Personal memories, manuals for spotting psychopaths, investigations into the most notorious corruption cases, and even reflections on the link between twerking and feminism all feature in the roster of the autumn’s most-awaited nonfiction releases.
Wading through dozens of nutrition guides and self-help books and explorations of the mind, one can select ten titles in English that readers shouldn’t miss this coming autumn:
1. Impertinent Daughters, by Doris Lessing (Lumen). Memoirs that have, until now, remained unpublished in Spanish, by the British Nobel laureate, in which she dissects the bond with her mother, a relationship marked by misunderstanding and distance both physical and symbolic.
2. Famesick: A Memoir, by Lena Dunham (Debate). The Spanish edition of the actress and director of Girls, in which she speaks about the people who have accompanied her in her career and life, as well as her illness; in its original edition, the book has spent weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.
3. Silence, You Eat, by Isabel Coixet (Siruela). A selection of gastronomic and lifestyle essays by the director of My Life Without Me, known for her gourmet sensibilities, as she has demonstrated in her cinema and the series Foodie Love.
4. Ghost, by Nerea Pérez de las Heras (Alfaguara). A first-person account of the author’s recovery from the accident in which the feminist journalist lost a leg in 2023, a meditation on the need to rebuild oneself told with sensitivity and humor.
5. The More People Bother Me, the More Good Moments I Have, by Maruja Torres (Temas de Hoy). A book in which the journalist, with irony, portrays a changing world through her travels around the globe. A narrative filled with memories, wars, hotels, and debates with her psychoanalyst.
6. Customs (Aduana), by Brais Cedeira (Planeta). The reconstruction of one of the largest recent police corruption scandals: the case of Óscar Sánchez Gil, chief inspector of the UDEF, accused of collaborating with drug-trafficking networks while leading investigations into money laundering.
7. Target People: We All Can Be Victims of a Psychopath, by Vicente Garrido (Ariel). The brilliant forensic psychiatrist, well known for his contributions to true-crime documentaries, publishes this manual to detect and survive the psychopaths who surround us.
8. Twerking, a Revolution, by Cazzu (Reservoir). The Argentine singer-songwriter reflects on whether a woman can succeed in a genre that appears as macho as reggaeton, with lyrics that do not oppress women but rather liberate them from social condemnation.
9. The Great Manual of Failure: Debunking Success, Identity, and Love, by Juanpe Sánchez López (Nuevos Cuadernos Anagrama). In response to triumphalist narratives about success, the author champions failure as a privileged space in which one can reconnect with other human beings.
10- Here I Stop, by Javier Marías (Alfaguara). A collection of scattered texts in the form of essays, speeches, and brief pieces that are unknown or hard to find, yet carry the author’s unmistakable voice, who passed away in 2022.