CHICAGO — You know how we don’t notice the leaves on the trees until September arrives, nature flips its switch and emeralds become purples, reds and golds? That’s not the worst metaphor for the new fall book season — the big season for publishers (eyeing awards and holiday sales), and the best season for readers (facing more new titles than autumn foliage). There’s a fresh poignancy these days, as new books arrive during a time of resurgent book banning, and in the wake of a near-fatal stabbing of Salman Rushdie after years of threats. We’re noticing books now in a way that, not long ago, we did not.
What follows is not every new book this fall. It is no more complete than an inventory of all the pumpkins in Illinois. But it is a reminder that people who hate provocative ideas and original voices should be angry. In the next few months, we’re getting two books by Cormac McCarthy after 16 years of nothing, the first story collection in nine years by Oak Forest’s George Saunders and the first collection of stories ever by Chicago rising star Ling Ma. (Indeed, week after week of vibrancy from Chicago’s lit scene.) Not to mention, major histories of the pandemic, Trump’s White House, Jim Crow, Chicago architecture and the decline of democracy. And a history of American music by no less than Bob Dylan. And posthumous works by Katherine Dunn (“Geek Love”) and Paul Newman.
You know it’s going to be a rich season of reading in Chicago when even the new Stephen King is set in Chicago. Or rather, a portal to the underworld is found outside Chicago. Either way, eventually you’ll look up and notice: The world seems new again.
