Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

When the destruction of Israel commenced, Isaac Bloch was weighing whether to kill himself or move to the Jewish Home.” Here I Am (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2016) by Jonathan Safran Foer. Fourth book, third novel. Agent: Nicole Aragi. Editor: Eric Chinski. Publicists: Brian Gittis and Jeff Seroy.
              
“This book is a moment-by-moment account of the twenty-eight days I spent as the lowest-ranking participant in American education: a substitute teacher.” Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids (Blue Rider Press, September 2016) by Nicholson Baker. Sixteenth book, sixth nonfiction book. Agent: Melanie Jackson. Editor: Sarah Hochman. Publicist: Gwyneth Stansfield.

“a bird / falls off / a balcony / panicked grasping / fistfuls of / air” Blackacre (Graywolf Press, September 2016) by Monica Youn. Third book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeff Shotts. Publicist: Caroline Nitz.  

“I began the day with a group of characters, who were sometimes people in the world with real names and jobs that let them out for the summer; some of these characters wrote books in which the world was never mentioned, the world where one took a bus or walked through snow to buy eggs; it seemed better that the reader not know the details.” Calamities (Wave Books, September 2016) by Renee Gladman. Tenth book, first essay collection. Agent: None. Editor: Heidi Broadhead. Publicist: Brittany Dennison.

“The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.” The Underground Railroad (Doubleday, August 2016) by Colson Whitehead. Eighth book, sixth novel. Agent: Nicole Aragi. Editor: William Thomas. Publicist: Michael Goldsmith.                                                                             
                                 
“I don’t know when you came into being, / inside me, when I was inside my mother— / maybe when the involuntary / muscles were setting, like rose jello.” Odes (Knopf, September 2016) by Sharon Olds. Eleventh book, poetry collection. Agent: Frances Coady. Editor: Deborah Garrison. Publicist: Josefine Kals.

“The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.” Commonwealth (HarperCollins, September 2016) by Ann Patchett. Tenth book, seventh novel. Agent: Daniel Kirschen. Editor: Jonathan Burnham. Publicist: Jane Beirn.

“Most children have two whole legs and two whole arms but this little six-year-old that Dinesh was carrying had already lost one leg, the right one from the lower thigh down, and was now about to lose his right arm.” The Story of a Brief Marriage (Flatiron Books, September 2016) by Anuk Arudpragasam. First book, novel. Agent: Anna Stein. Editor: Caroline Bleeke. Publicist: Amelia Possanza.

“This man is going to die without telling me.” Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code: New & Selected Poems (Persea Books, September 2016) by Thylias Moss. Tenth book, ninth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Gabriel Fried. Publicist: Gabriel Fried.

“Sitting on a bench in the Parque Santander, having his shoes shined before it was time for the tribute to begin, Mallarino was suddenly sure he’d just seen a long-dead political cartoonist.” Reputations (Riverhead Books, September 2016) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean. Fifth book, fourth novel. Agent: María Lynch. Editor: Laura Perciasepe. Publicist: Jynne Dilling Martin.
                     
“It was like riding in a treasure chest, Ling thought.” The Fortunes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2016) by Peter Ho Davies. Fourth book, second novel. Agent: Maria Massie. Editors: Jenna Johnson and Lauren Wein. Publicist: Megan Wilson.

“Would I love it this way if it could last” Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, September 2016) by W. S. Merwin. Thirty-seventh book, twenty-ninth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michael Wiegers. Publicist: Kelly Forsythe.