Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Marilynne Robinson’s fourth novel, tells the sweeping story of her eponymous (and utterly complex) protagonist’s hardscrabble childhood and unusual courtship to a much older man. Why readers enthusiastically await the October release: Robinson’s first book, “Housekeeping,” (1980) remains a critical darling, while her “Gilead” (2004) received the Pulitzer.
The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters (Random House). New York Times best-selling author and Baltimore native Wes Moore’s wildly anticipated December release shares inspiring stories of people who, despite great adversity, have made a profound difference in their communities, including two Iraq War vets and a struggling single mother who started a clothing company that hires single moms.
The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books (Penguin). In her follow-up to “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” popular Azar Nafisi discusses three time-honored novels, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Babbitt” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”—highlighting fiction’s value in our country’s history and in our lifelong roles as citizens. Sign us up this October.
