Blistering satire, bromance in Brazil, and short stories about women on the brink are among the selection of buzzy fall reads written or set in Philly.
History plays a particularly important role in these Philly-centric books. They shine a light on little known facts, examine the city historic block by historic block, or tell stories of nature discoveries in faraway lands.
As the days shorten and the winds cool, snuggle up with a mug of hot chocolate and one of these picks.
‘A Very Special Episode’ by Camille Acker
Random House, $28
Within the first few pages of Camille Acker’s satirical debut novel, A Very Special Episode, it’s clear D.C.’s high-profile Black elite are under interrogation. But West Philly-based Acker doesn’t forget to pay reverence to the legacy of the city’s Black institutions and its people.
At the center of the 285-page novel is the Tenth, a fictional private club and reference to W.E.B. Du Bois’ Talented Tenth theory. Nina, the protagonist, shares a name with Du Bois’ daughter, Nina Yolande Du Bois. Her boyfriend is Booker T. Bruce — whose name is a nod to formerly enslaved 19th-century leaders Booker T. Washington and Blanche K. Bruce. These homages and juxtapositions are doubly interesting, considering Du Bois’ and Washington’s philosophy were at odds.
Acker is a Temple University writer-in-residence known for the biting short stories in Training School for Negro Girls. However, much like those works, A Very Special Episode is grounded in the present. We are with Nina as she tries to keep the Tenth relevant, a darn near impossible job in today’s world in which Jim Crow manifests as gentrification and police brutality. And affluent African Americans willingly don the shackles of material wealth.
A Very Special Episode was released Aug. 18.
‘Historic Maps of Philadelphia: A History of the City of Brotherly Love in Rare Maps’ by Natalie Pompilio
Reedy Press, $42
Former Inquirer journalist Natalie Pompilio combines her affinity for Old City and walking tours in this 176-page hardcover exploring Philadelphia’s past through historical maps.
Historic Maps of Philadelphia: A History of the City of Brotherly Love in Rare Maps is an illustrated topographical study co-written with Christopher W. Lane, cofounder of the Philadelphia Print Shop and PBS’s Antiques Roadshow’s print and map expert.
The maps in this book date to the 16th century when Philadelphia was home to the Indigenous Lenape tribe. They weave through colonial, antebellum, and early 20th-century Philadelphia and ends in the mid-20th century with highways that eased drivers’ trips and decimated historic neighborhoods.
Historic Maps of Philadelphia was released Sept. 1.
‘The Loneliness of Glass: Stories’ by Kathleen Furin
Cornerstone Press, $24.95
West Mount Airy-based book coach, equity and inclusion consultant for Germantown’s Just Strategies Hub, and award-winning short story writer Kathleen Furin will release her first bound collection, The Loneliness of Glass, in November.
On Furin’s website, she describes her work as stories about strong, resilient, complex women who, through overcoming odds, learn to love themselves.
The narratives in this 220-page paperback reflect that and include a piece about a young woman who loses her half sister in a tragic murder, and a woman in an interracial marriage who is forced to confront her preconceived notions about race when she visits her hometown.
The Loneliness of Glass releases Nov. 3.
‘Dance in a Madhouse’ by Jess Wright
Montague Books, $19.99
Owen Townsend is a promising young medical school intern in 1905 Philadelphia when he gets locked up in the fictional Fairmount Lodge Asylum. Did he really lose his mind? Or, was he set up? Those questions are at the center of noted Louisville, Ky.-based psychiatrist Jess Wright’s mystery Dance in a Madhouse.
Wright, a native of Hollidaysburg, earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in 1969 and interned at Lankenau Medical Center in the early 1970s. This 288-page thriller is set against the backdrop of the Museum of Art when it was located in Memorial Hall and Boathouse Row, the library of the College of Physicians, and Jefferson Medical College. Dance in a Madhouse is the first book in a trilogy of Owen Townsend mysteries.
Dance in a Madhouse was released Sept. 8.
‘The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America’ by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Simon & Schuster, $31
Poet, historian, New York Times best-selling author, and Central High School graduate (Class 255) Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s latest work, The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker, is the true story of a self-emancipated formerly enslaved man’s fight to remain free in early 19th-century Pennsylvania.
Her 2014 steeped-in-Philly-history nonfiction book Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine spent three months on the New York Times’ bestsellers list.
Shortly after her mother died, Aptowicz began exploring her mother’s side of the family tree. She discovered her maternal ancestors were seamstresses for the Underground Railroad, sometimes sewing new outfits for entire groups of freedom seekers in a single night. In her research, she kept coming across the names “William Parker” and “Christiana Riot,” names she, a lifelong Philadelphian, had never heard of before.
The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker is Aptowicz’s “best attempt to resurrect this important and necessary story and bring it back into the national spotlight where it belongs.”
The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker was released Sept. 8.
‘Winterset Hollow’ by Jonathan Edward Durham
Union Square & Co., $19.99
When Diana Gabaldon — author of the Outlander novels that inspired Starz’s popular time-traveling series of the same name — refers to your book as “astonishingly powerful and multilayered” declaring it among the most interesting books she’s read in years, you might have written a literary winner.
Such is the case for Allentown writer and social media content creator John Edward Durham, or @thisoneoverhere on Instagram, where he has 419,000 followers.
Durham’s Winterset Hollow follows four fictional friends visiting the island that inspired their favorite fantasy novel, also named Winterset Hollow. But when they break into the writer’s abandoned estate, they discover that the truth behind their favorite adored book is dark, dangerous, and terrifying.
First published in 2021 by Credo House Publishers, Union Square and Co. — a subsidiary of the New York’s Hachette Book Group — will release the new edition in October featuring the fictional book Winterset Hollow within Durham’s book.
Winterset Hollow releases Oct. 6.
‘Travels on the Edge: A Naturalist’s Notes from the Back of Beyond’ by Robert McCracken Peck
American Philosophical Society Press, $29.95
Retired senior fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, author, and Chestnut Hiller Robert McCracken Peck spent close to 50 years traveling the world as the official photographer, historian, and chronicler of scientific exhibitions for the academy.
He discovered three new frogs in the Andes, collected several previously unknown species of fish on the Orinoco River, and studied rare insects in Africa and the Caribbean. He’s been on expeditions to Mongolia to study wildlife, witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and traveled the Gobi Desert.
Travels on the Edge: A Naturalist’s Notes from the Back of Beyond is the scholar and adventurer’s collection of essays accompanied with lavish illustrations and Peck’s original photographs. In 240 pages, readers are transported to the most remote parts of the world to witness the joys (and challenges) of scientific research.
Travels on the Edge: A Naturalists Notes from the Back of Beyond was released Sept. 15.
‘Runner’ by Ashton Lattimore
Penguin Random House, $31
Shortly after Ashton Lattimore completed the 2024 award-winning novel All We Were Promised, centering an enslaved women in antebellum Philadelphia searching for her freedom, she began writing Runner from her Bryn Mawr home.
Lattimore has since moved to northern New Jersey, but her ties to Philadelphia’s historic organizations run deep.
Runner follows lady rumrunners from Martha’s Vineyard into Boston, and down through New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. Will the protagonist Lena Jameson discover who killed her father? Will she be able to skirt the authorities on her tail during Prohibition? Or, will she lose it all simply because she’s a woman?
Runner was released July 28.
‘Touchdown in Brazil’ by Omar Tyree
Dafina, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp., $37.99
West Philadelphia native and veteran author Omar Tyree’s latest novel Touchdown in Brazil centers a Philadelphia Eagles fan who travels to Brazil in 2024 to watch his beloved Birds play the Green Bay Packers in the NFL’s first game played in South America.
The protagonist, named Tony Costa, is an amateur sports better looking for a break from his wife and hoping for a win with the Birds. The Eagles win. But whether Costa — who befriends other husbands and fathers including a Packers devotee and the owner of a local sports bar during his trip — will learn to appreciate his family and take home the ultimate win, is up in the air.
Touchdown in Brazil releases Sept. 29.
‘Har Mar’ by Hilal Isler
Curbstone Books, Northwestern University Press, $24
Author Hilal Isler set “Khadijah Number Two,” the introductory yarn in her debut collection of short stories Har Mar, among the rowhouses of West Philadelphia and the luxe lofts, expensive gastropubs, and overpriced yoga pants on Rittenhouse Square.
The story centers 25-year-old Turkish server and borderline alcoholic Ayla Erdoğdu. The devout 50-year-old Muslim woman Khadijah picks Ayla because she’s young, pretty, and flaky — just the energy she needs to sell her book. And she’s right. Khadijah’s novel is a hit and Ayla gets lost, becoming a second edition of Khadijah.
Many of the selections in Isler’s 16-story debut work feature women of color. Some of are Muslim, some are not. But all of them are complicated and have a salty vibe.
Isler attended the University of Pennsylvania and currently is an associate professor at the University of Austin.
Har Mar was released July 15.
An earlier version of this story listed an incorrect publisher for Robert McCracken Peck’s new book. It is the American Philosophical Society Press.
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