Add To Cart: September's Best New Books

Language Arts’ monthly most-anticipated books list.

We’ve combed through our advanced reader copies and PR emails to bring you our monthly list of most anticipated books. Our September list includes: dispatches from Bushwick, bad wine and Neanderthals, past-their-prime Southern California apartment complexes, and a poet in the throes of a medical crisis. Plus, in a surprise to no one: Sally Rooney. Read on for a list of our 10 most anticipated-books of September 2024.

Leasing by D.T. Robbins - House of Vlad Press, Sept. 1

Sophia’s first job after graduating college was at a chain restaurant called Rock Bottom Brewery. Whenever she answered the phone, she had to say: “You’ve hit Rock Bottom, this is Sophia!” The debut novel from indie press mainstay D.T. Robbins follows David, whose own rock bottom moment involves working at a dysfunctional apartment complex in a Southern California suburb. It’s there he finds the body of a deceased resident with a similar story to his own in a sharp and moving story of life, death, and real estate. In case you needed more convincing, Robbin’s novel has been praised by Language Arts favorites Chelsea Hodson, Jon Lindsey, and Lexi Kent-Monning.

Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker - Little Brown and Company, Sept. 3

Clove is living her dream life. She has a husband, two loving children…and an intense anxiety about her secret past ready to erupt at any second. No gratitude meditation can save her when she receives a letter from a California women’s prison that muddles the terrors of her past into her present-day life, forcing her to face her darkest truths if she wants to make it out alive.

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner - Scribner, Sept. 3

Cheap wine and stale baguettes, a rural France filled with nuclear power plants, climate activism, spies, and Neanderthals — Rachel Kushner’s whip-smart noir novel is obsessed with the origins of humanity and probing its contemporary truths. The novel follows Sadie Smith (pseudonym, of course), an intrepid undercover agent tasked with embedding herself in a radical, violent commune hellbent on saving their rural province from ecological destruction at the hands of corporations. It’s a compulsive read that will have you on a Wikipedia deep dive about the origins of humanity.

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell - FSG,  Sept. 3

A poet in pain is hardly breaking news, but when it forces him into the ICU he struggles to make sense of what is happening to his body — not to mention the utterly byzantine American healthcare system. But amidst the excruciating pain and IV drips, Small Rain is a moving confrontation of death, love, and everything in between.

Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken - Knopf, Sept. 10

Ayo Edebiri’s motherland — yes, we’re talking about Ireland — is outstanding at churning out exciting literary fiction. Next up: Molly Aitken’s second novel Bright I Burn, which tells the true story of the first woman condemned as a witch in Ireland, and is already a bestseller in the country. Plus, everyone knows that autumn is made for engrossing historical reads with plucky antiheroines. 

Vivienne by Emmalea Russo - Arcade Publishing, Sept. 10

Emmalea Russo’s Vivienne follows an elderly artist whose past rumors of her misdeeds threaten her unlikely comeback. Told in text messages, open letters by protesters, and vivacious surrealist prose, it’s a dizzying, bold novel about art, aging, and unsolved mysteries.

Health and Safety: A Breakdown by Emily Witt - Pantheon, Sept. 17

Emily Witt has been helping us make sense of the world since her first book Future Sex in 2016, a deep dive of reportage into various corners of Bay Area sexual ingenuity, including everything from polyamory to pornography to something called “orgasmic meditation”. Now, Witt turns her attention to Bushwick. Just kidding…kind of. The New Yorker reporter’s latest book is about the L train Holy Trinity: drugs, techno, and New York City. The book charts Witt’s eight-year immersion into New York’s club scene, as she lived as a reporter-by-day and a club-kid-by-night, through major events like the protests following the murder of George Floyd and the first Covid summer.

Us Fools by Nora Lange - Two Dollar Radio, Sept. 17

Nora Lange’s aching debut novel follows two sisters coming of age during the Midwestern farm crisis of 1980. Told in the chaotic push and pull and wiry intimacy of two homeschooled sisters, Us Fools is a sardonic, intimate story of girlhood, anti-capitalism, and the collapse of the American Dream.

Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin - FSG, Sept. 17

One apartment in Paris, two couples, 50 years apart. With dazzling prose that promises to linger in your heart, Scaffolding is rife with lust and desire, psychoanalysis and memory, and how the bonds we create can never truly be severed.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney - FSG, Sept. 24

Arguably the hottest galley of the year is finally available to the public! In Sally Rooney’s highly-anticipated Intermezzo, two brothers with little in common beyond their DNA grapple with the loss of their father, the women they love, and the ache of possibility. Prepare to see someone reading this on every train ride for the next three months.