Books Briefing: October books

September 29, 2020

Hi readers,

Here’s your weekly catch-up on everything you need to know going on in the book world.

The news:

With October around the corner, here are 17 new books to watch for.
In Mariah Carey’s new memoir, the singer reflects on her marriages, childhood and strained family relationships (after she became famous, they saw her as “an A.T.M. with a wig on,” she writes). Here are seven big revelations from “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”
We talk with the playwright and performer Inua Ellams, whose new book, “The Half God of Rainfall,” is about a son of Zeus who dominates on the basketball courts.
Fariha Róisín spent 18 years at work on her debut novel, “Like a Bird,” about a young woman coming to terms with her sexual assault. “I feel like I was able to synthesize something outside of me, outside of my own experience,” Róisín tells us.
The Booker Prize is moving its award ceremony by two days to avoid overlapping with the publication of former President Barack Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land.”
Fiction out today: “Jack,” by Marilynne Robinson; “The End of the Day,” by Bill Clegg; “Bestiary,” by K-Ming Chang; “The Midnight Library,” by Matt Haig.
Nonfiction out today: “The Meaning of Mariah Carey,” by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis; “Where Law Ends,” by Andrew Weissmann; “The Man Who Ran Washington,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser; “The Socialist Awakening,” by John B. Judis; “The Daughters of Yalta,” by Catherine Grace Katz; “Big Dirty Money,” by Jennifer Taub; “Unique,” by David J. Linden; “Abe,” by David S. Reynolds.

The critics:

Dwight Garner reviews “Missionaries,” the first novel by Phil Klay, an Iraq war veteran and the author of the National Book Award-winning story collection “Redeployment.” The new book follows four characters caught up in Colombia’s drug wars — and explores the machinations of America’s post-9/11’s power. As Garner writes: “One of Klay’s points is that it’s hard to tell good guys from bad in the drug wars. The poacher can become the game warden overnight, and vice versa.”
Parul Seghal writes about “To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes,” a book that convenes a group of scholars to talk about iconic and contentious images of enslaved people taken in 1850. “Is there a correct way to regard these images?” Sehgal writes. “Should one view them, or any coerced image, at all? To whom do they belong? Do they quicken or numb the conscience? Does displaying them traumatize the living? Is it care or cowardice to keep them concealed? What do we owe the dead?”
Andrew Weissmann’s new book comes out today; in case you missed it last week, here’s Jennifer Szalai’s review of “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.”

That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I’ll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com.

All my best,

Joumana Khatib

Books at The New York Times

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