20 Books with Fall Vibes
Campuses, eerie woods, dark secrets, etc.
I adore fall with every fiber of my being. I love pumpkins, apple cider, sweaters, and leaves. I want to wear all of the oranges and burgundies. I want my berry lipsticks and my Leaves candle from Bath and Body Works. I am best represented by this iconic image:
Living seasonally is important to me, and one of the ways I embrace seasons is through books. When September hits, I find myself gravitating toward books with fall vibes. For me, that includes school stories, dark mysteries, and heavier subject matter. The books on the list I'm sharing with you today reflect those qualities. Not every book is set in the fall, but each one gives me the autumnal feeling I'm after. Let's get started by going back to school.
Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden: This novel presents a satirical look at a public high school in Texas. We meet an earnest English teacher who yearns for a deeper connection with her students. The principal ends up in the news for saying something controversial on camera. Other main characters include a math teacher, biology teacher, football coach, and a second-year history teacher who blogs about the school and starts to go viral.
I found this novel to be equal parts funny and insightful. Many of the characters are people I feel like I’ve met over the years. Try this underrated gem if you’re looking for a lighthearted book to welcome you into a new school year.
The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi: Anisa is a Pakistani woman who lives in London and works as a translator. She starts dating Adam, a man who secretly learns Urdu to impress Anisa and her family. When she wonders how he learned so quickly, Adam tells her about the Centre, a secretive program that promises language fluency in a few days. Attendance is by invitation only, and Anisa receives one. When she arrives, she forms a bond with the Centre's manager, the daughter of one of the founders. As Anisa spends more time at the Centre and learns more about its history, she wonders what's really going on and how it all works. This slow burn of a story is just the right amount of creepy.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: In the 1970s, the Lee family is living in Ohio while raising their children. Their daughter, Lydia, is found dead, and everything in their lives begins to unravel. Celeste Ng's gripping novel is a masterful look at grief, culture, family relationships, and the expectations we place on those we love. When I finished reading this novel years ago, I couldn’t get over the fact that it was a debut.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: A couple of years after losing his father on 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar finds a mysterious key that he believes belonged to his dad. Desperate to know what the key opens, Oskar sets out on a journey around New York City, hoping to find the lock. This inventive and emotional modern classic is one of my all-time favorites. Oskar is a lively, lovable protagonist, and I found myself rooting for him on every page. I've never read anything quite like this book, and I trust that you'll love it if you haven't read it yet.
Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro: Maggie is a loving wife, mother, and poet. At a conference, she meets a fellow poet named James, and they enter into a friendship that slowly morphs into something else. Maggie is a religious person who struggles with the moral choices in front of her. Quatro writes gorgeous, sensual prose that expertly captures Maggie's yearning and guilt. I read this book in one sitting because I was captivated by not just Maggie's story but also how Quatro wrote it. Fire Sermon feels so very real and raw. No matter your vice, anyone will be able to relate to Maggie as she's drawn to something she knows will only end badly.
How Can I Help You by Laura Sims: Margo is a librarian living and working in a small town named Carlyle. She’s a hard worker who her colleagues and patrons adore. When Patricia, the new reference librarian, arrives, Margo starts to spiral. Patricia begins to suspect that Margo isn’t who she says she is when a patron is found dead in a library bathroom. Though one plot point didn’t make sense, I absolutely loved this page-turning story about murder, obsession, and identity. I need more books about deranged librarians in my life.
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai: Bodie Kane is a successful podcaster and professor who returns to Granby, the New Hampshire boarding school she attended as a teen, to teach a couple of classes. In her podcasting course, a student starts digging into the murder of Thalia Keith, Bodie’s former roommate at Granby, who was killed on campus. Though the case has been solved for years, Bodie can’t help but ask questions and begins to wonder if the right man is behind bars.
I Have Some Questions for You is a masterful mystery novel about growing up, injustice, and the secrets we keep. Granby feels like a real place, and the characters who populate its campus are complex. Rebecca Makkai builds tension slowly and methodically until the book’s satisfying conclusion.
The Laughter by Sonora Jha: This satirical novel tells the story of a white, middle-aged man who’s an English professor in Seattle. He becomes obsessed with his Pakistani colleague and her nephew, who just arrived in America to live with his aunt. The story is told from the perspective of the white professor, which is great if you like unreliable narrators like I do. As his obsession grows, so does the political turmoil on campus. This book becomes increasingly tense as it moves along, and I loved every minute.
Looking for Alaska by John Green: This excellent YA novel is the first by the beloved John Green. (It’s also my favorite of his books.) The story follows a boy named Miles, who attends a coed boarding school. It’s there he meets a girl named Alaska. He’s immediately smitten and is soon drawn into her fascinating, self-destructive world. When tragedy strikes, Miles is forced to reevaluate everything he thought he knew.
I’ve read all of the novels Green has authored alone, and this is the one that has stuck with me the most. He writes teenagers so well, and their desperation and strivings toward adulthood are profound in this story.
The Most by Jessica Anthony: This book just appeared in my August wrap-up, where I said:
It's an unusually warm Sunday in November 1957. Virgil Beckett takes his sons to church while his wife, Kathleen, stays home. She's hot and decides to get into her family's apartment complex pool. When her family returns home, she's still there and refuses to come out. Set over a few hours, The Most examines what looks to be a happy family and strong marriage.
This book is a slim 144 pages and could have been longer. The story was over just as I felt like it was getting started. Despite that complaint, I enjoyed how Jessica Anthony explored male and female gender roles and how those expectations left people frustrated and, in some cases, broken. Kathleen was a promising tennis star who couldn't help but wonder what might have been while Virgil struggled to find fulfillment in his marriage, career, or role as a father. Pick up The Most if you like nuanced stories about women's internal lives. (This book was just announced as a contender for the National Book Award.)
The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson: In some ways, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth is the opposite of the first book on this list, Adequate Yearly Progress. While that novel was satirical and followed teachers at a struggling school, this novel is much darker and primarily follows students at a school full of privileged families. The staff member readers get to know the most is a new teacher named Molly. She’s unaware of a tragic event that happened in middle school, an event still reverberating through the high school years later.
I appreciated how Lindsey Lee Johnson juxtaposed privilege and tragedy, earnestness and facade. This novel felt achingly real and has some critical things to say about how our actions can stay with us.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead: This Pulitzer Prize winner was a novel that I couldn’t stop reading even when I wanted to put it down. It’s about a terrible reform school in Florida that leaves physical and emotional scars on its students. Two of those students are Elwood and Turner, who face the evils of abuse, violence, and racism. The Nickel Boys is a bleak, haunting, but ultimately essential story of life in the Jim Crow era.
The Nix by Nathan Hill: Samuel Anderson is coasting through life. He wants to be a great writer, but instead, he’s a mediocre college professor who spends his evenings playing video games. One day he sees the mother who abandoned him as a child show up on the news for throwing rocks at a political candidate. Samuel owes his publisher a book, so he decides to track down his mom and write her life story in an attempt to show her true colors.
As Samuel gets to work, readers are taken through the latter half of the twentieth century as his mother tells her story. There is so much happening in this novel, yet Nathan Hill never lets it get away from him. It’s an epic book that I want everyone to read and love as much as I do. (The audiobook narration is outstanding, by the way.)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt: How could I possibly share a fall book list and not include this title? This unsettling story is set at a small, elite college in New England. A group of eccentric students grows close with an equally eccentric classics professor. Readers find out within the first few pages that one of the students is dead. The tension of this book is how it got to that point.
The Secret History is probably the most popular, beloved book of the dark academia genre, and for good reason. It’s beautifully written and is full of memorable characters who you’re never quite sure you trust. This book is one of my top three novels of all time, one I wish I could read again for the first time. It’ll never leave my personal library.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl: Blue lives with her professor father and has moved a lot for his work. When she’s a senior in high school, she and her father finally settle down, and Blue falls in with an eccentric group of students and their beloved teacher. Special Topics in Calamity Physics has been compared to The Secret History because of its plot, but this book has a much lighter tone, though it too involves death and mysterious circumstances. This novel got Marisha Pessl added to my “I’ll Read Everything They Write” list. I’ve never read anything else quite like this book. I adore it and think literature lovers who appreciate offbeat fiction will, too.
Stoner by John Williams: Stoner is a simple book with a simple story. The novel follows a man named William Stoner throughout his life in Missouri. Stoner is expected to take over the family farm, but he’s fascinated by literature and becomes a professor instead. We follow Stoner through his work life and marriage as he struggles with the things we all struggle with: being present, working hard, and showing up for the people who need us.
This book has been called a perfect novel, and I wholeheartedly agree. Stoner is not to be missed for readers who appreciate character development and a deep look into a person’s mind and spirit. It might be a simple story, but John Williams has profound things to say about the human experience.
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt: In 1987, when June is fourteen years old, her beloved uncle Finn dies of an illness June's mom doesn't want to talk about. He was the only person who June felt fully comfortable with, and his death leaves a gaping hole in her life. At his funeral, June spots a man in the crowd she doesn't recognize. When he reaches out to her with a beautiful teapot from her uncle, the two come together to mourn Finn and find solace in one another. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is such a heartbreaking, tender story that I just love. It’s an adult novel, but teens would also enjoy it.
The Tenant by Katrine Engberg: When a woman is found brutally murdered in her apartment, detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner start investigating the case. They discover the victim was written into her landlady's novel-in-progress, which raises even more questions as the two seek to find justice.
This series by Katrine Engberg is translated from Danish and set in and around Copenhagen. The setting is one of my favorite things about Engberg's books. She creates a strong sense of place and draws you in with her complicated protagonists and twisty mysteries. The Tenant is a good pick for fans of Tana French and Jane Harper. It’s the first book in the series.
Watching You by Lisa Jewell: Melville Heights is a posh neighborhood in Bristol, England. Full of wealthy and influential people, it's not the type of place where someone gets murdered. When a body is found, secrets and rumors start coming to light that go back to a local private school and its popular headmaster.
One of my favorite story structures is a varied cast of characters connected in ways slowly revealed to the reader. Lisa Jewell executes that structure so well, especially in Watching You. A lot is happening in this story, but it all comes together in a satisfying conclusion. I was hooked from the first page and sped through this thriller.
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall: Naomi was best friends with Cassidy and Olivia when she was a girl. The three spent a lot of time in the nearby woods and created a game involving magic and spells. Everything changed one summer when Naomi was attacked in the woods where the girls were playing. She survived over 15 stab wounds, and her attacker was arrested and convicted of being a local serial killer who was wanted in the deaths of six women. Over a decade later, the three girlfriends still have a secret from that summer, and Olivia wants to tell. When something terrible happens to her, Naomi must figure out who else might know their secret and if the man who tried to kill her was really who she said he was.
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What titles make your fall reading list? What else should I add to mine? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Loved Tell the Wolves... And just placed a hold on The Tenant. I'm looking forward to winter so I can get back to Louise Penny, but am in no hurry to rush through fall.
I requested the library get Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I always want to be reading something I can’t wait to get back to. Thanks for the list. I also love fall, but find myself getting a little sad about the upcoming frost.