The seasonally appropriate blog post would be suggestions for Halloween books, which I suppose are horror novels about ghosts, vampires, and monsters. If you’re interested, there are all sorts of lists available online:” 15 Scary Books to Terrify You This Halloween”; “15 Creepy Books to Get You in the Halloween Spirit”; “10 Spooky Halloween Reads” . . . well, you get the idea. I’m not a fan of these kinds of books, ever since I read ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King and couldn’t sleep all night because I thought I heard a vampire tapping at my window. Every rule has an exception, of course, and one of my favorite books is Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. If you want to read a spine-chilling, perfectly constructed novel, go no further. (And then read the recent biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life — it’s excellent.)

This fall, bookstore tables are piled high with terrific new paperback releases. Here are a ten of my favorites, both fiction and nonfiction –none of which features a ghoul, monster, or evil spirit. (Be warned, however:  The Guest Room contains plenty of real-life evil.)

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
When horses are curled up and then they stand, it is beautiful and funny, like babies walking. They put their front feet down like it’s the first time and they don’t know for sure how, they need to go slow and feel on each foot, their body going one way and the other until they find the strong spot and boom, they are proud on their legs again. Watching made my heart soft, made me want to hug her.
Told from multiple viewpoints, The Mare is the affecting story of Velveteen Vargas (“Velvet”) , a young Dominican girl from Brooklyn who spends summers in upstate New York as a Fresh Air Fund child, and Ginger, her “foster mother”, who becomes deeply involved in Velvet’s life. One of my favorite books last year, it was included in “best books of 2015” lists by the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and many others.

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian
But now he he wanted only to make amends, to make things right. To caulk the hollow in the heart of his family. To make sure this poor girl whose soul had been battered almost since birth was safe.
I’m adding this to my list of books that made me cringe, but that I couldn’t put down. Does that make sense? As always, Chris Bohjalian knows how to tell a story. In his latest novel, he sheds light on white slavery and prostitution. Think of the movie Taken — but imagine those horrific events taking place in the United States, with the involvement of upper-middle class suburbanites.

This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger
I’ve gotten plenty of invitations, mostly from couples who were friends of Mira’s and mine who didn’t quite know what to do with me. Should they invite me to Saturday brunch, but as a third wheel? Do they seat me next to a single girlfriend at a dinner party? Worse still, do they wedge me between couples, the ninth chair at a table clearly meant for eight?
Charlie Goldwyn didn’t plan on becoming a widower responsible for a high-maintenance five-year-old. Nor did he plan on losing his job at a high-powered Manhattan law firm. Charlie’s mother is dead, and he’s never had a relationship with his father. Alone and adrift, he finally learns what it means to be a parent — and a son. I thoroughly enjoyed this witty and poignant story about family and friendship — it’s perfect if you’re in the mood for a romantic comedy.

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
Life’s full of events – they occur and you adjust, you roll and move on. But at some point you realize some events are actually developments. You realize there’s a big plan out there you know nothing about, and a development is a first step in that new direction. Sometimes things feel like big-time developmens but in time you adjust, you find a new way and realize they didn’t throw you off course, they didn’t change you. They were just events. The tricky part is telling the difference between the two.
Before I read this collection of longish short stories, I couldn’t understand how it could have won the 2015 National Book Award instead of A Little Life. I still think A Little Life should have won, but I can see why the judges awarded the prize to Fortune Smiles. Each story is brilliant and memorable.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.
A young woman from an abusive and impoverished background (perhaps, she suggests, because she is “ruthless”) becomes a functioning adult and successful writer. This lovely, spare novel raises many questions and will stay with you for a long time.

Boys in the Trees by Carly Simon
The Vineyard is famously lovely, compared often to sections of Scotland and Ireland. Plots of land are casually separated by stone walls, like a sentence that doesn’t take the turn you think it will take, but takes another way around.
I’m not usually a fan of celebrity biographies/memoirs, but this one was a pleasant surprise. It’s well-written and perceptive, filled with just the right number of juicy tidbits.

The Expatriates by Janice Y.K. Lee
That’s the shock, and the surprise, to a lot of repatriates: No one back home cares. There’s an initial, shallow interest in what life is like abroad, but most Americans aren’t actually interested, at all.
I dislike the term “women’s fiction” — but when you have a novel about three women, all expatriates in Hong Kong, who are grappling with their roles as mothers/caretakers and daughters, that’s what it is. But it’s women’s fiction at its very best — tautly written, with well-developed characters and a surprising storyline. The New York Times says, “A female, funny Henry James in Asia, Janice Y. K. Lee is vividly good on the subject of Americans abroad.”

This Old Man by Roger Angell
If we stop writing letters, who will keep our history or dare venture upon a biography? George Washington, Oscar Wilde, T.E. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Wendell Holmes, E.B. White, Vera Nabokov, J.P. Morgan — if any of these vivid predecessors still belong to us in some fragmented private way, it’s because of heir letters or diaries (which are letters to ourselves) or thanks to some strong biography built on a ledge of letters.
Angell, now 96 years old, was fiction editor of the New Yorker for many years. This Old Man is a collection of his writings, including essays, jingles, letters, and literary criticism– in his words, “a mélange, a grab bag, a plate of hors d’oeuvres, a teenager’s closet, a bit of everything.” It’s terrific bedside reading.

Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
Of all the influences in his life she was the most woefully unappreciated but in truth she was the strongest.
The first biography written about one of the 20th century’s most fascinating women reveals Clementine Churchill to be a strong-minded feminist who wielded tremendous political power behind the scenes. Sometimes I find that biographers are so anxious to include every detail they’ve uncovered that they forget to build a narrative, but that’s not the case with Clementine.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
Now there were no more stories to tell, to soothe, to comfort, to draw strangers close together; to link like hearts and minds.
The surprise in this delightful book is not that Melanie Benjamin paints a complete portrait of Truman Capote, which I expected, but that she brings Babe Paley to life as a lonely and wounded woman. All of Benjamin’s books are entertaining, informative, and well worth reading, but this is my favorite.

Happy Halloween!