Fall is here, bringing with it all the chilly weather you need to justify canceling your plans and staying home reading. And this month’s most exciting fiction picks deliver, with a new collection from storytelling master Stephen King, a philosophical parable from actor-author Ethan Hawke, and a decades-spanning epic on life, love, and music from the inimitable Mitch Albom.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, by Stephen King
This latest collection from master storyteller Stephen King comes with an epic bonus for fans of his indispensable craft manual On Writing: each story is prefaced by King’s note on its writing and inspiration. Stories, some of them published here for the first time, include slow-creeper “Under the Weather,” in which a devoted husband reflects on his marriage to an often sickly wife, and “Blockade Billy,” in which a retired MLB base coach recalls the terrifying events of a 1950s season with the New Jersey Titans.
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, by Mitch Albom
Albom’s latest is told in the voice of Music itself, which narrates the life of Frankie Presto, a guitarist with godlike talent. A war orphan, Presto emigrated from Spain to the U.S. at age nine, and his story doubles as a history of music in the 20th century. His own musical ability is so epic it has the ability to change lives, as reflected by color changes in his guitar’s magical strings. The people whose lives he touches include such luminaries as Elvis Presley and Carole King, and even the members of KISS. Then Frankie disappears, setting the stage for one last, mystical act, in a book that’s as uplifting as it is magical.
Avenue of Mysteries, by John Irving
Juan Diego Guerrera is a successful author haunted by the ghosts of his past—particularly that of little sister Lupe, afflicted with the often-faulty abilities to read minds and predict the future. While traveling through the Philippines, Juan’s memories mix with the effects of medication, delivering strange dreams and powering a surreal journey told in tandem with recollections from his childhood.
A Moment of Silence: Midnight III, by Sister Souljah
This is the third installment in the story of Midnight, a Muslim living in tenuous harmony in Brooklyn with his mother, sister, and two wives. Known for keeping his cool in tough situations, Midnight nevertheless loses it when his sister is assaulted. He kills her attacker and goes on the run. In a world where even society’s protectors are corrupt, Midnight is forced to rely on his faith and inner strength to survive his most difficult challenge yet.
Numéro Zero, by Umberto Eco
Colonna is hanging on to the fringes of the publishing world when he’s hired to ghostwrite a memoir for the journalist in charge of creating a trashy mock newspaper at the request of a hotel magnate—a fully staffed publication destined never to hit the stands. The paper’s leadership champions the worst of journalistic clichés, with its employees encouraged to invent sources, slant, use scare tactics, and turn viciously on opposing voices. Eco pulls social politics, terrorism, and conspiracies into his narrative web, creating a puzzling mystery rife with red herrings.
Rules for a Knight, by Ethan Hawke
The night before going into battle, a 15th-century Cornish knight writes a letter to his children. It takes the form of a primer on living a meaningful life, full of the teachings he might not live to impart firsthand. Hawke focuses on 20 virtues, drawing from myth and philosophy, literature and religion, to write an instructive text with the stripped-down language and timeless feel of a folk tale.
The Japanese Lover, by Isabel Allende
Exiled for her own safety from Poland to San Francisco during World War II, young Alma Belasco falls in love with Ichimei, the son of her genteel aunt and uncle’s Japanese gardener. Their affair blossoms under the shadow of encroaching terror, until they’re wrenched apart following the events of Pearl Harbor. Ichimei is sent with his family to a Japanese internment camp, and though the lovers’ paths cross again, fate conspires to keep them apart. Decades later, artist Alma is living in a nursing home, receiving a string of small gifts that pique her secretary’s attention—and may have something to do with the epic love affair of her youth.
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, by George Saunders and Lane Smith (Illustrator)
Acclaimed short story writer Saunders explores the virtue of kindness through a picture book parable set in the seaside village of Frip. The goats of Frip are constantly beset by gappers, barnacle-like sea creatures who daily tangle themselves in the animals’ fur. When the gappers decide one day to focus their attentions entirely on one overwhelmed family’s goats, the uncaring response of the other villagers drives the story’s beset Frippian heroine to desperate measures. Saunders’ signature warmhearted wisdom is on display on every whimsical page, in a story set to be adapted to the big screen.
Along the Infinite Sea, by Beatriz Williams
In Beatrice Williams’ final book in the Schuyler family series, focusing largely on the midcentury-set stories of three aristocratic East Coast sisters, Pepper Schuyler takes center stage. Reeling from her affair with a married politician, which resulted in pregnancy, she meets another troubled young woman under fortuitous circumstances. Pepper is on the run from her former lover’s clutches, German Annabelle from the dark psychological fallout of her life as a Nazi’s wife and a Jewish resistance fighter’s mistress. The two offer each other solace and healing in Williams’ satisfying emotional thriller.
