13 blockbuster novels to look out for this fall

If there’s one consolation that summer’s almost over, it’s that the best books of the year are on their way. Take a look at this year’s dazzlingly rich fall novels, stuffed with works from Elena Ferrante, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, and John Irving, to name just a few.

Ferrante’s final Neapolitan novel follows Lila and Elena as they wrestle with their fraught, decades-long friendship. (Sept. 1)

In Franzen’s long-awaited doorstop of a novel, a girl named Purity embarks on a journey through South America to find herself. (Sept. 1)

He may be better known as a literary agent and memoirist, but Clegg’s debut novel—about a woman named June who loses her entire family in one fell swoop—has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. (Sept. 8)

In Groff’s stunning novel, one seemingly perfect marriage (and its secrets) is shown from both sides over 24 years. (Sept. 15)

Atwood trains her oft-twisted eye on a down-on-their-luck married couple who stumble upon a town where residents can be comfortably unemployed…but there’s a catch. (Sept. 29)

As a drought cripples Southern California, some people are sent to internment camps while others scavenge to survive. (Sept. 29)

It’s hard to believe this layered, 944-page 1970s New York epic is a debut: The glitter and grime of the city’s punk heyday are captured in gorgeous detail as multiple stories converge. (Oct. 13)

From the creators of the podcast comes this novel about a Southwestern town full of ghosts, aliens, and shape-shifters. (Oct. 20)

The financial crisis is drenched in humor in this tale about a banker whose life becomes more interesting when a downtrodden author starts fictionalizing it. (Oct. 20)

The global best-seller’s latest saga traces the love story between a Japanese gardener and a Polish refugee in World War II-era San Francisco. (Nov. 3)

When a young girl from Brooklyn stays with a wealthy upstate New York couple through the Fresh Air Fund, she learns to ride horses, and a new world unfolds. (Nov. 3)

This fictional account of the friendship between Mark Twain and explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley is a brilliant posthumous capstone to the Pulitzer Prize winner’s legacy. (Nov. 3)

Lupe, at 13, can read minds, though she sees the past more clearly than the future. Years later, her brother reflects on their childhood in Mexico and the memories that haunt him. (Nov. 3)

For the rest of our Fall Books Preview, pick up the issue of Entertainment Weekly, or subscribe online at ew.com/allaccess.

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