By Sarah Fertsch
Staff Writer
As we rest summer on the shelf, we turn our eyes from beach reads to more serious writing. Summer leads to flimsy, soft stories full of drama and mystery. We love the characters or hate them with a passion, nothing more or less. As the wind picks up and the leaves change color, we can focus more on memoirs, self-help books, and other nonfiction works. And the prose remains promising, inspiring and beautiful. You won’t be disappointed. Here are my recommendations for books to read this fall:
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
This victorious book combines poetry and nonfiction storytelling to explain a rough upbringing inside the Creek Nation Reservation. The three-time Poet Laureate Harjo considers the forces that affected her life: her abusive stepfather, bullying from her classmates, and the writers that influenced her future. The narrative is propelled by myths and history of the Creek Nation, threading together migration tales from Oklahoma and her ancestral trauma.
Shallow Waters by Anita Kopacz
This historical yet fantastical story follows Yemaya, an Orisha deity, as a young woman who travels to America in the 19th century. She journeys through the Underground Railroad searching for a man who would eventually sacrifice his freedom for her own. She’ll face challenges and mysteries with the help of prominent historical figures on her way. Kopacz intertwines Black resiliency, feminism, and magic to create a powerful story; it’s a real page-turner.
Billy Summers by Stephen King
The iconic author is back with a new story about a disgruntled ex-marine who’s asked to do one last job, and it’s a dirty one. He’s forced to go undercover, and the avid reader challenges himself to write his own fictionalized autobiography. He partners with a gang-rape victim (whom he rescues) to seek justice and revenge on her predators. King beautifully puts words to the ways writing fiction can heal and empower. “It was a way to write the truth,” Billy wrote.
Great Circle by Maggie Shiphead
The story takes place in 1914 and follows two women: Marian Graves, an aviator who becomes lost flying over Antarctica, and Hadley Baxter, an ambitious actress casted to play Marian on the big screen. How did Marian end up going missing? The six-hundred-page novel answers that question and forces Hadley to come out of her shell and embrace the courage of her aviator-inspiration. The story is engrossing and powerful, celebrating women who stand up for themselves and fight to be their best selves despite great odds.
A Calling for Charlie Barns by Joshua Ferris
Ferris is a special author, because he reuses themes from previous works and expands on them in completely different plots and settings. He asks,” What is work? And why do we love it?” . The reader meets Charlie, an owner of a long-struggling money management business that he runs out of his basement. When Charlie learns that he is dying of cancer, he ponders his life and its meaning, specifically around the business he kept trying to profit from, but ultimately failing. You’ll laugh and cry in the same breath.
