[{"id":275815,"date":"2026-09-01T05:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275815"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:52:16","slug":"the-11-best-book-covers-of-august-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-11-best-book-covers-of-august-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The 11 Best Book Covers of August"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another month of books, another month of book covers. The books of August were as lush as you might expect, though not always in the usual ways. Here are a few of my favorites from the end of summer. What’d I miss?<\/p>\n\"Devyn Devyn Defoe, Burnside<\/a><\/em>; cover design by Frances diGiovanni at Rodrigo Corral Studio; cover art by Kate Awalt-Conley (Astra House, August 4)<\/span>\n

Deranged, in the best way. I love the uneven overlap in both text and image.<\/p>\n\"Annie Annie Lord, The Project<\/a><\/em>; cover design by Robin Bilardello (Harper, August 4)<\/span>\n

A book cover you can feel<\/em>.<\/p>\n\"Paul Paul Yoon, Etna<\/em><\/a>; cover design by Oliver Munday (Scribner, August 4)<\/span>\n

So simple\u2014but it’s all in the color story.<\/p>\n\"Matthew Matthew Futterman, The Cruelest Game: Chasing Greatness in Professional Tennis<\/em><\/a>; cover design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday, August 4)<\/span>\n

I love the sly distance between the racket and its shadow.<\/p>\n\"T\u00e9a T\u00e9a Obreht, Sunrise<\/a><\/em>; cover design by Adriana Tonello at Rodrigo Corral Studio (Random House, August 11)<\/span>\n

Another great color story (and appropriately giving Big Book Energy).<\/p>\n\"Claire Claire Carusillo, The Responsible Party<\/em><\/a>; cover design and illustration by Clay Smith (Henry Holt, August 11)<\/span>\n

There’s something deeply appealing\u2014and charmingly ’80s\u2014about the textures here.<\/p>\n\"Daljit Daljit Nagra, Yiewsley<\/a><\/em>; cover design by Kishan Rajani (Faber & Faber, August 18)<\/span>\n

A knockout.<\/p>\n\"Malavika Malavika Kannan, Unprecedented Times<\/a><\/em>; cover design by Sara Pinsonault, artwork by Shyama Golden (Henry Holt, August 18)<\/span>\n

The illustration is arresting, but for me the genius is really in the sharp droop of “unprecedented.” Says it all, really.<\/p>\n\"dorthe Dorthe Nors, tr. Caroline Waight, Range<\/em><\/a>; cover design by Alban Fischer (Graywolf, August 18)<\/span>\n

A gorgeous collage that’s more complex than it first looks.<\/p>\n\"The Anjet Daanje, tr. David McKay, The Song of Stork and Dromedary<\/em><\/a>; cover design by Emma Moore (FSG Originals, August 18)<\/span>\n

Tricky, tricky. Also, that bird wants to tell me something, I can feel it.<\/p>\n\"John John Manuel Arias, Crocodilopolis<\/em><\/a>; cover design by Myunghee Kwon; cover illustration by Rafael Nobre (Bloomsbury, August 25)<\/span>\n

Another bold, gorgeous illustration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another month of books, another month of book covers. The books of August were as lush as you might expect, though not always in the usual ways. Here are a few of my favorites from the end of summer. What’d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1210,"featured_media":275438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43099,6,43092],"tags":[39704,33942,195],"class_list":["post-275815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-newsandculture","category-features","category-newsandculture","tag-best-book-covers-of-the-month","tag-book-cover-design","tag-book-covers"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19KD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Etna.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276296,"date":"2026-09-01T05:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276296"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:44:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:44:45","slug":"10-great-new-childrens-books-out-in-september-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/10-great-new-childrens-books-out-in-september-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Great New Children\u2019s Books Out in September 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of every school year feels full\u2014too <\/i>full\u2014of haircuts and back-to-school nights, last-minute trips to the store for sneakers that aren\u2019t a size too small, and last-gasp-of-summer ice cream cones. My kids are meeting new teachers, trying new activities, reuniting with friends, and, at this point, pretty desperate to get their hands on their school-issued electronic devices. As for me, I\u2019m trying my best to keep us all reading even when life gets busy. Sometimes this looks like ignoring the clock when the kids are up too late with a book; sometimes it looks like summoning the energy to turn off screens after school and march everyone to the library. Once we\u2019re there, I always feel like we\u2019ve suddenly got enough time to stay for a while.<\/p>\n

And there are so many good books to read right now! It\u2019s well worth making time for these ten new releases from long-time children\u2019s book legends and newer favorite creators.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Christopher Myers, Night Ride<\/a>
\n<\/i>Kokila, September 29<\/strong>
\nrecommended for ages 4-8<\/strong><\/p>\n

The artistic scope of Christopher Myers\u2019 new picture book is literally enormous. To create the stained-glass illustrations for each spread, Myers illuminated, and photographed stained-glass windows of his own design, each six feet wide by four feet tall. Like the windows in a cathedral, Myers\u2019 pieces depict a sacred subject: children riding their bicycles on a nighttime pilgrimage through iconic spaces in New York City, from Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge and home again by daybreak. Night Ride<\/i> is wordless, allowing readers to imagine an accompanying narrative or to appreciate the artwork on its own.<\/p>\n

For a mixed-media visual feast, pair Night Ride <\/i>with Jillian Tamaki\u2019s new picture book, Young Cat, Old Cat<\/i>, which is illustrated in embroidery and appliqu\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kate Beaton, Rebecca<\/a>
\n<\/i>illustrated by Sydney Smith<\/strong>
\nRoaring Brook Press, September 22<\/strong>
\nrecommended for ages 4-8<\/strong><\/p>\n

This thoughtful picture book is the work of two acclaimed Canadian creators, cartoonist Kate Beaton and illustrator Sydney Smith. With a sensibility that reminds me of Barbara Cooney\u2019s art and text, Rebecca <\/i>tells a story inspired by the lives of Beaton\u2019s ancestors. Rebecca lives with her husband and children on a small island where everyone in the family has to work hard to survive in the harsh, remote climate. When an accident on the ice claims Father\u2019s life, Rebecca finds herself walking side by side with Sorrow\u2014but there is still wood to chop, still a family to care for, still work to be done. Even in the presence of Sorrow, Rebecca finds contentment and joy in her loved ones and her work until the far-off day when Sorrow comes to sit by her side one last time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jack Wong, Goodbye, Koi<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/strong>Orchard Books, September 15
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 4-8<\/strong><\/p>\n

In author-illustrator Jack Wong\u2019s new picture book, a young boy and his dad take their koi to a new home. The boy wonders how his beloved fish will adapt to living in a big pond with new kinds of food to eat, other fish to meet, and unpredictable weather. Meanwhile, the illustrations tell readers a parallel story: the boy and his dad are also preparing to move to a new home, and their hopes for their beloved koi echo their own hopes for the next chapter of their lives. The book ends with an afterword in which Wong remembers his own childhood move from Hong Kong to Canada. Goodbye, Koi <\/i>is a wise, comforting read for kids who are anticipating a new beginning of any kind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mo Willems, What Will We Find in This Box?<\/i><\/a> (Snake & Bat #1)
\n<\/i><\/strong>Union Square Kids, September 1
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 4-8<\/strong><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need me to tell you about the genius of Mo Willems\u2019 Elephant & Piggie<\/i> books (although I could talk your ear off about how much fun they are to perform aloud with a new reader). What you might not know is that a spinoff series, Snake & Bat<\/i>, launches this month, and it\u2019s just as much fun as the original. Like Elephant Gerald and Piggie, Brian Bat and Snake are sweet and funny best friends with complementary personalities. In this first outing, Bat and Snake open a cardboard box! Bat is entranced by the instruction manual written in many languages, while Snake finds endless imaginative uses for the box itself. But what else does the box hold\u2014and who is its actual owner? My kids are no longer new readers, but they both came running to read this book aloud with me, and all of us thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko, <\/strong>I Am a Good Dog<\/a> (Dogtown #3)<\/strong>
\n<\/i>illustrated by Wallace West<\/strong>
\nFeiwel & Friends, September 22<\/strong>
\nrecommended for ages 8-12<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elementary-aged readers who love real dogs, robot dogs, or even kittens will want to visit Dogtown, the fictional shelter for stray and surrendered pups invented by award-winning authors Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko. Their Dogtown <\/i>series of middle grade novels is perfect for kids who appreciate short chapters and fun illustrations. I Am a Good Dog<\/i>, the third Dogtown book, is narrated by Metal Head, a robot dog whose greatest wish is to find a home and be loved. As he assists the other animals and humans at the shelter on their own quests for love and happiness, Metal Head begins to discover his own doggy purpose as a helper and friend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Adi Rule, Ghost Chickens: Omelet from the Other Side<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/strong>illustrated by Joelle Dreidemy
\n<\/strong>Tundra Books, September 1
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 8-12<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your young Dory Fantasmagory <\/i>fan is ready to build their reading confidence with funny illustrated books that are a little more text-heavy, get them hooked on Ghost Chickens<\/i>, the new early middle grade series from Adi Rule and Joelle Dreidemy. In Omelet from the Other Side<\/i>, ten-year-old Florence Fortescue\u2019s life is disastrously upended when her parents move the family from an exciting city apartment to a boring farmhouse in the country. Or maybe it\u2019s not so boring? When Florence cooks and eats the weird glowing egg she finds in the house\u2019s abandoned chicken coop, she develops the ability to see the ghostly chickens who haunt her new home. Short chapters, lots of artwork, and plenty of laughs will keep kids happily turning pages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lois Lowry, Building 903<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/strong>Clarion, September 29
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 8-12<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new book from beloved children\u2019s author Lois Lowry is always something to celebrate. Like her award-winning 1993 novel The Giver<\/i>, Lowry\u2019s Building 903<\/i> explores how children in a dystopian future uncover uncomfortable truths about their society and dare to imagine a different way of living. In 14-year-old Tessa\u2019s world, neighborhood playgrounds are ancient curiosities, books are illegal, and most daily activities are carried out on screens and observed through government cameras. Worst of all, Tessa\u2019s brother, Theo, has recently gone missing. When Tessa finds a stash of outlawed books in the home that an elderly neighbor has been forced to leave, she realizes that the books may hold clues about Theo\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

James Ponti, Art Attack (The Sherlock Society #3)<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/strong>Aladdin, September 8
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 8-12<\/strong><\/p>\n

My daughter spent her summer vacation flying through James Ponti\u2019s thrilling City Spies <\/i>books, and I\u2019m excited to introduce her to Ponti\u2019s other ongoing middle grade series, The Sherlock Society<\/i>, about four kids who start a detective agency and tackle high-stakes mysteries around their South Florida home. The third installment, Art Attack<\/i>, publishes this month, taking siblings Alex and Zoe Sherlock and their friends Lina and Yadi into the world of graffiti art during Miami Art Week. A developer hires the Sherlock Society to locate a famous, elusive street artist and activist named Funky Munky, but the young detectives soon discover how tough it can be to track down someone who doesn\u2019t want to be found.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shaun Tan, Hometown<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/strong>Levine Querido, September 15
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 10-14<\/strong><\/p>\n

Award-winning author-illustrator Shaun Tan balances art and text to create humor, surprise, and otherworldly wonder in Hometown<\/i>, a picture book that readers of all ages will find satisfying. The narrator, a girl who appears to be human, introduces readers to her family and neighbors, all of whom are perfectly lovely\u2014and distinctly extraterrestrial. When a human boy arrives on their planet and is unsettled by its creatures and customs, he urges the girl to join him back on Earth, where he feels sure she must belong. I can\u2019t wait to discuss the thought-provoking resolution with my own kids.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

M.T. Anderson, Stealing Saint Nick<\/a>: A Legendary Corpse, a Notorious Theft, and the Stories that Shape the World
\n<\/i><\/strong>Dutton, September 22
\n<\/strong>recommended for ages 14 and up<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this new nonfiction release, National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson encourages readers to get curious about history by inviting them along on an investigation of Nicholas of Myra, the historical figure who became known first as Saint Nicholas and later as the legendary Santa Claus. Yes, this is technically a book about Santa, but it isn\u2019t really a Christmas book: Saint Nick himself is ultimately a jumping-off point for a broader examination of history, religion, empire-building, and myth-making. As Anderson shares tales from Nicholas\u2019s life and recounts the 11th-century heist to steal the saint\u2019s bones, he challenges readers to think critically about how humans piece together historical facts and fictions to construct the narratives that shape our understanding of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The start of every school year feels full\u2014too full\u2014of haircuts and back-to-school nights, last-minute trips to the store for sneakers that aren\u2019t a size too small, and last-gasp-of-summer ice cream cones. My kids are meeting new teachers, trying new activities,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15775,"featured_media":276308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43092,43135],"tags":[112059,112062,47752,112061,4904,112052,112060,112055,112063,112058,112054,79874,19529,112057,22126,40729,46220,112053,30934,21908,112064,112056],"class_list":["post-276296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-newsandculture","category-readinglists","tag-adi-rule","tag-art-attack-the-sherlock-society-3","tag-book-list","tag-building-903","tag-childrens-books","tag-christopher-myers","tag-ghost-chickens-omelet-from-the-other-side","tag-goodbye-koi","tag-hometown","tag-i-am-a-good-dog","tag-jack-wong","tag-james-ponti","tag-kate-beaton","tag-katherine-applegate-and-gennifer-choldenko","tag-lois-lowry","tag-m-t-anderson","tag-mo-willems","tag-night-ride","tag-rebecca","tag-shaun-tan","tag-stealing-saint-nick","tag-what-will-we-find-in-this-box"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19So","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/kids-books-september.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15775"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276046,"date":"2026-09-01T05:09:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276046"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:40:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:40:59","slug":"antiuniverses-deepfakes-and-clone-children-septembers-best-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/antiuniverses-deepfakes-and-clone-children-septembers-best-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Antiuniverses, Deepfakes, and Clone Children: September\u2019s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

September is my birthday month, so this latest crop of sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative books feel especially like presents for me, but also for you! Fantasy heists, magical spy thrillers, dystopian abortionists, parallel-universe marriage stories, deepfake Dorian Grays, houses dying to be haunted\u2014what more could you want? Let\u2019s not forget the extra goodies from our 2026 SFF preview<\/a>, Freya Marske\u2019s Bodies of Magic<\/i> and Emily St. John Mandel\u2019s Exit Party<\/i>!<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Scott Hawkins, Blacktail<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Crown, September 1)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first book in over a decade from the author of beloved modern horror cult classic The Library at Mount Char<\/i> is a cause for celebration, and it also sounds weird as all get-out. The animals of the forest follow an ancient, intensely territorial hierarchy of hunters and prey: wolves versus hunting cats, half-breeds alternately accepted or spurned by their respective herds or packs. But then the humans hunt them while destroying the forest, and all those generations-long grudges go out the window as the half-wolf Blacktail rises up as the Forest God\u2019s dark champion. On a killing spree that starts with revenge on humans but eventually approaches the apocalyptic, Blacktail encounters all manner of animal allies who want to see him bring about the end of the two-leggers\u2019 world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chloe Benjamin, Under Story<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Putnam, September 1)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Laurel Salter, a thirtysomething scientist studying mycelium, flees her work and her broken marriage for the remote anonymity of Antarctica\u2019s McMurdo Station. But outside the station is the Arc, an otherworldly light that draws droves of physicists\u2014like her ex-husband, Eli\u2014to study its effects. What he discovers confirms his theory of the antiuniverse, a parallel world where time moves backwards. But it\u2019s Laurel who is most drawn to the antiuniverse, and the potential of healing the tragic loss that ruptured their partnership. This sounds like a speculative riff on The Last Five Years<\/i>; I\u2019m already anticipating the ugly-crying catharsis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mary G. Thompson, Precious Children<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Tachyon Publications, September 1)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This dark speculative novel could be a Black Mirror<\/i> episode with its unflinching look at parents who would \u201cdo anything\u201d to get their child back, but equally dire depiction of the privilege and entitlement that festers in such a scenario. In a future where children\u2019s lifespans are grimly shortened, fertility clinic Generations, Inc. has a solution: wealthy families can clone their kids and circumvent death by uploading their child\u2019s consciousness into a new host. No matter that those doubles have their own consciousnesses, not to mention foster families who have lovingly raised them. When the Blakes want the third iteration of their teenage son Geoff, young Nathan Donovan must surrender his mind for another\u2019s\u2014but the transfer fails, leaving both consciousnesses fighting for their survival. Meanwhile, Geoff\u2019s sister Di comes to suspect that Geoff 2.0 was a con artist. It\u2019s shades of old stories about missing children found who are impostors, crossed with the modern ethics of embryo donation and other fertility gray areas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Premee Mohamed, Wickhills<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Tor Books, September 8)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A fantastical spy thriller set on the streets and underground passages of a magical city? Hell yes. The city of Wickhills is protected by Seaborne, an intelligence agency that hires street-smart types like Vycol Ferec on top-secret missions. But when his latest asset pickup is a scientist defecting from another city\u2014a scientist who might be hiding an apocalyptic weapon\u2014it burns him from Seaborne. On the run within the city that he ostensibly knows better than anyone, but that he also realizes he knows nothing about, Ferec must rearrange his entire worldview about what is right and who the \u201cgood guys\u201d are. This also sounds like one of those novels where the setting will stick with you for a long time, from the organic quirks of Wickhill\u2019s literal foundations to some of its centuries-old inhabitants who may hold the secrets to the city-state\u2019s true nature.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Helene Wecker, The Gates of Midnight<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Harper, September 15)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Helene Wecker\u2019s historical fantasy trilogy (that began with The Golem and the Jinni<\/i>) concludes in 1930 New York City: three decades since Ahmad the jinni buried the flask containing the captured wizard Yehudah Schaalman in the Syrian desert. But when Schaalman tricks a stranger into digging up the flask, he returns to the Big Apple, intent on revenge against the golem Chava, who just wants to tend to her Brooklyn garden sanctuary in peace. Also converging upon the city are Ahmed, who has lost his job in the 1929 stock market crash, and a riveter on the under-construction Empire State Building with secret connections to all of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

S.V. Lockwood, A Complement of Scoundrels<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Bindery Books, September 22)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I adore a heist, and I\u2019m so excited to see more female-centric fantasy heists this year, between C.L. Polk\u2019s The Feywild Job<\/i> and now S.V. Lockwood\u2019s debut. Double-crossed thief Myria sounds like a real Debbie Ocean (complimentary), in that she\u2019s had enough time stewing in Carintheum\u2019s jail to plot revenge on her master who put her there after cracking the Elysius Vault. Reuniting the old crew? On it. Trick the king of tricksters to get his help? She\u2019s working that problem. Decide whether to trust a new ally when feelings are involved? This sounds like it\u2019s going to get messy, in the best way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alma Katsu, Incarnate<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(G.P. Putnam\u2019s Sons, September 22)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A modern take on The<\/i> Picture of Dorian Gray<\/i> by way of social media algorithms, Alma Katsu\u2019s latest feels very in conversation with Yesteryear<\/i>: Failed influencer Dorothy Wagner decides to reinvent herself as the Dr. Frankenstein for Isabella, a stunningly realistic deepfake who quickly amasses millions of followers. But what will it mean if so many people are willing to believe that Isabella is real\u2014will it imbue the creation with enough conviction to become dangerous to her creator? Like Frankenstein, will Isabella make the case for her own existence separate from her origins?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Inez Ray, Buzzard<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Bindery Books, September 22)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2086, corporations monitor fertility and have outlawed abortion. Midwife Mae Bastet, serving a sentence for infanticide, has spent seven years away from her children in Buzzard, the private prison run by paramilitary corporation Obsityan. Her job is ostensibly to monitor the health of teenage drone pilots, but when one of those teens becomes pregnant, it presents Mae with an awfully personal dilemma: do her duty as a midwife and risk never seeing her children again, or remain complicit with Obsityan\u2019s crimes?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Micaiah Johnson, The Unhaunting<\/i><\/a>
\n<\/strong>(Putnam, September 29)<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the author of The Space Between Worlds<\/i> comes a horror debut that opens with a compelling premise for our times: Three lifelong best friends attempt to build a home together when one of them inherits a Civil War-era manor. Shantell is understandably skeptical of the supposedly dreamy Abernathy House that has been bequeathed to her friend Avery and his contractor brother Tobias, but those anxieties melt away when they step inside. Like, something otherworldly literally melts away the anxiety. Now, is the fact that the house itself is eerily turning them into better versions of themselves worth worrying about? Probably. Ditto the presence of ghosts from Abernathy\u2019s construction 170 years ago, when a daughter of the Confederacy wished for a home where nothing bad would happen. Something tells me the house is tired of all that calm and wants to become something else\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September is my birthday month, so this latest crop of sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative books feel especially like presents for me, but also for you! Fantasy heists, magical spy thrillers, dystopian abortionists, parallel-universe marriage stories, deepfake Dorian Grays, houses dying<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10945,"featured_media":276060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43135],"tags":[111911,40312,111904,111914,28564,9210,21918,111912,111913,111906,59841,104169,77072,111907,59934,111910,1758,77071,105060,593,111903,111909,111915,111905,111908],"class_list":["post-276046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","tag-a-complement-of-scoundrels","tag-alma-katsu","tag-blacktail","tag-buzzard","tag-chloe-benjamin","tag-fantasy","tag-helene-wecker","tag-incarnate","tag-inez-ray","tag-mary-g-thompson","tag-micaiah-johnson","tag-monthly-preview","tag-natalie-zutter","tag-precious-children","tag-premee-mohamed","tag-s-v-lockwood","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-and-fantasy","tag-sci-fi-preview","tag-science-fiction","tag-scott-hawkins","tag-the-gates-of-midnight","tag-the-unhaunting","tag-under-story","tag-wickhills","story-type-sci-fi-and-fantasy"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Om","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/244947586-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276225,"date":"2026-09-01T05:06:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276225"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:39:13","slug":"motherships-haunted-mirrors-and-heritances-september-poetry-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/motherships-haunted-mirrors-and-heritances-september-poetry-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"Motherships, Haunted Mirrors, and Heritances: September Poetry Releases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers, this month in publishing is lousy with poets, including terrific poets who I didn\u2019t have space for and poets who I made space for but who deserve more than a few hundred words snapshotting their work. This could have been a double edition round-up of double entries. A round-up is, first and foremost, a heads-up, so I\u2019ll note that September also brings Sherwin Bitsui\u2019s The Next Sky<\/i> (Copper Canyon), <\/i>Cynthia Cruz\u2019s Twilight <\/i>(Four Way Books) Erica Meitner\u2019s Assembled Audience<\/i> (Milkweed), Don Mee Choi\u2019s Freely Frayed<\/i> (Wave Books),<\/i> Joanna Klink\u2019s Days and Chances <\/i>(Penguin), Kiki Petrosino\u2019s Perfect Italian<\/i> (Sarabande), and Brenda Hillman\u2019s Still House in the Desert<\/i> (Wesleyan), among others.<\/p>\n

As I read my way through the September stacks, I was struck by the feeling that we have finally reached the moment post-pandemic when the poets, collectively, are finding their way. Of course, as always, I\u2019m just speaking for me, but this month\u2019s poetry has teeth and soul, has wound and light.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aldo Ampar\u00e1n, The House Has Teeth<\/i><\/a> (Alice James Books)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMen instilled in me \/an empty. I\u2019ve grown up\/ without a body \/\/ of my own.\u201d The traumas and vital reclamations of \u201cSelf-Portrait of the Stolen Body\u201d come midway in Ampar\u00e1n\u2019s visceral second collection and its poems full of hauntings, of trauma reflected from the opening loose crown of sonnets filled with closets and candlelit rooms and wounded and severed bodies\u2014\u201cYou kept biting your scar to make of it a wound \/ the shape of a man\u2019s throat\u201d\u2014through a series of \u201cParable\u201d poems for \u201cthe haunted doll,\u201d \u201cthe haunted cloak,\u201d and \u201cthe haunted mirror.\u201d For \u201cSymptoms of Ghosts\u201d responds to the theory that male \u201cgay orientation\u201d is due to being \u201cpossessed by female ghosts.\u201d The speaker exorcises violent histories and theories of the past, of a time when \u201cI asked a priest \/ what was wrong \/ with my heart. \/\/ My yellowed heart \/ a glitter bomb . . ..\u201d At the same time, Ampar\u00e1n depicts the brutalities of the world unmitigated by art; the speaker in \u201cWatching a Cartel Snuff Film With My Brother\u201d laments, \u201cWhat did we expect \/ to gain, replaying that man\u2019s end?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathy Fagan, The Unbecoming<\/i><\/a> (Norton)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In The Unbecomin<\/i>g\u2019s arresting opening sequence, \u201cListening to Others,\u201d Fagan delivers fourteen sculpted and weighty miniatures that skewer the indignities, freedoms, and revelations of self as a woman graduating from \u201cmiddle age,\u201d but there\u2019s no self-pity to be found here. The speaker is called \u201cOld Bag\u201d by a man on the street and marks him like \u201cthose who touched my hair in the street, my ass in the subway, \/ who kicked at pigeons and taught their sons to do the same: \/ they\u2019re either dead now or, older bags than I, awakened \/ to their cruelties and changed.\u201d The speaker left \u201c until I was the only woman seated at Mother\u2019s Day mass, \/ my devout, dementing dad staring forward, head \/ high and at an angle I recognized as ashamed, not of but for me, \/ or so I like to believe,\u201d and speaker left in grief for her father: \u201cwe had a lot to say: we were wordless at the end. \/ After he died, I took his hearing aids with me. Sometimes\/ I bend to them and speak.\u00a0 Sometimes \/ I raise them to my own ears and listen.\u201d And that\u2019s all just the opening poem. The Unbecoming<\/i> comes on the heels of Fagan\u2019s William Carlos Williams award-winner, Bad Hobby, <\/i>and her Kingsley Tufts\u2019 finalist, Sycamore<\/i>; Kathy Fagan has catapulted through \u201cmid-career\u201d to this book\u2019s admirable heights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leslie McIntosh, within-group variance <\/i><\/a>(Changes)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Changes\u2019 first\/second book prize, launched in 2022 with Louise Gluck as the first judge, has already delivered gems such as Jimin Seo\u2019s Ossia<\/i> and Rachel Mannheimer\u2019s Earth Room<\/i>. This year\u2019s judge, Terrance Hayes, gifts us Leslie McIntosh’s debut, within<\/i>–group variance<\/i>, which reminds us \u201chow to love words \/ enough \/ to free them \/ from information.\u201d These poems move between questions of observable biological differences\u2014\u201cwhy do I still have asthma \/ and my sister doesn\u2019t\u201d set against systematic inequities and biases\u2014\u201cwhy is my water line made of lead \/ when the governor\u2019s isn\u2019t \/\/ why do my doctors give me diagnosis before they open the chart.\u201d Throughout, there\u2019s a palpable vastness. In \u201cpsychopomp,\u201d \u201cBefore I unlearned the romance of the stars, \/ I never dreamed they once abandoned Earth, \/ the wake of their departure grown cold now. \/ immaterial, yet not truly empty.\u201d In McIntosh\u2019s bio elsewhere, positionality is stressed\u2014\u201cblack, male presenting, male attracted, autistic, an older millennial\u201d and his work as psychologist is revealed; this radiates through the language and vantage: \u201cI have a different face every day \/ but my brain is the same machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hieu Minh Nguyen, Staying Still<\/i><\/a>(Tin House)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows what you\u2019re supposed to be when no one is looking?\u2019 The speaker of Hieu Minh Nguyen\u2019s Staying Still<\/i> asks in \u2018The Third.\u201d Whether alone among others in the moment, or alone or in a broader sense when dispatched\/displaced to new cities and states, the speaker in these poems is astute observer of self and others, and the extraordinary openings in these poems are Nguyen\u2019s willingness to allow the speaker to be complex and fallible, to both survive and have agency. Looking backward in \u201cThe Dress,\u201d the speaker concludes, \u201cHow was I to know beauty \/ was something I could ruin \/ for others by trying it on?\u201d Or in \u201cLucky,\u201d which begins \u201cI pushed him off the cliff. \/ I was three,\u201d the speaker reflects, \u201cFor years I\u2019ve been trying to be clear \/ about what I\u2019m capable of.\u201d In the longer, sectioned \u201cLooking,\u201d deft navigations of power imbalances unravel, but the speaker reveals, \u201cYou are tired of trying to find places to store your \/ body when you\u2019re not using it.\u201d And looking back, \u201cThe slashed screen door you\u2019d climb through as a child, running naked down the street, convinced you could turn into glass, convinced you could scream a hole in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Emily Skaja, Black Lake<\/i><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted an uncomplicated joy,\u201d laments the speaker of Skaja\u2019s Black Lake<\/i>, a moving exoration in a phenomenal examination of infertility and grief over miscarriages, and a refreshing expression of a unique voice. To say Skaja\u2019s is one of the best book I\u2019ve read about miscarriage doesn\u2019t do it justice. Skaja tackles her subject head-on with a speaker who is sometimes ragefully funny; shopping at a nursery across from Planned Parenthood while experiencing a miscarriage: \u201cWhy else would I come here\/ to marvel at the lilies of the fucking field\/ unless it\u2019s to check a bloody maxi pad at someone \/ & get a spot on the nightly news, earning myself a Bless her heart<\/i>?\u201d These poems let us in to a slow burn of grief\u2019s many natures due to it devastating particularities; a series of \u201cIt\u2019s the stage of grief where\u201d take us into \u201cwaiting \/ for rage to open my mouth\u201d after \u201cthe machines have gone silent,\u201d while another poem imagines protecting the future child turned adolescent: This is a speaker who is \u201cTaunting death by eating the glue \/ between worlds. By eating the exit itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Paisley Rekdal, Heritance<\/i><\/a> (Copper Canyon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0After the ambitious hybrid project, West,<\/i> Rekdal returns to the simplicity of the lyric \u201cI\u201d alone on the page, morphing and moving with the mind in fearless acts of investigation of difficult subjects, mining liminal spaces. As neighbor to a man killed by the police, as observer of a viral brawl kicked off by racists, as both observer and owner of dolls that embody racialized histories, both national and personal, and as daughter: \u201clike all daughters, I \/ have spent a life \/ looking for which mother \/ is mine: the dark \/ hissing one\/ on the kitchen \/ floor, or this \/ bald-eyed, wordless creature \/ stunned by every pleasure . . ..\u201d Amidst the longer unravelings and wrestlings, gorgeous shorter poems rise such as \u201cFledgling Cooper\u2019s Hawks\u201d in which of \u201c[o]nce where were three,\u201d for \u201cThis \/\/ is the miracle \/ I misjudged: \/ that anything learns\/ to be the creature \/ it was meant to.\u201d For in these poems, whether pain is observed\u2014the needle in a dog\u2019s paw, or felt\u2014the unraveling of a marriage, Rekdal does not turn away: \u201cHurt, \/ we name wound\u2019s\/ recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Marcus Wicker, Dear Mothership <\/i><\/a>(Ecco)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cO Long-Playing Mothership forgive me my crackling radio static i have seen \/ things.\u201d The heart of Wicker\u2019s third collection samples and stakes out its own staticky formal grounds, calling on Outkast\u2019s ATLiens<\/i>, launching an Afrofuturist poetry grounded in interrogations of the whitewashing of academic analysis (starting with E.T.) and the packaging of the self. Propulsive, clever, incisive, and tender, Dear Mothership<\/i> dips with verve (and music) into the slog of topics tied to hitting mid-life \/mid-career during the pandemic that would drag in lesser hands, such as\u00a0 academic careers\u2014\u201cAccidentally giving over our 20s \/ & 30s to an academic Stairmaster\u201d and trying to buy a house\u2014\u201cI tease my fianc\u00e9e Let\u2019s hold out for rehabs \/ that scream: Welcome, desegregated household!<\/i> Does this wonky wainscoting \/ say Loving V. Virginia to you?\u201d In \u201cToilet Paper Invective with Self-flagellation,\u201d Wicker shows us what to do with the existential absurdities of trying to make meaning, make a life, make art amidst the new and longstanding failures and uncertain futures of this <\/i>world. \u201cReparations Metric on a Theme by Sean Paul\u201d concludes, \u201cGive us \/ the lightness: buoyant \/\/ & flooding out. Soothing ache \/ unseen, engulfing \/\/ as the water\/ we have carried.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers, this month in publishing is lousy with poets, including terrific poets who I didn\u2019t have space for and poets who I made space for but who deserve more than a few hundred words snapshotting their work. This could have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7412,"featured_media":276234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43092,43135],"tags":[81700,112026,112028,43199,112027,4793,85965,112023,31560,17052,212,338,112025,112021,112022,112024],"class_list":["post-276225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-newsandculture","category-readinglists","tag-aldo-amparan","tag-black-lake","tag-dear-mothership","tag-emily-skaja","tag-heritance-copper-canyon","tag-hieu-minh-nguyen","tag-kathy-fagan","tag-leslie-mcintosh","tag-marcus-wicker","tag-paisley-rekdal","tag-poetry","tag-reading-list","tag-staying-still","tag-the-house-has-teeth","tag-the-unbecoming","tag-within-group-variance"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Rf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/september-poetry.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276439,"date":"2026-09-01T04:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T08:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276439"},"modified":"2026-09-01T07:53:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:53:55","slug":"isaac-chotiner-on-deep-knowledge-and-gotcha-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/isaac-chotiner-on-deep-knowledge-and-gotcha-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaac Chotiner on Deep Knowledge and Gotcha Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to season four of <\/em>The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of the Interview. This season, host Merve Emre talks with professional interviewers of all kinds about how they get the answer they’re looking for, what makes a good question, how do you listen for what’s unsaid, and how hard do you have to push someone before they say something new? <\/em><\/p>\n

Subscribe to <\/strong><\/em>The Critic and Her Publics<\/strong><\/a>, available wherever you get your podcasts!<\/strong><\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n