The 49 Best New Book Releases This Week: Sept 17-23, 2024

Here are the 49 best new book releases this week: Sept 17-23, 2024. Forty nine??!! Don’t panic–and be glad you don’t work in a bookstore. It’s Fall and from now until Black Friday (the official launch of the holiday shopping season) books come pouring into bookstores all over the country. Fiction and mysteries and picture books and coffee table books and biographies and memoirs and sci-fi and romances and so much more. Actually, if you love books it’s a great time to work in a bookstore. Every day is like your birthday: boxes arrive and you open them up to find one intriguing gotta-read-this present after another. Then when shoppers arrive on Black Friday and all the days after until the end of the year, they’ll discover a lot of great new books to read and gift and tell their friends about.

That’s why I’m here. I’ve grouped books in batches. Just scroll down this list until something catches your eye. You’ll find fun cookbooks (hello, Dolly!), celebrity memoirs, tales of dark academia, an awesome photo book about chess (yes, chess!) and because every week is a little different, this week we highlight about six or so great books for kids. (You’ll find them towards the bottom.) So let’s get reading. At the head of the Parade are…

The 49 Best New Book Releases This Week: Sept 17-23, 2024

1. Good Lookin’ Cookin’ by Dolly Parton & Rachel Parton George
2. America’s Test Kitchen 25th Anniversary Cookbook 
3. Does This Taste Funny? by Stephen Colbert & Evie McGee Colbert

Family gatherings and gift giving mean this is the season for cookbooks. Dolly Parton and her sister Rachel share favorite recipes and the stories behind them. America’s Test Kitchen celebrates 25 years by gathering its greatest hits. And Stephen Colbert and his wife Evie share the family dinners they embrace when everyone is together. Expect a dash of humor. 

Good Lookin’ Cookin’ by Dolly Parton & Rachel Parton George ($35; Ten Speed Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

America’s Test Kitchen 25th Anniversary Cookbook ($45; America’s Test Kitchen) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

Does This Taste Funny? by Stephen Colbert & Evie McGee Colbert ($35; Celadon Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

4. The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien by J.R.R. Tolkien

“The Road goes ever on and on/ Down from the door where it began./ Now far ahead the Road has gone/ And I must follow, if I can….” Yes, I wrote that from memory. It’s a poem that appears in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. (In different versions, as Stephen Colbert might hasten to point out.) If you have a Tolkien fanatic in your life (or you’re friends with Colbert!), this lavish, three volume set could be the perfect gift. But be clear: this isn’t just a fancy keepsake of Elvish works and other poetry that appear in his two most popular works. It includes everything from juvenalia to poems from Oxford and the trenches of World War I and yes, poems that are key to his imagining of Middle Earth. In all, you’ll find more than 200 poems that encompass Professor Tolkien’s entire life and all his interests. At more than 1700 pages, it’s rather remarkable. More than 50 years after he died, we still have so much to learn about everything Tolkien accomplished.

The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien by J.R.R. Tolkien ($125; William Morrow) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 28 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2024…So Far

5. The Wildes by Louis Bayard
6. Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
7. Elaine by Will Self
8. Entitlement by Rumaan Alam

Four works of literary fiction are among the wave of very well-reviewed titles that always appear in the Fall. 

Author Louis Bayard loves historical figures and literary characters: he’s published novels built around Edgar Allan Poe, Teddy Roosevelt and Tiny Tim, among others. Now he focuses on Oscar Wilde, or rather the wife and children who so often stood in that self-declared genius’s intimidating shadow.

Writer Tony Tulathimutte offers up a ream of rejections of all sorts in a comic collection of “interlocked stories” as they like to say. Critics say it’s insightful and funny. 

Will Self looms much larger in the UK, where he’s widely recognized as a major writer. Here in the U.S., he enjoys media attention but not the same public profile. Will that change with this novel, inspired by Self’s own mother? The early buzz is excellent, with Publishers Weekly calling it a “tour de force.”

Writer Rumaan Alam enjoyed huge success with Leave The World Behind, a 2020 work that captured modern anxieties with a surreal plot. He returns to a world of privilege with Entitlement, which surgically reveals how often being near extraordinary amounts of money is like being near a distorting mirror, or perhaps a black hole that sucks you in and won’t allow empathy or perspective to ever reach escape velocity again.

The Wildes by Louis Bayard ($29; Algonquin Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte ($28; William Morrow) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Elaine by Will Self ($27; Grove Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam ($30; Riverhead Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

9. Connie by Connie Chung
10. Something Lost, Something Gained by Hillary Rodham Clinton
11. The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop

Connie Chung details her path-breaking career from being a 23 year old kid taking a job at a local tv station in her hometown of Washington DC to the pinnacle of TV journalism. It wasn’t easy, even if she made it look that way. One key: working harder than everyone else. And playing along by being “one of the boys” didn’t hurt either.

Hillary Clinton has some thoughts–about her life and marriage, about the strength of everyday Americans, about the women making a difference both in the US and around the world and how Clinton’s own endeavors strive to do the same.

Kelly Bishop was already immortalized for being in the original cast of A Chorus Line, a smash hit about the journeymen players who work so hard in theater and are always “20 feet from stardom.” Bishop was one of the few onstage to actually build a major career from that triumph to steady excellent work as in Dirty Dancing Then she found a new peak with Gilmore Girls, one of the best TV dramas of all time. Here Bishop tells it all, with warmth. Nobody puts Bishop in a corner.

Connie by Connie Chung ($32.50; Grand Central Publishing) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Something Lost, Something Gained by Hillary Rodham Clinton ($29.99; Simon & Schuster) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop ($28.99; Gallery Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

12. Want by Gillian Anderson

The talented actor Gillian Anderson made a simple request of women: tell me your fantasies. She collected them, chose the most telling and surprising and sexy and offers them up–along with her own, not that you’ll know which is which–in the intriguing book Want. You want to read it, don’t you?

Want by Gillian Anderson ($28; Abrams Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

13. The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
14. Precipice by Robert Harris
15. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
16. I Dreamed of Falling by Julia Dahl

Thriller author Laura Dave knows how to marry family dynamics with a pulse-pounding plot. She delivered with the #1 bestseller The Last Thing He Told Me. And now she’s done it again with the standalone story of The Night We Lost Him. A hotel magnate has three ex-wives, lots of family taken care of but carefully isolated from one another and a high public profile. When he “accidentally” dies, two of his kids can’t accept it. They dig deeper and discover a secret about their dad that changes everything.

Robert Harris is riding high. His novel Conclave–about the election of a new Pope–is an acclaimed new film starring Ralph Fiennes. And his new stand-alone historical thriller Precipice takes place in 1914 England. A Scotland Yard intelligence officer finds danger and excitement amidst a sex scandal and leaked documents that might bring down the government just as World War I looms ahead.

Author Richard Osman pauses his delightful Thursday Murder Club books by launching his own new series, this one pairing a father and daughter team to solve the mystery of a dead body and a pile of cash on a remote island paradise. I’m all for a pile of cash to spark interest. That and a fortune teller who studies my palm, blanches and then refuses my money and tells me she won’t read my fortune and I need to go away, now? That gets me every time. Osman is an engaging storyteller and I can’t wait to dive in.

Finally, another nail-biter, this time for author Julia Dahl, who the trades say has made a leap forward with this novel. It has the suspense she’s always excelled at but now with characters that leap off the page. The setting is a small town with big secrets. Our hero is Roman Grady, a local reporter who is devastated when his girlfriend and mother of their child dies. He’s a reporter so he has questions about what happened. And those lead to more questions and the slow realization that everyone in town seems to be hiding something….

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave ($28.99; S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Precipice by Robert Harris ($30; Harper) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman ($30; Pamela Dorman Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

I Dreamed of Falling by Julia Dahl ($29; Minotaur Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

17. Lost: Back To The Island by Emily St. James & Noel Murray

Did Lost change television? Yes, it popularized again the sort of TV series that puzzles rather than explains. Think The Prisoner and Twin Peaks. Any fan of the landmark TV series will be happy to head back to the island and dive into the intricacies of the show and its remarkable impact on TV. Did it arrive too soon? Would it have been better served to be a miniseries and just end with season one? Did the finale work for you? And were they making it up all along? Discuss!

Lost: Back To The Island by Emily St. James & Noel Murray ($30; Abrams Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

18. The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak
19. A Song of Ash and Moonlight by Claire Legrand
20. The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean by Ann Rose

Author Brenda Novak relishes the painful ties that bind in The Banned Books Club. Gia is long overdue to help out with her ailing mother. So when sis Margot makes an ultimatum, Gia returns to the town she hoped to leave behind forever. On the plus side? The Banned Books Club she started after a local PTA got too censorious is still going strong. On the negative side? The high school teacher she publicly accused of sexual misconduct is still going strong as well. Will Gia find any friends in town and can you choose your family in a hostile hometown?

Romantasy isn’t even thinking of slowing down. Writer Claire Legrand returns with book two of The Middlemist Trilogy. Farrin is the eldest daughter in her family and the rock of it ever since her mother abandoned them. The kingdom is still under threat, the gods are awakening, the protective Middlemist is weakening…and Farrin must work alongside the arrogant, quietly seething and yes handsome Ryder Bask, the son of the family her parents declared Farrin should hate with a red-hot passion. Well, Farrin may keep half that promise.

Lighter fare will be found in The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean. Our bisexual heroine Amanda Dean is facing her wedding day with…indecision (cliche alert!). No, with a desire to make absolutely certain she’s making the right choice, because this time it’s for keeps. Expect past loves of every variety to pop in on a day when everything is going wrong right up until it goes right for the only moment that matters. I hope.

The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak ($18.99; MIRA) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

A Song of Ash and Moonlight by Claire Legrand ($25.99; Sourcebooks Casablanca) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean by Ann Rose ($18.99; Berkley) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

21. Into Unknown Skies by David K. Randall
22. She-Wolves by Paulina Bren
23. The Bible: A Global History by Bruce Gordon
24. On Freedom by Timothy Snyder

Four works of history illuminate the present by reminding us of our rich past.

With Into Unknown Skies, author David K. Randall excites with the story of a 1924 race to circumnavigate the globe by air. It was the upstart U.S. team versus their European rivals in a death-defying contest. The result? Innovations in technology, and an upsurge in excitement for aviation in the U.S. that might just have given it the edge needed to win World War II. Who won? Well, read and find out.

Writer Paulina Bren tells the story of the wolves of Wall Street, but in this case the she-wolves. She describes the experiences of the women who broke down barriers at this very male and very exclusive club. They made it inside any way they could: as secretaries in the 1960s, as Harvard MBA grads when that was the golden ticket and then simply by dint of sheer force of will. As a bonus, when they turn it into a movie, Leonardo DiCaprio can have a big role in this one as well…but a supporting role.

Bruce Gordon is an historian at Yale Divinity School and after a series of well received works, decided to write about the one story staring him in the face: the story of the Bible. Not the stories in the Bible, but the stories of the Bible. How it became one of the first published books, how it spread around the world, how it’s been used for good and ill over the millenia, how it can be found everywhere from hotel rooms to Chinese house churches and how it’s been shared on everything from papyrus to PDF. To name a few examples. Since it’s arguably the most published book in history, if Gordon can tap into 1/1,000,000 of its readership, he’ll have a hit on his hands.

Finally, fellow historian Timothy Snyder of Yale University became a public intellectual of worldwide fame with On Tyranny, a hit when it came out in **ahem** 2017. Snyder wrote history “does not repeat, but it does instruct.” Synder continues to instruct with On Freedom. Since people shout for “freedom” whatever side of the political divide they’re on and whatever the issue, Snyder details what the word means and how it works in our modern world.

Into Unknown Skies by David K. Randall ($32.99; Mariner Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

She-Wolves by Paulina Bren ($29.99; W.W. Norton & Company) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Bible: A Global History by Bruce Gordon ($35; Basic Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder ($32; Crown) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

25. An Academy For Liars by Alexis Henderson
26. Buried Deep by Naomi Novik
27. Ultra 85 by Logic

Schools are one of the favorite settings for a book. Does anything matter more than what goes on when you’re in fourth grade? Or seventh grade? Or high school? And then there’s Donna Tartt! It’s in literary fiction, mysteries, coming of age tales and every other genre for as long as schools existed. And now there’s “dark academia,” stories told in a school setting with a dollop of fantasy and genuine, real danger. The ultimate threat is far more than a bad grade or no date for prom. Alexis Henderson sets this standalone work in Savannah, Georgia and the exclusive Drayton College. Our hero loves her studies, working to control her skill of persuasion to manipulate others and even matter itself. But can she trust Drayton? And is it secretly persuading her all along?

Writer Naomi Novik can do it all, apparently: a thrilling series of historical fantasies that take the Napoleonic era and add dragons (thank you!), dark academia, brilliant new stand-alones steeped in the folk tales of Eastern Europe and now short stories of every flavor with Buried Deep. What will she do next? Anything, of course. But if she can turn the Temeraire books into a series of movies, I’d be quite pleased.

Logic is a rapper who has already published his memoir and a novel. Now he’s combining a new album and sci-fi book, both called Ultra 85. Anyone familiar with Logic’s life story will not be surprised to find it’s set in a dystopian future and features a hero with an estranged father. The earth is uninhabitable and people get by while living on an over-crowded space station. The lucky few head to a planet called Paradise, but our hero arrives there only to discover it’s more of a fixer-upper than a utopia. I haven’t read the book yet, but the music is filled with Logic’s admirable frankness on mental health, positivity and some dorky debates on pop culture. (Of course Tarantino is a better director than Nolan.) A treat for fans and he might just reach a wider audience than ever with his book.

An Academy For Liars by Alexis Henderson ($29; Ace) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Buried Deep by Naomi Novik (30; Del Rey) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Ultra 85 by Logic ($18.99; Simon & Schuster) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

28. Who’s That Girl? by Eve with Kathy Iandoli
29. Runaway Train by Eric Roberts with Sam Kashner
30. Talkin’ Greenwich Village by David Browne

Three new books cover the entertainment business from inside and out. The rapper Eve has been on top for 25 years and offers her story of making it as inspiration for others. Actor Eric Roberts has seen a lot more ups and downs, from the high of an Oscar nomination (for the excellent film Runaway Train) to the lows of too many highs. He bares all as a warning for others. And Rolling Stone magazine writer David Browne does a deep dive into the meteoric rise of Greenwich Village as the white-hot center for earth-shaking revolutions in folk music (once the most popular genre in the land), rock and jazz. It’s the history of a place and the era-defining artists like Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan who briefly called it home.

Who’s That Girl? by Eve with Kathy Iandoli ($29.99; Hanover Square Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Runaway Train by Eric Roberts with Sam Kashner ($30; St. Martin’s Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Talkin’ Greenwich Village by David Browne ($32.50; Hachette Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

31. A Sunny Place For Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
32. Ruin Road by Lamar Giles
33. Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath and Hassan Otsmane-Elhou

Horrors! Halloween is coming so you need some scares in your life. 

A Sunny Place For Shady People contains twelve phantasmagorical, frightening and just plain strange tales from Argentina. Books in translation are becoming commonplace now, and not just for Nobel Prize winners. Not that writer Mariana Enriquez isn’t acclaimed: Kazuo Ishiguro (a Nobel Prize winner himself) is a fan.

Lamar Giles offers a spooky tale worthy of Rod Serling. High school football player Cade Webster is tired of folk being fearful of him because he’s so big, so muscled and so Black. When he ducks into a pawn shop and wishes people wouldn’t be so scared around him, it comes true…with wildly unexpected results.

The graphic novel Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees is a devious little work. It looks like one of the busy, idyllic books created by Richard Scarry. But in this small town, there’s a serial killer, a woman who lives by one rule: Don’t. Kill. The. Locals. So it’s very annoying when a local is killed under mysterious circumstances, even though one can find plenty of victims in the big city nearby. It threatens her work so our “hero” must figure out exactly what’s going on. The disconnect between the visuals and the story will mess with your mind.

A Sunny Place For Shady People by Mariana Enriquez; translated by Megan McDowell ($28; Hogarth) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Ruin Road by Lamar Giles ($19.99; Scholastic Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath and Hassan Otsmane-Elhou ($17.99; IDW Publishing) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

34. Chess Players edited by Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell
35. Last Days of Summer by Hugh Holland
36. The Book of Joel starring Joel Grey

Three awesome coffee table books perfect for gifting to that hard-to-please person on your list. Or perfect for you, if the subjects are your thing. Each is a visual treat. 

Chess Players gathers photographs of everyone from Steve McQueen to Bob Dylan to Marcel Duchamp and members of the Wu-Tang Clan all playing chess. A simple idea, but it pays dividends, as images of regular folk sit alongside iconic ones, such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono playing their own Peace version with an all-white board and all-white pieces.

Acclaimed photographer Hugh Holland zeroes in on the skateboard culture of California from 1975-1978. He captured the sport when it was blossoming into a phenomenon, before the sponsorships and high-stakes tournaments, before the Olympics and worldwide fame. Back when it was just…cool.

Joel Grey already delivered a captivating memoir. But you can learn just as much about the many sides of this artist from The Book of Joel. It’s a scrapbook of his life, with everything from movie stills and Playbills to family photos and ephemera that chart the meandering, rich career of the Oscar and Tony-winning talent.

Chess Players edited by Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell ($37.95; FUEL) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Last Days of Summer by Hugh Holland ($60; Chronicle Chroma) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Book of Joel starring Joel Grey ($75; powerHouse Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

37. Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert
38. The Pornographer by John McGahern
39. The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens

Okay, you want a book to read but you don’t want to take any chances. Or you need a gift for a reader, but who knows what they’ve already read? How about a classic? Not one everyone’s heard of, but a little-known gem getting reissued with care by those who are passionate about the work? That’s a good bet.

For mystery fans, the Cold War meets cozy short stories of Michael Gilbert should do the trick. Games Without Rules stars two espionage agents tasked with solving various crimes in a series of satisfying short stories.

For lovers of literary fiction, literally anything put out by NYRB Classics is a good bet. I’ve yet to read a bad book they’ve reissued. Each one ranges from very good to great. Booker prize winner Anne Enright wrote the introduction to The Pornographer by Irish novelist John McGahern and she says it’s great too. Do I need to know the plot? No, all I need to know is: NYRB Classics.

Finally, sci-fi and fantasy fans should dig the cool cover and ground-breaking work of Francis Stevens. That’s the pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett who flourished especially from 1904-1919 in seemingly every genre. Here she offers up five tales, including arguably the first work of dark fantasy, so fans of dark academia and H.P. Lovecraft and the like, take note.

Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert ($14.99; Union Square & Co.) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Pornographer by John McGahern ($17.95; NYRB Classics) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens ($19.95; The MIT Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 33 Best Horror Books of 2024…So Far

40. When We Flew Away by Alice Hoffman
41. On A Wing And A Tear by Cynthia L. Smith
42. Westfallen by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares
43. Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better by Mylisa Larsen

Writer Alice Hoffman of Practical Magic fame brings to life Anne Frank. Not the girl in the attic we know so well from her own diary, but Anne Frank and her world before the attic, as she blossomed into an intelligent, inquisitive girl just as life crumbled down around her. It’s an acclaimed work approved by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam that should deepen our appreciation for Frank and her masterwork.

Author Cynthia L. Smith celebrates the quintessential American rite of passage known as the road trip. This time it involves multiple generations of two Indigenous tribe families, the Robertses and the Halfmoons living (and then road-tripping) together. Teens Mel and Ray happily join Grampa Halfmoon as he drives a bat (yes, a bat with an injured wing) to Macon, Georgia for the reenactment of a “legendary Great Ball Game.” A bat heading to a ball game? See, now you need to read On A Wing and a Tear, don’t you?

Ann Brashares of Traveling Pants fame and her brother Ben team up for Westfallen. They make like Robert Harris and wonder, what if Nazi Germany won the war? Actually, they make like The Twilight Zone and wonder what would happen if kids today found a radio and discovered they could talk with kids back in 1944. What harm would it do to encourage those kids to have some fun and save a local candy store that was famously lost. That couldn’t possibly have worldwide impli…. Oops. In the tense thriller that follows, they will need to fix things, fast.

Life ain’t easy when your name is Quagmire. In Mylisa Larsen’s book, Quagmire is very self-sufficient. You kind of have to be when your single mom sometimes skips her meds and becomes…undependable. Then she disappears entirely, Quagmire is forced to room with an uncle he didn’t know he had and life gets–if possible–even more complicated. Maybe it would be less complicated if Quagmire learned to ask for help? But that’s hard to do when you’ve spent your whole life convincing others (and yourself) that things couldn’t be better.

When We Flew Away by Alice Hoffman ($19.99; Scholastic Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

On A Wing And A Tear by Cynthia L. Smith ($18.99; Heartdrum) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Westfallen by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares ($18.99; Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better by Mylisa Larsen ($18.99; Clarion Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

44. Mouse & His Dog by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Cholodenko
45. That Curious Thing by Chris Raschka
46. Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! by Jorge Cham

Two giants of kids lit partner up. Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Cholodenko clearly have fun whipping up the story of a mouse, his friend Buster the dog, a shelter for dogs both real and robotic (?!) and a quest to find Buster a home. If you have much fun reading as they clearly had collaborating, you’re in for a treat.

From a mouse and a dog (and a robot dog!) to–naturally–cats. Chris Raschka offers delightfully old-fashioned illustrations but the story itself is epic and involves a secret society of cats fighting for peace named PURR (Peace Urgently Requires Reasonableness) that must face down CLAW, a secret society of cats fighting for war! Spoiler: CLAW stands for Cats Loving Awful Warfare. Silliness ensues.

Jorge Cham just gets down with science in this diary-style book. His second in the Oliver’s Great Big Universe series finds Oliver learning everything he can about volcanoes so he can win the science fair, defeat his archrival for the title and get everyone to forget about seeming to barf up cherry pie in the cafeteria. Jeffy Kinney of Wimpy Kid fame says “I got smarter reading this” but don’t worry, he hastens to add it’s hilarious.

Mouse & His Dog by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Cholodenko; illustrated by Wallace West ($17.99; Feiwel & Friends) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

That Curious Thing by Chris Raschka ($21.99; Michael di Capua Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! by Jorge Cham ($15.99; Amulet Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

47. When You Find The Right Rock text by Mary Lyn Ray; art by Felicita Sala
48. The Gray City by Torben Kuhlmann
49. The Table by Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins; artwork by Jason Griffin

Three distinctly different picture books about searching for something that's missing: a rock, a splash of color, a connection. Each is quietly satisfying. When You Find The Right Rock captures the pleasure of picking up stones on the seashore or on a hill and actually looking at them, seeing them, piling them up into a pile and moving on. It’s pleasures sneak up on you. The Gray City is a captivating picture book/graphic novel about a little girl bringing color to a very grey city. And if you’re looking forward to the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film Here (based on the brilliant graphic novel by Richard McGuire), here’s another, somewhat similar charmer: in this story, one table links two families generations apart.

When You Find The Right Rock text by Mary Lyn Ray; art by Felicita Sala ($18.99; Chronicle Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Gray City by Torben Kuhlmann; translated by David Henry Wilson ($22.95; NorthSouth Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Table by Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins; artwork by Jason Griffin ($19.99; Neal Porter Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: The 43 Best New Book Releases: Fall 2024