Top Ten Reads for September
One of the busiest months in the publishing calendar, how best to navigate the avalanche of books coming your way this coming month? Foyles Top Ten reads for September of course! From Gillian Anderson's gloriously erotic anonymous letters, to Mariana Enriquez's gloriously gory short stories. There's something for everyone. Oh, and there's also a book by someone called Sally Rooney?
Want by Gillian Anderson
Want by Gillian Anderson
05/09/2024
Inspired by Nancy Friday's seminal works, the award-winning film, TV and theatre actor collects anonymous letters—including her own—that reveal the secret sexual fantasies and desires of women from around the world. Freed to explore their deepest yearnings under the banner of anonymity, Want is a fascinating, gloriously erotic study of contemporary female sexuality.
The Golden Road by William Dalrymple
The Golden Road by William Dalrymple
05/09/2024
One of our finest historians, and a prize-winning chronicler of Indian history takes a deep dive into the oft-overlooked history of ancient India. From the spread of religion throughout Asia, to its place as a trading epicentre that enabled the financing of the Roman Empire. From the global influence of Indian art and culture, to the mathematics and technologies that shaped the ancient world. Dalrymple revives the history of ancient India to place it at the very heart of the ancient world.
Street-Level Superstar by Will Hodgkinson
Street-Level Superstar by Will Hodgkinson
05/09/2024
Lawrence may not be a pop superstar, but at sixty one years old, there's still time. In a captivatingly honest and tender rendition of Lawrence's life—Felt, Denim, BritPop, homelessness, addiction, depression, ridicule, but most of all his undying ambition and the power of music—Will Hodgkinson has crafted both a universal story of hunger for fame and acclaim and a psychological study of a true eccentric.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
05/09/2024
A spy-for-hire, sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France to infiltrate a radical eco-activist commune, finds the group and its enigmatic guru/leader to be far more sophisticated and complicated than she can comprehend. Kushner's wonderful book is part-spy novel, part-profound treatise on human history—superbly crafted and beguilingly written, with a breadth of ideas that upends the spy genre into something else altogether.
The Haunted Wood by Sam Leith
The Haunted Wood by Sam Leith
05/09/2024
A work of literary history with heart—Sam Leith's paean to childhood reading is essential reading for anyone who grew up loving books. From Wordsworth to Wonderland, the Hundred Acre Wood to Hogwarts, The Haunted Wood manages to be a serious and scholarly work of literary history that is as enjoyable and as stimulating to the imagination as the books within.
The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay
The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay
12/09/2024
When your name is Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo (Eddie for short), seemingly the theatre world just doesn't want to know, however convinced you are that your play is a winner. Enter Hugo Lawrence Smith: good looking, well-connected, charismatic and... very white. Warona Jay's debut is a thrilling web of lies, institutional racism in the arts, prejudice and privilege. It's also wildly entertaining, ingeniously plotted and thought-provoking.
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
19/09/2024
An incandescent and profound novel from the award-winning author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You. A medical crisis and complete physical breakdown forces a poet into a reckoning over what is truly important in life. Greenwell uses the loneliness of the hospital bed and the dysfunctions of the American healthcare system to explore the limits and tragic beauty of loving, living, dying, caring and being cared for.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
24/09/2024
From Sally Rooney―author of Normal People and Conversations With Friends―an exquisitely written, poignant novel of two brothers grieving the death of their father. Exploring love, despair, hope and with a remarkably perceptive study of the internal depths of character, this is Rooney at her very best.
The Burning Earth by Sunil Amrith
The Burning Earth by Sunil Amrith
26/09/2024
Epic in scope and filled with convention busting research from a wildly diverse set of sources, The Burning Earth is nothing less than a history of the physical world. Amrith seamlessly combines disciplines and time periods to create a genuinely thrilling and revelatory guide to what human beings have done to the planet.
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
26/09/2024
Her first story collection since the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed―A Sunny Place for Shady People is just as deliciously nightmarish. Ghostly apparitions, the occult and the macabre, Enriquez is on top blood curdling, hairs standing on end form.
