Bring on the fall books! 🍂

Short stories from Danielle Evans and Walter Mosley, new novels from Elena Ferrante and Sigrid Nunez, essays from Eula Biss, and more fall books you won't want to put down.

More fall reading

18 Excellent Fantasy Books Coming Out This Fall

16 Great Books That Are Out In Paperback This Month

Fun & quizzes

Choose Your Meals For A Day And We'll Suggest A Nice Book For You To Read

17 Teen Movies That Are Based On Classic Pieces Of Literature

For the fandoms

I Read Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun So You Don't Have To

If You've Read All Of The "Harry Potter" Books, You're Guaranteed To Pass These 7 In-Depth Quizzes

For your reading list

Credit: Vintage; Dan Hawk

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell

I feel like there have been two types of people throughout this pandemic — those who can't stop consuming dystopian media, and those who want nothing to do with it. I've mostly been in the latter. But when I saw Karen Russell's novella Sleep Donation was being released in paperback for the first time — it was a digital-only release when it first published in 2014 — I couldn't ignore it. And then I couldn't stop reading it.

It follows Trish Edgewater, a top recruiter in the Slumber Corps. She's the best when it comes to canvassing and cold-calling, convincing strangers to donate their sleep to one of the millions of insomniacs who will die without it. These insomniacs are victims of a quickly spreading, little understood, excruciating disease, and sleep donation is the closest thing to a cure, albeit an imperfect one. The wealthy brothers who founded Slumber Corps speak as if they were missionaries, proselytizing not only to potential donators but also, and perhaps more importantly, to recruiters. But Trish (whose sister died of the plague before sleep donation was available) starts to lose faith when she's asked to continuously collect from a baby discovered to be a universal donor, at the same time as another donor's infectious nightmare wreaks havoc around the world.

It's a tense but captivating read, eerie in its prescience: It's impossible not to think of the past nine months as Russell chronicles the progression of the disease, the initial skepticism followed by widespread death followed by backlash against those working to cure it. But it's also an almost philosophical meditation on dreams and consciousness, and a moving examination of love and empathy. It's out September 29. Preorder your copy now. —Arianna Rebolini

This Week in Virtual Book Events:

Sept. 7–13

Monday, Sept. 7

Celebrate Labor Day with Joe William Trotter Jr. as he discusses his book Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America — hosted by Booksmith and UC Press, 11 a.m. PT, more info.

Tuesday, Sept. 8

Ruth Ware (One by One) and Sophie Hannah (The Killings at Kingfisher Hill) discuss their new books — hosted by Murder by the Book, 12:30 p.m. CT, more info.

Wednesday, Sept. 9

Thursday, Sept. 10

Friday, Sept. 11

Saturday, Sept. 12

Check out the rest of this week's events here.

More From BuzzFeed

Why Chadwick Boseman's Death Hurts So Much

Take These 19 Quizzes On Your Day Off To Cure Your Boredom

Young Women Influencers Created A Viral Chain Showing Their Natural Bellies To Celebrate Body Positivity

15 Celebrity Tweets You Probably Missed This Week

Do you know someone who would love the Books newsletter? Tell them to sign up here!

Got any feedback for us about the newsletter? Respond to this email; we'd love to hear what you want more (or less) of!

BuzzFeed, Inc.
111 E. 18th St.
New York, NY 10003

We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a small share of sales from the links in this email.

View our privacy notice and cookie policy

Unsubscribe