Fall is just around the corner and the major publishers are about to release some of their biggest titles of the year. These books will have massive marketing campaigns that will be unavoidable. Instead of highlighting these books, I thought it could be more useful to mention some titles out next month that caught my eye but may fly a bit under the radar. In alphabetical order, I give you five interesting September books to check out.
Art, Annotated: The World’s 500 Greatest Paintings Explained
From acclaimed publisher Dorling Kindersley, this art gallery in a book spans more than 3,000 years of paintings, sculptures and prints. Combining reproductions of each work with annotations, this is an expertly curated selection of the finest art ever created. The book profiles the work of more than 450 artists from around the world and covers every period and major art movement. Packed with information, “Art, Annotated” brings the greatest works of art up close to the reader. It is a stunning visual sourcebook for all art lovers.
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
By Elyse Graham
This is the as-yet-untold story of the academics who invented modern spycraft and helped turn the tide of World War II. At the start of the war, the United States found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the CIA, was formed and turned to academia for recruits. Literature professors, librarians, and historians were quickly trained to perform undercover operations and investigative work. These newly minted spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.
The author draws on personal histories, diaries, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of scholars turned unlikely spies.
Among them are a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents, a history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa, and an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned from the war. Fast-paced and rigorously researched, “Book and Dagger” is a gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis, as well as a tale that reveals the power of humanities to change the world.
The Lantern of Lost Memories
By Sanaka Hiiragi
This heartwarming novel centers around a magical photo studio where people go after they die to view key moments from their lives and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife. Beyond the straightforward interior of a photo studio is a secret: this is the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance to see their entire life flash before their eyes via the owner’s “spinning lantern of memories.” The owner also offers guests a second gift: a chance to travel back in time to take a photo of one particular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish. Full of charm and whimsy, “The Lantern of Lost Memories” will take you to a world of nostalgia, laughter, and love.
The Lightning Bottles
By Marissa Stapley
The author delivers a story about a grunge-era musician’s journey to find out what really happened to her husband and partner in music, who abruptly disappeared years earlier. Jane Pyre was once half of a famous rock ‘n’ roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she is perhaps the most hated and least understood woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate and soulmate Elijah Hart, even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted the Lightning Bottles to instant fame. But ever since Elijah disappeared and the band’s rise to fame came crashing down, the public hatred of Jane has taken on new levels, and all she wants to do is retreat. What Jane doesn’t anticipate is the bombshell that awaits her at her new home in the German countryside: a sullen teen girl who claims to have proof that not only is Elijah still alive, he has also been leaving secret messages for Jane… and they need to find them right away. A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, “The Lightning Bottles” is both a love letter to the 90s and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.
The Mesmerist
By Caroline Woods
A tightly plotted page-turner ripped from the headlines of history, as three very different women must work together to stop a killer and save the truest home they’ve ever known. Before hypnotism, there was Mesmerism. In 1894, Minneapolis spiritualism of every stripe is all the rage, and women are dying under mysterious circumstances. But until a new guest lands at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, refusing to speak or explain her arrival, the stories of unexplained deaths seem unconnected. Faith’s reticence is quickly interpreted as malevolence, setting the house abuzz with whispers of dark magic.
Abby, a staunch Quaker and the Bethany Home’s treasurer, thinks the rumors of mystical powers swirling around Faith are nonsense, but she recognizes the danger of a good story. Unwilling to allow the Home’s important mission to be clouded by scandal, Abby tasks Faith’s roommate, May, with tracing Faith’s path to the Bethany Home. May is desperate to end her year at Bethany Home engaged, even if her prince charming is Hal, a man she’s not sure she can trust. She uncovers a Minneapolis she never expected as she begins digging into Faith’s shadowy background, and her investigation brings her closer to polite society and Hal than she could have dreamed. The more May learns, the more she’s forced to question the motives of everyone around her, and as more women turn up dead, May must reevaluate the future she wants and which lies she’s willing to tell. Rich with tension, suspicion, and sharply observed characters, the author reimagines a classic American genre through the eyes of three bold, unforgettable women.
These are just a few of the many fantastic new and forthcoming books at the library. If you want to check out more titles you can browse our catalog here. And, as always, happy reading!
(Library book display photo by Rhiannon Schoener)