Paperbacks to Look Out For in September 2026

In a lean month for paperbacks, September’s preview begins with two books by Danish poet/novelists, one of which was a 2025 favourite for me. Set in the seventeenth century, Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child is narrated by the titular child moulded by an impoverished noblewoman charged with witchcraft. Christenze lives in a friend’s household, helping with the birth of Anne’s many children, none of whom survive more than a few days. When Anne’s hope turns to a bitterness, she points a finger at Christenze who flees before accusations are voiced but finds herself under suspicion again. Evidence is gathered and paid for, torture administered, confessions extracted, convictions declared and cruel punishment handed down. As you might expect from a poet, Ravn’s writing is arrestingly vivid. Kudos to Martin Aitken for his expert translation.

Tove Ditlevsen’s Vilhelm’s Room was originally published a year before she took her own life in 1976. It traces the fallout from Lise and Vilhelm’s breakup after which Lise, suicidal and still consumed with memories of her husband, publishes a lonely hearts advertisement triggering a series of tragi-comic events. ‘A blackly funny and devastating tour-de-force that pulses with life even as it journeys towards death’ say the publishers setting the scene. I’ve read just one of Ditlevsen’s books, the autobiographical novella Childhood, which I admired for its striking writing rather than enjoyed.

Patrick Ryan’s debut novel, Buckeye, follows two families, linked by a devastating secret, over four decades beginning in the 1940s. Cal and Becky are happily married with a son when a beautiful redhead walks into the family hardware store asking Cal for a radio on VE Day. They listen to the news together, Margaret so delighted that she kisses him. It’s some time before she has news of her husband, presumed missing, who returns carrying a grief he can’t talk about. The story of these two families plays out against the background of great social change, exploring themes of family, sexuality, infidelity, love and forgiveness with a perceptive compassion and a touch of gentle humour. Often doorstoppers make me feel desperate to cut swathes from them, but Ryan’s powerful novel kept me engrossed throughout.

Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is her first since she won the Booker for The Inheritance of Loss back in 2006 and was also longlisted for last year’s prize. The titular couple spot each other on an overnight train, both embarrassed by memories of their grandparents’ efforts to make a match between them. Sonia has returned to India after studying in Vermont while Sunny is trying to escape his quarrelsome family, not least his demanding mother. ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next’ according to the blurb.

Drawing on the dream journals he kept in the years before his death aged ninety-four in 2006, Nobel Prizewinning Naguib Mahfouz’s I Found Myself…The Last Dreams straddles the line between fiction and autobiography. An assassination attempt had made him more cautious in his waking hours but while asleep he roamed his beloved Cairo, recording his dream wanderings and weaving them into vivid vignettes. ‘Each dream is layered with philosophical and spiritual musings, hopes and disappointments. Over the course of the book, they build to a rich and complex picture of Mahfouz’s subconscious’ says the blurb which sounds fascinating.

That’s it for September. A click on a title will take you either to my review or to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more, and if you’d like to catch up with new fiction it’s here and here.