A keep-the-lights-on debut novel in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, only spookier, tells of Charlie Cates, a New York journalist, who finds that her dreams have a way of coming true. After the death of her young son, this psychic “gift” takes her to a Louisiana estate to document a 30-year-old missing child case. The steamy, moss-covered setting practically becomes one of the characters as Charlie and readers sink deeper into the wealthy but deceitful Deveau family’s sordid history of betrayal and possibly murder. – Mary Grey James

Underneath the slick surface of what looks like a Devil Wears Prada–style indulgence, there’s heart here. Partly a novel of manners, partly a thriller, totally a page-turner. Find me after you read it, and let’s discuss. – Mary Laura Philpott

I was wondering what that “give to everybody” book would be this fall, and now I’ve found it. If you like our Shop Dog Diaries series on MUSING, you’ll adore the funny, sweet, beautifully designed journal of Plum, a Whoosel (part whippet, part poodle, part Jack Russell) who lives with children’s book creator Emma Chichester Clark. Every dog-loving human needs a copy. – Mary Laura Philpott

Lehane’s eighth best-selling novels is one of my top ten of all time. Sexy, historic, romantic, violent, and ever so timely in the face of recent events in our Nation. If readers haven’t discovered Lehane’s masterful storytelling, this is the perfect place to begin.  – River Jordan

In the event that you missed out on Joy Williams’s steady and stealthy domination of the short story genre over the last four decades, allow this to be your conversion. Williams wastes no time or words getting to the soft, gross, gooey heart of each of her stories. This collection is ruthless, and it is all the more gorgeous for it. – Lindsay Lynch

Want more “dish” about Beryl Markham after Circling the Sun and West With the Night? Try this wonderful classic written by Markham’s rival-in-love, Isak Dineson. – Kathy Schultenover

This is the followup to the breakout hit Daring Greatly. Brown enthralled an audience of over 750 people in Nashville last month, and she was every bit as wonderful in person as I hoped she would be. – Ginger Nalley

Mr. Goolrick’s latest is depraved, seductive, wretched and unforgettable – the most gorgeously written slap to the face. A true classic tragedy at its finest for the modern age. – Grace Wright

Turn to page 242 and read “One Small Step.” I still get chills every time I read this verse, and it sums up better than anything this charming and necessary tale. – Grace Wright

I’ve long been interested by Paddy Fermor’s travelogues across Europe and Artemis Cooper has done a brilliant job of putting together the fascinating pieces of this elusive writer whom, according to one reviewer “survived enough assaults on his existence to make Rasputin seem like a quitter.” Paddy walked from Holland to Constantinople before the Second World War, swam the Hellespont, captured a German general, wandered the Caribbean, befriended everyone of consequence and wit, and wrote about it all with characteristic elegance. – Bill Long-Innes

“There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.”–Ludwig Wittgenstein Each word in Massey’s spare poems matters and evokes a world–our place and our displacement in it. The title is taken from a Dickinson poem that begins, “A nearness to Tremendousness . . .” – Margy Roark

This is easily my favorite David McCullough book. An incredible sweep of 18th century history, it makes superb use of family letters and diaries, particularly those between John and Abigail Adams. That exhaustive research provides a glimpse into the people and events that shaped our country’s founding. and shows us how ideas, principles, and belief in a better tomorrow drove men like Adams to great things. – Andy Brennan

There can be a soothing pleasure in watching someone juggle three balls really well, but I think most of us would agree that it’s more fun, and certainly more impressive, to watch someone juggle 10 balls. Especially when eight of those balls are on fire, and three balls are swapped out for a butcher knives, and the last one turns into a chainsaw. That’s when you can’t help but marvel, How is he doing that?

That’s how I felt reading Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Purity. I kept stopping to wonder, How? The book is both wildly ambitious and peacefully capable as Franzen guides the reader through a fast paced trip around the world and through recent history. Purity, also known as Pip, is a self-destructing girl in San Francisco who doesn’t know her own identity, which her crazy hermit of a mother explains is for her own safety. For some other writer, the mystery of Pip would be enough storyline for an entire novel, but not Franzen. He’s got Andreas Wolf in East Berlin, a Julian Assange-like character who has so many secrets he devotes his life to outing other people’s secrets, though he’s got to do it while hiding in the jungles of South America. Then we have Tom and Leila in Chicago who are revealing secrets by the more traditional means of journalism. They, of course, have their own troubled histories. With all the story lines established, Franzen begins to juggle, looping the characters in and out of one another’s lives in ways you’ll never see coming. As much as he has up in the air, he never breaks a sweat, and nothing gets dropped.

This is going to be The Big Book this year, extensively discussed and extravagantly lauded. And you’ve got a signed first edition. We’re feeling really good about that. We hope you enjoy it.

Yours in reading,
Ann Patchett

Every member of our First Editions Club receives a first edition of the selected book of the month, signed by the author. Books are carefully chosen by our staff of readers, and our picks have gone on to earn major recognition including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. There’s no membership fee or premium charge for these books; just the monthly cost of each book (+ shipping if you’d like yours mailed to you). Build a treasured library of signed first editions and always have something great to read! Makes a FABULOUS gift, too. 

I think the best love stories are the ones that do more than just remind you what it’s like to fall in love. The best love stories take you back to that moment when you look at someone and think, “Oh. I love them,” and it feels like your stomach drops a little bit and the heart in your chest gives a little leap, or sometimes it just settles over you like a blanket around your shoulders on a chilly night.

There are some really great love stories in young adult literature: Anna and Étienne, Eleanor and Park, Aristotle and Dante, and, of course, Hazel and Gus. We read them because we’ve never fallen in love, and we want to know what it might be like. Or we read them because we have fallen in love, and we’re hooked on the feeling. Or maybe we read them because we’ve fallen out of love, and we want to hope that, if it happened once, it can happen again.

Readers, I hope you fall as madly in love with Nicola Yoon’s luminous debut novel, Everything, Everything, as I did. I love this book. I love Maddy’s sharp, witty voice, her longing for something more, her curiosity and caution about the world outside her bedroom window. I love the inventive way Yoon reveals Maddy’s story. I love the dimension and complexity of Yoon’s characters.

But most of all, I love that this is a story about how love can remake you into something new, how love can reveal possibilities you never knew existed, because they were beyond even your ability to imagine. It’s like Maddy says: “Love opens you up to the world.”

Yours in reading,
Stephanie Appell
Manager of Books for Young Readers

Every member of our YA First Editions Club receives a first edition hardcover of the selected book of the month, signed by the author. There is no membership fee to join — and no line to stand in for the autograph. You’re billed just for the regular cost of each book (+ shipping if you’d like yours mailed to you). Not only will you have the hottest new book when it comes out, you’ll have it straight from the author’s hands, with an original signature! Choose a 3, 6, or 12-month membership for yourself or as a gift.