By Holly Armstrong
17 September
As the air turns crisper and the days grow shorter, there’s something especially comforting about settling into a good book. Autumn invites slower rituals: a warm drink in hand, soft light spilling through the windows, and stories that carry you elsewhere. Whether you’re chasing that lingering glow of summer or embracing the cosiness of the season ahead, here are our top autumn reads to sink into this September.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
First published in 2021, Caleb Azumah Nelson’s achingly beautiful debut novel is a story of love, pain, race and masculinity, uniquely told from a second person point of view against the backdrop of a racially-fraught London. First and foremost, Open Water is a tender tale of two young Black artists slowly and quietly falling in love, while offering a raw insight into the everyday realities of systemic racism in Britain. Azumah Nelson’s lyrical prose emphasises the fragility of this budding relationship between our two unnamed protagonists, resulting in a poignant fracture we experience through the eyes of the central character. A stunningly heartbreaking story of love and loss.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Loosely inspired by O’Donoghue’s own life in Cork in the late ‘00s, The Rachel Incident is, at its heart, a nostalgic, coming-of-age story of friendship. Rachel is balancing student life with her bookshop job while living with her best friend, James. The pair become enamoured with Rachel’s college professor and his wife, and suddenly become wrapped up in a secret. Subdued by a backdrop of economic uncertainty, the story explores themes of class tensions, betrayal and politics. Sally Rooney meets Dolly Alderton in this sharply relatable exploration of the troublesome, misguided decisions we make in our early twenties.
Evenings and weekends by Oisin McKenna
A heatwave has hit London and there’s a whale in the River Thames. Taking place over a single weekend in the summer of 2019, McKenna’s 2024 novel provides a glimpse into the issues plaguing a unique friendship group, sprawled across the city. Shifting between multiple perspectives, the narrative provides a window into each character’s life, involving a secret pregnancy that threatens to set a friendship alight to a torrid, secret history between two characters. McKenna weaves an addictively chaotic web of stories, dropping in themes of family drama and existential fear, making it one of the best books to read over a quiet weekend.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
Fresh out of a break-up with a narcissistic ex, Nadia welcomes a work opportunity that takes her to Iraq, where she’s been tasked with running a programme deradicalising ISIS brides. She immediately connects with London-born Sara, who joined ISIS as a young teen, and makes it her mission to liberate her from the camp. Younis manages to weave comedy and lightness into a story heavy with themes of religion and moral complexity. A razor-sharp beach read imbued with thought-provoking questions.
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Sally Milz is a thirty-something scriptwriter on a late-night sketch show, whose disastrous dating history has left her feeling jaded, cynical and a tad bitter. When she meets popstar Noah Brewster, an unexpected spark is ignited by their collaboration, which knocks Sally sideways. As Sally is thrust into the spotlight on the arm of a global megastar, she is forced to confront her own insecurities as she navigates the unchartered territory of love in the public eye. Balancing humour and poignancy, Sittenfeld delivers a refreshing take on romance in the fourth decade, deftly weaving in heavier themes to a narrative that still feels at home within the genre of summer romance novels.