It’s fall, classes are starting, and the leaves are falling. It’s the perfect time to find a new book to curl up with, but it can be a struggle sometimes to find a book that fits the season or your mood just right. If you have a never-ending To Be Read list or are struggling to find something that appeals to you, a few more suggestions can never hurt. With that said, here are some books I read in the last few months that I could not put down and thoroughly enjoyed, ranging from historical fiction to creative nonfiction back to contemporary fiction: hopefully something stands out.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
Disclaimer and trigger warning for this series: it deals with sexual assault, violence, and death. It doesn’t shy away from its descriptions.
That being said, it is also a book about hockey, a small town in Sweden, life, and humanity. I laughed, cried, and went through every range of emotions while reading. Beartown follows a small town with a big dream of their junior hockey team making it past the national semifinals and winning the season to bring funding and money back into a struggling town and economy and the price that it demands of the teenage boys, their coaches, families, and others in the town. It all comes together when an act of violence occurs, a young girl is traumatized, and the town is thrown into turmoil and takes sides, leaving no resident of Beartown unaffected. That is just how the trilogy starts, and it truly is such a heartbreaking and human story that I recommend to absolutely everyone.
The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World’s Fastest-Growing Sport by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
What kind of Formula 1 fan would I be if I didn’t recommend a book written about how Formula One came to be what it is? Written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, this book tells a riveting true tale of how Formula 1 grew and grew until it broke into the American market when, by all accounts, it should’ve folded years before, but instead, it chronicles the behind-the-scenes work of Bernie Ecclestone, Enzo Ferrari, and more. For fans of both F1 racing and Drive to Survive on Netflix, this book has it all, from gossip to drama to facts and high-speed racing. For fans of creative nonfiction who prefer real stories about real people but also love sports or stories too wild to be true, this is the perfect fall read for you.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
With October and Halloween coming up, what better way to prepare than reading a story inspired by Scooby-Doo? The Blyton Summer Detective Club are reunited again in 1990 after their last case in 1977. It is a wacky, unique, good time full of hijinks but also the supernatural. This book is perfect for those who want a book dealing with the supernatural but want to laugh instead of being scared. The writing style can be a bit jarring at points, with the fourth wall being broken, switching between POVs, shifting to screenplay format, and more wildly different and interesting stylistic choices, but once you’re into it, you’re in it. It’s a wacky and wild ride, but even if you’re not familiar with Scooby Doo and the gang, have no fear: you’ll be immersed within this world and need to know what happens next in what can only be described as Scooby Doo meets Lovecraft and Cthulhu.
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
Dolly Alderton’s debut novel follows Nina Dean, a successful food writer who has loving friends and family and even has a new home that she moved into, yet she is single. Nina is struggling with the fact that she is in her thirties and without a partner, while her ex-boyfriends are moving on, friends are moving to the suburbs, her mom is going through a baffling makeover, and her dad is facing health struggles. It all seems bleak for her until she meets Max, a match from a dating app, and he is the romantic hero we all want, telling her that he will marry her from date one. Life isn’t as it seems though, and this book is full of laughs, struggles, relationships, family, tender moments, and more. It feels human at its core.
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
I might be a little biased here: Kate Quinn is one of my favourite historical fiction authors. Set in Washington, D.C., in 1950, this story features an all-female boarding house, Briarwood. Kate Quinn deftly weaves in different points of view between all the women while continuing the plot. It is a murder mystery with female friendship, hardships, romance, and espionage woven in. I flew through this book and couldn’t put it down. It covers the struggles of various women, from a mother suffering from postpartum to a former professional women’s softball player to an elderly refugee and more. Quinn does a fantastic job in showing everyone is human and has their own struggles, but that at the end of the day, over good food, everyone can find common ground and perhaps cover up a murder or two.
Hopefully, one of these books sparks an interest and can be added to what I’m sure might be an incredibly long To Be Read list. There are some honourable mentions as well that didn’t quite make the cut, such as Good Material by Dolly Alderton, Know My Name by Chanel Miller, Outlawed by Anna North, and many other fabulously written books. With all that said, I’m on my way to the bookstore to find another good read to curl up with and enjoy.