Fall books

You’ll want to do more than just leaf through these new releases.

THE weather may remain a furnace blast, but according to the calendar, summer is over. It’s time to pack up the beach reads and sandy paperbacks and dive into the books of fall. The publishing world typically rolls out its best offerings in the fall, its busiest season of the year — the big-name authors, the most promising debuts, the heady novels and buzzy biographies we’ll want to curl up with on those ever-longer nights. Dozens of books are worth a look this season, but we’ve rounded up 13 of the most intriguing ones on the horizon. A few debut novels mingle with big new releases from established authors, seasoned with a little bit of history and a story about a time machine.

‘Eleanor and Hick’ By Susan Quinn SEPT. 27

As Eleanor Roosevelt was uneasily adjusting to her public life as first lady, she developed a close relationship with an Associated Press reporter named Lorena Hickok, and it changed both women’s lives. Using correspondence, oral histories and other material, Quinn offers a personal look at their relationship and a glimpse of the ways Hickok — known as “Hick” — helped Roosevelt build a strong, influential role in her husband’s administration.

‘The Wangs vs. the World’ By Jade Chang OCT. 4

Charles Wang made his fortune in America, thenn lost most of it in the financial al crisis. With his Bel-Air homeome in foreclosure, he takes his son (who wants to be e a stand-up comic) and daughter (a budding fashionshion blogger) on a cross-country ntry trip to upstate New York k so they can live with their ir older sister (a disgraced artist) while he returns to o China to try to start over. . This debut novel about financial ruin and family dysfunction has gotten buzz for being funny, charming g and just plain fun.

‘Time Traveling With a Hamster’ By Ross Welford OCT. 4

This kids’ book combines two potent ingredients: time travel and a kid who just wants to see his late dad again. On his 12th birthday, Albert Einstein Hawking Chaudhury receives a letter that his father wrote four years ago, just before he died. The letter gives Al directions to a time machine and a nervewracking mission: Travel back to 1984 and prevent the go-kart accident that eventually killed his dad as an adult. The boy and his pet hamster are off on an adventure.

‘The Mothers’ By Britt Bennett OCT 11

Grieving her mother’s suicide, 17-year-old Nadia begins a relationship with the pastor’s son. She discovers she’s carrying his baby, opts to endd her pregnancy, then hides the secret from everyone, including her best friend — a choice that creates a web of lies that follows all three of them well into adulthood, making each of them question their choices. It’s a first novel for Bennett, who’s just 26, but she has made a name for herself online with incisive essays (for publications such as The New Yorker and Jezebel) about being black in America.

‘A Gambler’s Anatomy’ By Jonathan Lethem OCT. 18

In Lethem’s tenth novel, backgammon hustler Bruno Alexander has telepathic abilities. He also has a tumor in his face that keeps his psychic powers from working. Bruno’s on a losing streak and has burned through all his money, so a childhood acquaintance agrees to pay for the experimental surgery that could save him. But why? And what will Bruno have to give up in order to survive?

‘Mister Monkey’ By Francine Prose OCT. 18

Prose’s novel is a comedy based on a comedy: Her main characters are cast in a children’s theater production, “Mister Monkey,” which is based on a best-selling childrechildren’s story about a pet chimpchimp inin Manhattan.Manhatta The play — a shabbyshabb little productioproduction with a prepubescent boy playing the title role — is both comic and a little tragic, and the story weave through the cast and the audience with hilarious effect.

‘A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash’ By Alexander Masters OCT. 18

Here’s something irresistible: In 2001, a box full of 148 old, moldy notebooks were found in the trash at a building site in Cambridge. Masters, a British social worker and writer, took the boxes and read through the thousands of handwritten pages, which revealed several decades of a remarkably interesting life. He obsessively pieced the anonymous diarist’s story together, mapping out her relationships one detail at a time. “A Life Discarded” is a bit of a detective story, explaining how Masters untangled the many mysteries he found in those diaries — including the diarist’s identity.

‘The Boat Rocker’ By Ha Jin OCT. 25

In this laugh-out-loud book from a seasoned novelist, a reporter for a Chinese news agency in New York is assigned to write an exposé on his ex-wife’s novel, which has attracted international attention and a major movie deal. He begins to believe that his ex is a pawn of the Chinese government, then begins to suspect the U.S. government and his own news agency are involved in a conspiracy. Who’s in on the plot — or is he just paranoid?

‘The Terranauts’uts’ By T.C. Boyle OCT. 25

To prepare for closed-environment life on other planets, four men and four women are chosen to live in a sealed compound in Arizona. The young, attractive “terranauts” chosen live in a bubble, with the world and the media watching — and this “new Eden” becomes a scientific experiment and the world’s best reality show at the same time.

‘Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” ’ By Miles Hyman OCT. 25

Shirley Jackson is having a moment. The author, who was born a century ago and died in 1965, is the subject of a serious new biography out Tuesday, Ruth Franklin’s “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.” This book, however, is just as intriguing: Jackson’s own grandson, Miles Hyman, has produced an “authorized graphic adaptation” of her most famous story, “The Lottery,” using four-color panels and few words to reveal the haunting story of a small town that becomes a mob.

‘Faithful’ By Alice Hoffman NOV. 1

An Alice Hoffman novel is always a good bet. In “Faithful,” a young woman and her best friend are in a car accident. While Shelby walks away unhurt, her friend Helene is left with serious injuries and a different life. Comatose in bed, she is believed to be a healer, and people come from everywhere to be touched by Helene. Shelby, however, must go on with the guilt of surviving the wreck unharmed.

‘Swing Time’ By Zadie Smith NOV. 15

Zadie Smith has said her new novel features “tap dancing, black women, money, poverty, sadness and joy.” That’s a win. “Swing Time” follows two women — who meet as girls in a dance class — as they fumble together toward early adulthood. The novel swings through time, from the present back to 1982, when the girls met, and points out the absurdities and injustices of global politics.

‘Moonglow’ By Michael Chabon NOV. 22

Nearly 30 years ago, Chabon’s grandfather, terminally ill and taking painkillers, spilled out a lifetime’s worth of stories to his grandson. Chabon retells those stories here, in what has been described as “an autobiography wrapped up in a novel disguised as a memoir.”