Reading Ahead: September 2016, part 6

Yes, part 6. I don't think I've ever reached a part 6 before! There are just so many delectable titles being published next month, I couldn't weed it down any further than I have!

Razor Girl, by Carl Hiaasen. As with all things Hiaasen, everything ordinary is anything but in this wildly hilarious and entertaining novel. When Lane Coolman's car is bashed by the eponymous Razor Girl, Merry Mansfield, nothing is as it seems. The crash scam sets in motion one of the funniest, craziest Hiaasen tales yet--one that will thrill fans even as it defies description, foiling every reviewer I've consulted!

Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett. I adore Patchett's work, like State of Wonder and Bel Canto, so every new title she puts out is cause for celebration, as far as I'm concerned!One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer has made a huge impact with readers in past works like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated. I'm expecting his new work to have a similar effect. Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Here I Am is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. As Jacob and Julia Bloch and their three sons are forced to confront the distances between the lives they think they want and the lives they are living, a catastrophic earthquake sets in motion a quickly escalating conflict in the Middle East. At stake is the meaning of home―and the fundamental question of how much aliveness one can bear.