10 books to add to your reading list in November

Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles — fiction and nonfiction — to consider for your November reading list.

“I have come to regard November as the older, harder man’s October,” wrote Henry Rollins, that longtime punk Californian. This month’s books, which include titles on vanishing wildlife, a devastating plane crash and murder, might echo that perspective. But there is always hope: a ballerina’s redemption, a marvelous oceanic recovery and … a little Ted Lasso.

Fiction

A Case of Matricide: A Novel
By Graeme Macrae Burnet
Biblioasis: 256 pages, $18.95
(Nov. 12)

Beginning with “The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau” and continuing with “The Accident on the A35,” Burnet’s trilogy concludes with a mystery about what we put up with in mystery narratives. Yes, it’s metafiction again, and fans of this Booker-nominated author will have a grand time following Inspector George Gorski’s careful (read: slow) investigations into the latest murder threats in the tiny town of Saint-Louis, France. It’s smart, quirky and fun.

Every Arc Bends Its Radian: A Novel
By Sergio de la Pava
Simon & Schuster: 288 pages, $27.99
(Nov. 12)

Riv del Río, a New York City detective, returns to his native Colombia for respite after a terrible event, only to find himself wrapped up in investigating the disappearance of a brilliant MIT PhD candidate, Angelica, which involves a super-villainous crime lord named Exeter Mondragon. Between unctuous descriptions of Cali and its region, hilarious send-ups of noir tropes and more than a dash of speculative horror, de la Pava sticks a highly unlikely landing.

Munichs: A Novel
By David Peace
W.W. Norton: 480 pages, $30
(Nov. 12)

The 1958 plane crash that killed 23 people en route from Munich to Manchester affected that city’s Man United soccer team deeply; eight players and three officials died. Peace’s novel digs into the trauma to show how individuals, families and a city regained faith in their community and its ability to knit back together. If the book carries too much nostalgia and seems detached from today’s world of commercial “footie,” perhaps that’s deliberate.

The Magnificent Ruins: A Novel
By Nayantara Roy
Algonquin: 448 pages, $29
(Nov. 12)

Television executive, playwright and now novelist Roy turns to India for this debut novel about an unexpected inheritance. Protagonist Lila De lives in Manhattan and works in book publishing; she’s on her way up in her American life and has no intention of returning to South Asia until she learns she’s the new owner of her extended family’s estate. Will hijinks ensue? Indubitably. But so will complications, and tragedy, as Lila learns to live with honesty.

City of Night Birds: A Novel
By Juhea Kim
Ecco: 320 pages, $30
(Nov. 26)

Natalia Leonova, once a prima ballerina, returns to St. Petersburg as a broken woman whose accident two years in the past has led to her substance abuse. As people from her former life reappear, she endures more pain, this time emotional — but is also offered an unusual, maybe even dangerous, chance at stardom again. Kim (“Beasts of a Little Land”) delves into Natalia’s past to show both how hard she has worked and how important that work is to her psyche.

Nonfiction

Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso, the Show That Kicked Its Way Into Our Hearts
By Jeremy Egner
Dutton: 368 pages, $32
(Nov. 12)

In 2020, a TV show about an American football coach brought in from Kansas to lead a British soccer team debuted — and took off. Jason Sudeikis, in the title role of Ted Lasso, turned a fish-out-of-water character into a folk hero, an Everyman who could inspire sulky young athletes one moment and bake superlative shortbread the next. New York Times TV editor Egner takes his material and makes it shine with accuracy and admiration.

Treekeepers: The Race for a Forested Future
By Lauren E. Oakes
Basic Books: 336 pages, $30
(Nov. 12)

Planting trees to replace trees sounds like a simple positive step, but as author and scientist Oakes, a Stanford professor, explains in this book, it takes more than placing a sapling somewhere to maintain the planet’s forests. Whether it’s a tropical jungle or a northern woodland, forests, like all ecosystems, require different kinds of growth, geology and climate interacting — and their establishment and maintenance is crucial.

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
By Katherine Rundell
Doubleday: 224 pages, $26
(Nov. 12)

Step right up to see scholar Rundell’s parade of oddities — no mere sideshow but a catalog of 22 endangered species, including sharks, raccoons, lemurs, seahorses, pangolins and frogs. While the author argues for wildlife conservation, she retains an enthusiast’s passion for details, be they mating rituals, community politics or anatomical quirks. And when it comes to saving animals, she shows that we can do it, as with the wood stork, once nearly vanished, now flourishing.

Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship
By John Shears and Nico Vincent
National Geographic: 256 pages, $50
(Nov. 5)

Other books soon will be released about the extraordinary March 2022 discovery of the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship that, as of 1915, was considered lost in the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea. Shackleton’s survival and rescue of his 27 crewmen is the stuff of legend, and now, in this photographic chronicle written by the expedition’s leaders, we can all view the find from their perspective.

Citizen: My Life After the White House
By Bill Clinton
Knopf: 464 pages, $38
(Nov. 19)

Walking out of the White House as an ex-president cannot be easy — but for some, like Bill Clinton, it is also the end of long years of public service. After three decades in office and still just 54 years old, Clinton knew he wanted to continue to use his expertise, and in this memoir, he details his projects, volunteerism and advocacy around the world — as well as his attention to his family in recent decades. This sequel to “My Life” will inspire as well as inform.

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