink, Oct. 3
Making It So: A Memoir, by Patrick Stewart
After years as a journeyman stage actor, Stewart found himself an unlikely celebrity in his 40s after being cast as Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” His memoir vividly recounts the tribulations he overcame — a provincial upbringing, an embittered father — and the teachers and mentors who pointed him skyward.
Gallery, Oct. 3
The Maniac, by Benjamín Labatut
In his new novel, Labatut chronicles the life and legacy of John von Neumann, the polymath who worked on the Manhattan Project and made pivotal contributions to physics, economics, computing and other fields. It’s a study of scientific genius and the darkness of a hyper-rational mind, told through imagined remembrances by colleagues, associates and loved ones.
Penguin Press, Oct. 3
Monica, by Daniel Clowes
Clowes’s latest graphic novel tells the story of a woman’s life from birth to old age and her long quest to track down, or at least understand, her mother. Progressing from the 1960s to the present day, the genre-bending episodes in this book draw upon counterculture, women’s empowerment, apocalypse and the supernatural, among other themes.
Fantagraphics, Oct. 3
The Children’s Bach and This House of Grief, by Helen Garner
A master of intimate, psychologically precise narratives featuring ordinary people caught in extreme circumstances, Garner, now 80, has amassed a devoted following in her native Australia. With the republication of “The Children’s Bach,” a novel about a loosely connected group of 1970s Melbourne residents sorting out their lives, and “This House of Grief,” a nonfiction account of a wrenching murder trial, she is sure to attract new fans here.
Pantheon, Oct. 10
Madonna: A Rebel Life, by Mary Gabriel
What is there to say about Madonna Louise Ciccone that she hasn’t said herself, in song and video, on talk shows and TikTok, through provocative pronouncements and a book called “Sex”? Over 800 pages, Gabriel, an indefatigable biographer who has also tackled Karl Marx and his wife Jenny von Westphalen, provides an answer.
Little, Brown, Oct. 10
The Exchange, by John Grisham
More than three decades after “The Firm” rocketed onto best-seller lists and made him a household name, Grisham revisits the novel’s indelible main characters, Mitch and Abby McDeere.
Doubleday, Oct. 17
The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination, by Stuart A. Reid
Reid, an executive editor at Foreign Affairs, traces the life and death of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of Congo, who was in office only a few months before he was deposed and assassinated in 1961. As he plumbs recently declassified files, Reid sheds light on the C.I.A.’s role in the killing.
Knopf, Oct. 17
Tremor, by Teju Cole
A Nigerian-born photography professor at a New England college narrates this novel about art and power, finding much to ponder — on colonialism, subjectivity, identity — in the everyday details of teaching, travel and working. Around him is a world not of idyllic pleasures but of latent violence and instability.
Random House, Oct. 17
Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward
Ward, the two-time National Book Award-winning novelist, conjures the horrors of antebellum slavery through the story of Annis, who is forced on a harrowing march from a plantation in North Carolina to the slave markets of New Orleans — a journey overseen by spirits and steeped in allusions to Dante’s “Inferno.”
Scribner, Oct. 24
Being Henry: The Fonz … and Beyond, by Henry Winkler
“I never lost sight of what the character gave me,” Winkler, the star of “Happy Days,” writes in a showbiz memoir flavored with gratitude — for a life-changing audition, a long marriage, a sideline writing kids’ books and a second stab at TV acclaim in HBO’s “Barry.”
Celadon, Oct. 31
The Race to Be Myself: A Memoir, by Caster Semenya
In her revelatory memoir, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion exposes the pain and humiliation she’s endured at the hands of the international body governing athletics and the international public, who have challenged her identity as a woman — and as the fastest woman in the world.
Norton, Oct. 31
The Reformatory, by Tananarive Due
History meets horror in Due’s latest novel, about a Black boy in 1950s Florida, Robbie, who gets sent to a brutal reformatory school after defending his sister from a racist attack. But it’s not just the warden Robbie needs to watch out for — this school is also haunted by the ghosts of students who died there.
Saga Press, Oct. 31
