Fall Preview: 23 books to keep you cozy this season

Books and literacy are supposed to be in decline - but don't tell that to readers, whose hungry eyes and minds are looking for great things to read all the time. Here's a too-short list of some titles to look for in the autumnal months.

"Mysteries of the Mall"
by Witold Rybczynski
September
This emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania trains his eye on the urban landscape.

"Chilled: How Refrigeration Changed the World and Might Do So Again"
by Tom Jackson
September
The coolest story of all: how a technological mainstay rearranged the map - and maybe could lead to perpetual life.

"The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath" 
by Ben Bernanke
October
That would be the Great Recession of 2007 to . . . when? Head of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke brokered deals, jiggered interest rates, and rode the white water.

"Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs" 
by Lisa Randall
October
Cosmos as seamless garment, written by one of our best writers on science. Full of quizzical wonder.

"M Train" 
by Patti Smith
October
The onetime Germantown resident and Glassboro State College student tells of her artistic life, in a book lit by the coffeehouse glow of inspiration.

"Lafayette in the Somewhat United States" 
by Sarah Vowell
October
Here's one historian who is a born storyteller. Central to this tale is the history-making friendship between George Washington and the French general who fought beside him in the Revolutionary War.

"My Life on the Road" 
by Gloria Steinem
October
On top of all else, she's a road warrior. A child who lived uprooted, she travels tirelessly to spread her various messages, and to see the world. Here's what she makes of it.

"Sinatra: The Chairman" 
by James Kaplan
October
He was born 100 years ago in Hoboken, N.J., and did things his way for the next 82 years. This book follows Kaplan's previous Sinatra: The Voice, starting in 1954, with Sinatra's career reinvigorated by an Oscar. This often surprising, often rough, often sweet story is full of song.

"Becoming Beyoncé: The Untold Story" 
by J. Randy Taraborrelli
October
It's hard to imagine there's that much untold about one of the most-covered people on the planet. But this is the first full-length try at telling her tale.

"Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American" 
by John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier
October
At least as much as Lincoln's, the face of this epoch-making black American became an icon in the political struggles that tested the Union.

"It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History" 
by Jennifer Wright
November
The author recounts the consequences of love gone historically wrong, from the hilarious to the horrible.

"Purity" 
by Jonathan Franzen
September
This panoramic novel follows Purity "Pip" Tyler through times and places as she moves among anarchists, three continents, the Internet age, and haunting secrets.

"The Story of the Lost Child"
by Elena Ferrante
September
For a growing number of readers, this is the event of the fall. This, the fourth installment in Ferrante's "Neapolitan novels" series, focuses on the adult friendship of Elena and Lila. Much-anticipated.

"Ghost Summer: Stories" 
by Tananarive Due
September
This African American novelist and screenwriter gives us her first story collection. Should be delectable.

"Fates and Furies" 
by Lauren Groff
September
This novel seems to be on everyone's lips. It's about a marriage, and about art, which really means it's a masterpiece about . . . everything.

"Secret Chord" 
by Geraldine Brooks
October
The Pulitzer-winning Australian American writer takes a fresh new look at David, great king and poet of the Israelites, from the viewpoints of those around him.

"A Strangeness in My Mind"
by Orhan Pamuk
October
The Nobel Prize winner from Turkey returns with a sweeping tale of Mevlut Karatas, who goes from his boyhood mountain village to the bustling metropolis of Istanbul.

"The Japanese Lover" 
by Isabel Allende
November
She's always an engrossing read. A young girl is sent from Nazi-threatened Poland to San Francisco, where she falls in love with the son of a Japanese gardener. History intervenes.

"Numero Zero" 
by Umberto Eco
November
This novel tells us about the last 20 years, in a story of murder, media madness, and the craziness that passes for this postmodern life.

"Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise" 
by Oscar Hijuelos
November
The Pulitzer Prize winner's last novel (he worked on it for 10 years) is a fictionalized retelling of a true 19th-century friendship, between Mark Twain and explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?").

"Avenue of Mysteries" 
by John Irving
November
In this novel about time and memory, Juan Diego, born in Mexico, travels to the Philippines. His sister Lupe is supersensitive to the past and future. It's always an event when Irving drops a new one.

"Erratic Facts" 
by Kay Ryan
October
Everyone should read this funny, wise, all-American poet. So read her.

"The Selected Poems of Donald Hall"
December
Apparently retired, Hall, 86, another all-American voice, has made this selection himself.

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