Even if you aren’t heading back to school this September, you might be in need of a reading list.

And boy, do we have one this month: an enormous, mammoth, colossal list of books (and no, not a single thesaurus among them, believe it or not).

Even more than August’s picks, September’s book offerings include award-winning authors and award-nominated titles; fiction, nonfiction and curious hybrids; serious literary works and gloriously genre stories; and pretty much all the kind of stuff you like: novels, memoir, romance, horror, sci-fi, romantasy and more.

So check out what’s coming because you’re almost guaranteed to find at least one or two (or more likely, quite a few) books you will be cozying up with in the coming months.

Sept. 1

“Under Story” by Chloe Benjamin (Putnam)

How far would you go for more time with the people you love? Benjamin asks that question and more in her latest, which follows a biologist and her ex-husband in Antarctica as they investigate a strange light.

“The Knave and the Moon” (The Stonewater Kingdom #2) by Rachel Gillig (Orbit)

In the sequel to “The Knight and the Moth,” Sybil is determined to continue her journey even if she destroys herself in the process. Enter a mysterious knave and romantasy ensues.

“Tear the City Down” by Andre Hardy (Grand Central)

This debut novel from Hardy, a former NFL player, dives into a world of high-stakes crime in San Diego.

“Agrippa” by Robert Harris (Doubleday)

Following the success of “Conclave,” Harris returns to ancient Rome, this time focusing on the ascent of Octavius with the help of his right-hand man and general, Agrippa.

“Kiss Slay Replay” by Rachel Harrison (Berkley)

Take “Groundhog Day,” make it a slasher, and then set it at your best friend’s wedding where everything that can go wrong does, and boom, you’ve got a new novel from the queen of light-hearted horror. (Yes, that is a thing.)

“Blacktail” by Scott Hawkins (Crown)

More than a decade after cult-favorite “The Library at Mount Char,” Hawkins returns with his second novel. “Blacktail” follows a vengeance-seeking wolf who might just take out the human race in the process.

“Scion” by James Islington (Saga)

This sci-fi novel is billed as “John Wick” meets “Ghost in the Shell.” A genetically modified assassin takes on a new job: bodyguard work in a cyberpunk world where the rich can live forever.

“The Disappearers” by Marlon James (Riverhead)

Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize, this 640-page novel from James concerns a group of gay men in late-’80s Kingston, Jamaica, who are attacked by a homophobic mob. In the aftermath of the assault, they each must find ways to deal with the hatred they face while trying to heal physically and mentally.

“An Immaculate Deception” by Isabela Livino (Dutton)

You know what they say about deals with the devil? Well, actually, they say a lot of things, but basically, nothing good. In this debut novel by Livino, Madalena is about to find out the consequences.

“A Time of Witches” by Madeline Martin (Hanover Square)

There’s no such thing as too many witch books. Known for her historical romances, Martin jumps into the dual-timeline trope to bring together two women who share more than blood as they learn to reclaim their voices.

“We Are for the Dark” by Gretchen McNeil (DAW)

An FBI analyst turned small-town priest must team up with a rogue constable and solve the mystery of a missing priest on an island that’s not quite right in this religious horror from an author known for her YA thrillers.

“I Hope this Email Finds You in Hell” by Mackenzie Reed (Berkley)

This novel from Reed answers the age-old question of what to do when you witness your boss perform an exorcism. The answer? Run through the gates of Hell with him, and by gates, we mean Times Square (Surprise! Not really) and duke it out with the corporate underworld of monsters.

“The Castle” by Jon Ronson (Riverhead)

In his latest work of nonfiction, the idiosyncratic, often hilarious journalist has a story fall into his lap when his grown son tells Ronson that he and his friends had been invited to a Connecticut castle for a party, but found something else. Ronson, recovering from surgery and in need of a distraction, begins to investigate.

“Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature” by Emily Wilson (Liveright)

Remember the kerfuffle this summer when a translator of “The Odyssey” took issue with Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation? Yep, that was Wilson, and here the writer, professor and translator takes on a range of topics that span from Point A to Cardi B.

Sept. 8

“Switzy” by Emma Cline (Random House)

Also long-listed for the 2026 Booker Prize, “Switzy” follows the last voyage of an aging man as he struggles to keep his memory from slipping away.

“The Witches of Cambridge” by Alice Hoffman (Scribner)

Who’s ready for a new series by the author of “Practical Magic”? (All of us?) Set at Radcliffe College during the 1950s, the novel weaves together a story that includes McCarthyism, secret societies, witches and witch hunts.

“Taipei Story” by R.F. Kuang (William Morrow)

The latest from “Yellowface” and “Babel” author Kuang is a coming-of-age story that centers on a college freshman as she learns more about her family while grieving over the loss of her grandfather.

“The Pirate Queen” by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)

Drawing from the lore of the real-life 16th-century “Pirate Queen of Ireland,” Lawhon fills in the gaps about Grace O’Malley’s life and how she risked everything for her people.

“Pictures of You” by Josh Malerman (Del Rey)

A Hitchcockian thriller from the mind of the author of “Bird Box” and “Incidents Around the House”? Yes, please. In Malerman’s latest, a woman wakes up to find herself the subject of a painting, but things are not as simple as they sound.

Sept. 15

“Fallow” by Sarah Anderson (FSG)

In this debut novel, a young woman working a terrible job at a call center is offered an opportunity at a tech company that could solve all her problems. She’s to become the organization’s well-compensated in-house surrogate, having babies as part of a program meant to create gender equality in the company’s boardroom.

“Our Noble Selves” by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)

The wonderful Atkinson, best known for her Jackson Brodie mysteries and the modern classic, “Life After Life,” offers up an entertainment full of spies, murder and the very real Festival of Britain, a slapdash event that was meant to evoke the splendour of modern Britain in the post-war bleakness of 1949.

“We’re All Going to Die Tonight!” by Veronica Bane (Delacorte)

Los Angeles’ own Bane continues her YA thriller ride with “We’re All Going to Die Tonight!” A group of teens is stuck in an Airbnb with their teachers during an overnight school trip. Add in a storm and a dead body, and watch chaos ensue.

“Dead Beat” (Alex Stern #3) by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron)

“Dead Beat” closes out Bardugo’s Alex Stern series with a bang and a demon party at Yale. After entering Hell to pull off a rescue last time around, Alex Stern and co. kind of forgot to close the gates behind them. Now, they must deal with the aftermath.

“Grim Tidings” by B.K. Borison (Avon)

In the second installment of the Ghosted series, Borison’s latest paranormal romance involves an angel and a grim reaper who are, of course, enemies … until maybe they aren’t. Do you really need to know anything else?

“Exit Party” by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)

The “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel” author returns with an imaginative, immersive novel that begins at a party in a very different Los Angeles five years in the future. The novel’s exquisite puzzle pieces are compelling on their own but over the course of the story come together in unexpected and satisfying ways.

“Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy” by Ben Macintyre (Crown)

Macintyre may be our best nonfiction chronicler of real-life spy culture with books that include “Operation Mincemeat,” “Agent Zigzag,” “A Spy Among Friends” and brilliantly over-the-top “SAS: Rogue Heroes.” His latest involves a Soviet agent operating in Iran who reaches out to Britain’s MI6 with an offer.

“The Rouse” by China Miéville (Picador)

In this 1,260-page epic said to be two decades in the making, the speculative fiction novelist tells a story set in the late 20th century about a mother in search of her son that mixes together elements of the historical, the supernatural, the political and more into a family saga.

“Hollow Bones” by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine)

Living in crisis mode isn’t the best thing around, but how do you keep going when what little solace you can find is taken from you? Picoult’s “Hollow Bones” dissects that narrative during an exploration of grief, guilt, and love.

“We Chase Shadows” by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman)

In the newest installment of the We Solve Murders series, the prolific Osman has his team trying to catch a murderer and solve a case that reaches from Italy to Spain to California’s Palm Springs.

Sept. 22

“The Strangers” by Naomi Alderman (Little, Brown)

The author of the bestselling novel “The Power” returns with a novel that combines two unlikely genres: memoir and speculative fiction. Here, in the wake of her mother’s death, Alderman discovers a never-before-seen animal and soon these creatures are everywhere.

“The Big Bad Book of Kaiju” with stories by Tananarive Due, Christopher Golden, Steve Alten, Luke Dumas, Scott Sigler, Ai Jiang, Alma Katsu, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, Maurice Broaddus, Kane Gilmour, Lee Murray and Jeremy Robinson; edited by Jonathan Maberry and Henry Herz (Titan)

Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. That’s all you really need to know about these 25 original stories about, well, monsters, Godzilla-style.

“Our Cut of Salt” by Deena Helm (Tor Nightfire)

Helm dives into Palestinian folklore of haunted landscapes with her debut novel that centers on three generations of women and their ancestral home.

“Hollywood, Ending” by John Green (Dutton)

Yep, Green — the author of “Looking for Alaska,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” and “Turtles All the Way Down” — is back to make us cry. Probably. This time around, Green gives us a look behind the scenes of a budding Hollywood romance as the two rising stars of a new film about Andy Warhol struggle between public and private life.

“Female Life on Planet Earth” by Laleh Khadivi (Ecco)

In what the author has described as her “kaleidoscopic love letter to L.A,” an Iranian American woman named Heti, who is still reeling from the death of her mother, finds out the parent she thought she knew had a secret past as a gun-toting member of the Iranian Revolution.

California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California by Miriam Pawel (Bloomsbury)

What better time to examine the University of California system and its role in education, research, employment and leadership in the state and around the world? As the book reminds us, Joan Didion, who attended UC Berkeley, called the UC system, “California’s best idea of itself.”

“Sometimes I Scare Myself: A Collection of Horror” by Jeneva Rose (Blackstone)

This collection features three horror stories: “Never Kill the Medium” about a birthday party, “The Nightmare House” about a new house, and “All Curses Are Final” about a roadside stop.

Sept. 29

“The Radiance” by Ayad Akhtar (S&S/Summit)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of the acclaimed “Homeland Elegies” is back. In this novel, a writer is injured in a hit-and-run accident and experiences what might be a spiritual awakening — or could be the onset of mental breakdown.

“Dodge City” by Patrick deWitt (Ecco)

Set in 1967 as the Vietnam War is escalating, a UCLA college student gets kicked out of school, which ends his deferment and exposes him to being drafted. So he leaves California on what’s described as “an amphetamine-fueled cross-country road trip” as he heads for the Canadian border.

“Ply” by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead)

In this instantly gripping novel set in a ravaged America centuries in the future, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Trust” is back with a story about an orphan who survives by stealing electricity off the grid, storing it in portable batteries and bartering it among the people living rough in a collapsing city.

“The American Way of Killing” by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown)

The journalist and thinker of “The Tipping Point” and many other books turns his investigative abilities to the problem of gun violence in this country. Until the nation truly understands the problem, the book argues, it won’t be able to fix it.

“The French Illusion” by John Grisham (Doubleday)

In his latest thriller, Grisham writes about newlyweds enjoying their storybook honeymoon in Paris — until they’re kidnapped while visiting the French countryside and the authorities must piece together what happened.

“The Unhaunting” by Micaiah Johnson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

When something seems too good to be true, well, there’s probably a reason. In this case, a perfect house isn’t what it seems, and three friends are about to find out its Civil War history.

“American Hagwon” by Min Jin Lee (Cardinal)

From the author of “Pachinko,” a National Book Award finalist, comes a family drama about the Kohs as they move from Seoul to Sydney to Southern California.

“The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman” by Deesha Philyaw (Mariner Books)

Philyaw’s debut short story collection, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” won awards and widespread praise, and here she returns with a novel about the much-younger wife of a popular megachurch preacher and the scandal that breaks right when she’s hoping to be fully embraced by his flock.

“Threshing Day: The Wing and Claw Collection” (Empyrean #3.5) by Rebecca Yarros (Entangled)

Not a lot is known about this highly anticipated collection from Yarros outside of the fact that it’ll contain 13 original stories with characters readers are familiar with on Threshing Day, where riders bond with a dragon or die trying.

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