10 Books On My Autumn 2021 Wish List
For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic I’m meant to be talking about my “most anticipated fall reads.” But since that sounds far too much like a reading plan I’m taking the less travelled path of books I’m most looking forward to buying/borrowing.
This list of ten is drawn from a much longer list that I’ve been keeping all year of titles that have caught my interest. They’re a mixture of 2021 publications and older titles gathered from reviews on book blog sites and mentions in Twitter. Others were featured in newspapers, on line magazines and publishers’ newsletters .
I’m not making any commitments to actually read any of these during the autumn (the chances are pretty slim in fact) but it’s always good to replenish the book shelves periodically.
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.
I loved Towles’ last book A Gentleman in Moscow, so as soon as I heard he had a new novel coming out I put in a reservation request to our local library system. They must have ordered only one copy because it seems to be taking forever to get around to my turn. The novel sees an 18 year old Emmett return home from the juvenile work farm where he spent 18 months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is for him and his young brother to head to California to start a new life. But he is greeted by two friends who escaped from the work farm and are intent on pursuing a different plan for Emmett’s future.
The Promise by Damon Galgut
I was already planning to buy this when a member of my Nordic walking group began telling me how brilliant it is and that it’s her favourite book of 2021 so far.
Set in pre-apartheid South Africa the novel charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma’s funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for — not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land… yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.
The China Room by Sunjeev Sahota, Sunjeev
Another book I am eagerly awaiting to get released from the library, this novel tells the twin stories of a bride in 1920s Punjab and a young man who travels back to India from England in 1999.
Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days at work in the family’s china room, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.
Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its china room locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence – his experiences of addiction, racism, and estrangement from the culture of his birth – he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi’s first novel Homegoing wasn’t a complete hit with me — it covered such a large period of history and generations, that we didn’t get to know any of the characters in depth. I’m hoping her second novel will have a tighter structure.
It’s the story of Gifty, who as a child would ask her parents to tell her the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama. Years later, Gifty turns to science to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother’s life. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach further back than she thought.
The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff
The stars must have been in alignment for this novel. As I drove home from the gym a few weeks ago I caught part of a recording of this novel on BBC Radio 4. Nothing much was happening but the descriptions of a family preparing for their annual holiday at the seaside, captured my imagination. Then Kim @ Reading Matters reviewed it on her blog. It turns out that the novel, published initially in 1931 has just been re-issued by Persephone. It sounds a delightfully gentle tale giving a snapshot of a time and a way of life a few years before the World War.
Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen
A debut novel that features a Vietnamese woman who has left behind her husband when she travels to New Orleans with her two young sons, intent on building a new life. Though she continues to send letters and tapes back to her husband, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father, over time she comes to realises the impossibility of that reunion. Told from multiple perspectives, the novel follows mother and son as they adapt to life in America in different ways.
Tender Is The Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
This was one of the books featured in a new series aired on BBC TV earlier this year called Write Around The World in which the presenter, actor Richard E Grant visits the cities and landscapes that inspired great writers and their books.
Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were regular visitors to the French Riviera which forms the setting for this novel. But this isn’t a tale of bright young things and glamorous parties. It’s actually a bleak tale of a young actress and her complicated relationship with an alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. Characters are pulled out and into mental care and one male character descends into alcoholism.
It was Fitzgerald’s final novel, written in a dark period in his life; he was struggling financially and his wife had been hospitalized suffering from schizophrenia so the novel reflects that bleakness.
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021, Gurnah’s novel features a child stolen from his parents by German colonial troops and forced to serve in the army. After years of absence he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister given away. Now all he wants is to get work, find peace and security and to be reunited with a beautiful girl he remembers from the village.
How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
People living in fear of environmental impact of an America oil company. Maybe recommended by bookish beck Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, How Beautiful We Were tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations are made – and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest only. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back.
The Awakening by Kate Roberts
Kate Roberts was a leading figure in Welsh-language literature in the twentieth century but I’ve never read any of her books. The Awakening dates from 1956 but is set a few years earlier in the immediate post war period. Like all her work it is set in the slate quarrying areas north Wales where she was born and grew up. Its subject is Lora Ffennig whose husband leaves her for another woman. Lora suddenly finds that everything she has known and understood has changed. The novel charts her awakening about the realities of her previous life and the life she has to forge for herself and her children. and she has to
What are you looking forward to adding to your TBR shelves in the following months? I’m trying hard not to buy too many new books but you might still tempt me. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules and the list of topics visit the Top Ten Tuesday page on her blog.
I have The Lincoln Highway on my NetGalley list so I’ll be getting around to that one soon. I loved his other books so I have high hopes of it. I liked Tender is the Night, I really liked Save Me the Waltz by Zelda too. I think F Scott nicked ideas from her!
Just been reading about the background to Save Me the Waltz – F Scott wasn’t happy that she was writing about the same events he had put into the novel he was writing at the time – Tender is the Night. It would be interesting to read both of these close together in time
I enjoyed Transcendent Kingdom though I loved her debut Homegoing more and actually reading Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were reminded me a little of Homegoing, and I’d say it because of that love I have of reading from within the perspective and experience of another culture, which both these titles offer.
What I’m really looking forward to on my TBR is to discover the storytelling of Gayl Jones, whose first novel in 21 years Palmares has just been published. It’s a Black woman’s journey through slavery and liberation, set in 17th-century colonial Brazil and looks and sounds epic!
That name Gayl Jones isn’t familiar to me – I’m not alone it seems. I just found an article in The Atlantic which calls her the best American author you’ve never heard of https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/gayl-jones-novel-palmares/614218/. Thanks for giving me the lead to an author who sounds very very interesting.
I hope you enjoy transcendent kingdom- it’s does have a more of a traditional structure.
Sounds good to me
What a very interesting list! I’ve read Galgut’s The Promise and share Fictionfan’s opinion, i.e., it was fabulous, I loved it and I’m very happy that it’s still in the running for the Booker. I’m also, or used to be (haven’t read any of work in quite awhile) a big fan of F. Scott. I’ve read Tender is the Night twice, once under compulsion (a college course) and once voluntarily. Although I remember thinking it was a bit flawed, I ended up really loving it. Finding it on your list reminds me I really have to re-visit Fitzgerald, whom I infinitely prefer to his contemporary Hemingway (like you BTW The Great Gatsby isn’t one of my favorites). I don’t think I’ve read any of the other books on your list (I’m in no rush, but I would like to try Sahota’s The China Room at some point, simply because I loved his previous novel, The Runaways).
As for the books I’d like to read before 2021 goes its way, well — I want to read all of them! Your list, however, inspired me to be at least somewhat more selective. Tops for me at this point are Elizabeth Stroud’s Oh William; Esther Freud’s I Couldn’t Love You More; Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth and Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads. I’d also like to squeeze in Mona Awad’s All’s Well, based on a strong review in the Guardian.
After reading Alison41’s comment I now have something else to anticipate reading — a new novel (Fight Night) by Miriam Toews!
I’m not a fan of Hemingway either – I find his stile too pared back for my liking. Good to know that I inspired you to start thinking about what you’d most like to read.
I have the Amor Towles too and am looking forward to it. I loved The Promise – unfortunately it hit one of my frequent slumps this year so I still haven’t got around to reviewing it, but I was delighted to see it shortlisted for the Booker. It would be a justified winner in my opinion.
I know that feeling about being in a review slump – I am so far behind…..
It won’t be long before we find out who has won
I have still not read Tender is the Night, thanks for the reminder! Great list.
I’d put Fitzgerald out of my mind because I really didn’t care much for Great Gatsby -it was only the tv programme that sparked my interest
I love your list. China Room and Transcendent Kingdom sound particularly interesting.
I’ve heard that China Room is particularly good
I wasn’t particularly wowed by the writing in The Year of the Runaways, but the story was really good. I am looking forward to China Room.
I still haven’t got around to reading Year of the Runaways
I LOVED Fortnight in September and reviewed it recently. Tender is the Night was an good read. I read the Awakening in college–it didn’t send me, but it wasn’t bad. Lincoln Highway and China Room are on my TBR, but will take that “right” moment regardless of format right now. Happy Reading!
I’m way behind with my blog hopping so had missed your review of the Sherriff – shall rectify that pronto! I’m surprised The Awakening was on your college list – you’re not mixing it up with the Kate Chopin novella of the same name maybe?
Oh! In fact I was–I’m sorry! It was Kate Chopin I meant. sorry
I thought it might be – I’d honestly have been astounded to find it was the Welsh author’s version
I started The Promise last night and am really enjoying it so far.
Glad to hear that Cathy, will look forward to your review
I loved Transcendent Kingdom and hope you do too! I was less enamored of How Beautiful We Were, though I loved Mbue’s previous book. I really want to read something by Amor Towles, I hear so many good things.
I know there’s an earlier Towles novel that some bloggers have said they enjoyed even more than Gentlemen in Moscow. Always good to have a back catalogue when you find an author you enjoy
Nice list, I hope you enjoy each of them. I really liked the style in Tender is the Night. I have read an older book by Galgut, great author as well.
Here is my list. I predict you may have read at least 4 or 5 of them https://wordsandpeace.com/2021/09/21/top-ten-books-on-my-fall-2021-to-read-list/
Ha Ha, I’ve just looked at your list and haven’t read even one of them!
The China Room does sound good!
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-books-on-my-fall-2021-to-read-list/
just off to read whats on your list
I keep a running list titled Books I Want to Read , in which I store titles, and book reviews gathered from sites and bloggers. I’d also like to read Amor Towles The Lincoln Highway. High on my list is the new Ruth Ozeki Book coming out in October. I’m also on the lookout for Miriam Toews, Fight Night and Lev Parikan’s book Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year in Japan’s 72 Ancient Seasons . I keep taking Lotto tickets in the hopes of fulfilling my Wish List!
somehow my list of books I want to read never ever gets shorter. The Ozeki does sound interesting and I could easily have had that on my list. Just looked up the Parikan book you mention because I was intrigued by that title
Thanks for the link to my review, but note the book is no 67 in Persephone’s classic list so it’s been around for years. It’s certainly been in my TBR since at least 2018. There are two editions; one with the usual Persephone dove grey cover and another with a painting on the front.
Now I’m perplexed where I got the idea it was a new issue. Did I just dream it !!!
I think Simon & Schuster might have reissued it recently. There’s certainly another cover kicking around … one with the beach on it and a woman dipping her toes in the water.
You solved it – Simon and Schuster did re-issue it via their Scribner imprint this month with that cover. Now I can go to sleep without wrestling with this problem! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fortnight-in-September/R-C-Sherriff/9781982184780
China Room will be worth the wait! Afterlives is on my list, too.
I remember you were very positive in your China Room review.
The only one of my Booker wishes to get a look-in.
Inspiring list! I’ve read some of the books (Promise, Kingdom and Fortnight) and was impressed. I am tempted to add some of the others to my reading list!
Always happy to add to someone else’s wish list 🙂
Great list, Karen. I have fond memories of reading Feet in Chains by Kate Roberts as a teen, but I haven’t read any of her others – perhaps because I’m trying to hold on to the memory of that one book.
I’m ashamed that I’ve never heard of her. I don’t know what your experience was but in my school years authors from Wales were never mentioned let alone included on any syllabus