The fall novels, memoirs and non-fiction books everyone is talking about

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Adrienne Brodeur (memoir, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, out Oct. 15)
When Adrienne was 14, her mother woke her up one summer night with one sentence that would change the course of their lives: Ben Souther just kissed me. Ben Souther was her stepfather’s closest friend, and with those words Adrienne became her mother’s confidante and wingwoman. A fascinating tale about a troubled mother-daughter bond and the effect that decades of lies has on two families.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo
Christy Lefteri (fiction, Ballantine Books, out now)
Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Asra, an artist. They lead beautiful, simple lives in Aleppo until the war comes, destroying most of what they know and love. They make the decision to leave, setting out on a dangerous journey they hope will bring them to the UK. A gorgeous, heartbreaking novel that puts human faces to the Syrian war.

Akin
Emma Donoghue (fiction, Little, Brown, out Sept. 10)
Noah Selvaggio is an Upper West Side widower, looking forward to a trip back to Nice, his childhood home. Then he receives a call from social services: He is the closest available relative of an 11-year-old grandnephew whom he’s never met, and the boy’s mother is in jail. With that one call, his life — and travel plans — are upended in ways both maddening and hilarious. From the author of the bestselling novel “Room.”

Find Me
André Aciman (fiction, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, out Oct. 29)
“Call Me by Your Name” became a worldwide bestseller and a much-loved movie. The sequel takes place decades later, and we find Elio’s father, Samuel, having a world-changing affair with a younger woman. Elio, now living in Paris and working as a pianist, has a serious relationship, and Oliver, now a married New England college professor, makes an important decision.

Carnegie Hill
Jonathan Vatner (fiction, Thomas Dunne Books, out now)
Penelope Bradford is new to the board of The Chelmsford Arms, a stodgy Upper East Side building where almost everyone (except she and her fiancé, Rick) are retirees. As she becomes involved in the life of the building, plotting a board coup against the change-resistant president and befriending Birdie, the older woman down the hall, she starts to question her own marriage. Absolutely charming and heartfelt.

To The Lions
Holly Watt (fiction, Dutton, out Tuesday)
Casey Benedict is a star reporter. After an overheard conversation at an exclusive London nightclub, she’s on to her next story: tracking down reports that wealthy young English men have been paying exorbitant sums to go on safaris — where the prey is human.

The Dutch House
Ann Patchett (fiction, Harper, out Sept. 24)
The house in the title of this novel — a lavish estate in the Philadelphia suburbs — is a character of its own. Bought by the narrator’s father as a surprise for his wife, it ends up being, instead, a sort of curse. A fascinating family drama.

A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis
Catherine Bailey (nonfiction, Viking, out Oct. 29)
In 1940, Fey von Hassell and her family seemed protected from the war that was engulfing Europe: They were privileged, with an estate in the north of Italy. But when von Hassell’s father, who was Germany’s ambassador to Italy, is involved in an assassination attempt against Hitler, the entire family is suddenly caught up in the Nazi leader’s desire for revenge. A riveting true drama about a privileged family who resisted Hitler’s regime — and ended up having their young sons taken away from them.

The Girl Who Lived Twice: A Lisbeth Salander Novel
David Lagercrantz (fiction, Knopf, out now)
Kick-ass tattooed protagonist Lisbeth Salander is back in Book 6 of the Millennium series, which author David Lagercrantz picked up after Stieg Larsson’s death. Salander has gone dark online, no one knows where she is, and she’s got her ultimate enemy (her sister) on her target list.

Grand Union
Zadie Smith (fiction, Penguin Press, out Oct. 8)
The first short-story collection from the critically acclaimed author of “White Teeth,” “Swing Time” and more is a gorgeous mix of genres and perspectives.

Cilka’s Journey
Heather Morris (fiction, St. Martin’s Press, out Oct. 1)
Cilka is only 16 when she arrives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and is singled out by the commandant for her beauty. She has no choice in the matter, but what she does allows her to survive. When the camp is liberated after the war, she is labeled a collaborator and sent to a Siberian prison camp. From the bestselling author of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

A Single Thread
Tracy Chevalier (fiction, Viking, out Sept. 17)
It is 1932, and Violent Speedwell is deemed a “surplus woman,” one of many unmarried females whose fiancés were killed in World War I. Unwilling to spend the rest of her life caring for her mother, Violet moves to Winchester, home to a grand cathedral, where she finds unlikely community and friendship in a group of embroiderers.

Quichotte
Salman Rushdie (fiction, Random House, out Tuesday)
Sam DuChamp is a mediocre writer of thrillers, but one day he’s inspired by the Cervantes classic “Don Quixote” to create a new character: Quichotte, a salesman who becomes obsessed with a TV star and sets off with his imaginary son across the country to gain her hand.

The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates (fiction, One World, out Sept. 24)
Hiram Walker was born into slavery, separated from his mother at a young age — and possessing a mysterious life-saving power he doesn’t quite understand. He makes a plan to escape and rescue his family. The debut novel from the National Book Award-winning author of “Between the World and Me.”

Agent Running in the Field
John Le Carré (fiction, Viking, out Oct. 22)
The author’s 25th novel takes place in London in 2018 and follows a 26-year-old loner who starts down a dangerous path.

The Last Train to London
Meg Waite Clayton (fiction, Harper, out Sept. 10)
A novel based on the true, incredible story about the Kindertransport — the concerted effort to bring thousands of Jewish children from Germany and Austria to Great Britain between 1938 and 1940. Together, Stephan, a 17-year-old who was heir to a Viennese chocolate fortune before the Nazis took away all their possessions, and his friend Zofie-Helene, the daughter of a journalist unafraid to print the truth, attempt to escape from a country that has changed violently and quickly.

The Testaments
Margaret Atwood (fiction, Nan A. Talese, out Sept. 10)
The long-awaited sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale” picks up 15 years after the original book left off, with three female narrators offering their own testaments about Gilead.

All This Could Be Yours
Jami Attenberg (fiction, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, out Oct. 22)
In this darkly hilarious family drama, an abusive patriarch is on his deathbed in New Orleans, and his daughter is determined to mine her distant mother for secrets.

The Other’s Gold
Elizabeth Ames (fiction, Viking, out now)
Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice and Margaret are freshmen roommates at Quincy-Hawthorn College laying the groundwork for friendships that will follow them into their adult lives: through marriages, children and all sorts of drama, heartbreak and painful secrets.

The Warehouse
Rob Hart (fiction, Crown, out now)
In a dystopia of the near future, most of America is unlivable, and the economy is mostly controlled by giant tech company Cloud, which houses its workers in a live-work facility where every movement is closely monitored.