September 2026 · 30 books
Back to School
Coming-of-age, classrooms and the education of the outsider. Books to carry you into a new season of reading.
The month, day by day.

The Yield
Tara June Winch
A dying man writes a dictionary of his language, every word a piece of stolen land reclaimed.

Terra Nullius
Claire G. Coleman
You think you know this story of settlers and the settled. You don't.

The Berry Pickers
Amanda Peters
A four-year-old girl vanishes from the berry fields. Two families are broken by the same secret.

Night of the Living Rez
Morgan Talty
Twelve linked stories from a Penobscot boyhood — frozen hair, cursed jars, and love that survives anyway.

The Removed
Brandon Hobson
Fifteen years after police killed their son, a Cherokee family gathers — and the spirit world leans in.

Libertie
Kaitlyn Greenidge
Her mother wants her to be a doctor. Libertie wants to know what freedom actually feels like.

The Wedding Date
Jasmine Guillory
Stuck in a lift with a stranger. Leaving it with a fake date to a wedding.

A Princess in Theory
Alyssa Cole
Those "you are betrothed to an African prince" emails? For Naledi, they turn out to be true.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown
Talia Hibbert
Item one on Chloe's list: get a life. Item two: the tattooed handyman is not supposed to be on the list.

Rebel
Beverly Jenkins
Reconstruction New Orleans, a Northern volunteer, and the man who fishes her out of the bayou.

The Duke Who Didn't
Courtney Milan
Once a year, the village of Wedgeford fills with visitors — and Chloe Fong has a sauce to launch and a duke to ignore.

The Kiss Quotient
Helen Hoang
She approaches kissing like calculus — so she hires a professional tutor.
Enjoying Back to School?
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Recipe for Persuasion
Sonali Dev
Her first love walks onto her reality cooking show — twelve years after she broke both their hearts.

Ayesha At Last
Uzma Jalaluddin
She writes poetry. He judges her for it. Toronto’s Muslim community will enjoy the show.

Long Shot
Kennedy Ryan
The night before the biggest game of his life, he meets her in a bar. Then she marries someone else.

The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan
After her mother dies, Leigh knows one impossible thing: her mother is now a bird.

Starfish
Akemi Dawn Bowman
Kiko paints what she cannot say out loud. This year, she finally leaves the house that silences her.

When Dimple Met Rishi
Sandhya Menon
Their parents arranged it. Dimple threw her iced coffee at it. Summer had other plans.

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali
Sabina Khan
Caught kissing her girlfriend, Rukhsana is on a plane to Bangladesh before she can explain.

Love, Hate & Other Filters
Samira Ahmed
Maya dreams in film scenes. America keeps recasting her as a suspect.

Saints and Misfits
S.K. Ali
Everyone calls him a saint of the community. Janna knows exactly what he did.

Darius the Great Is Not Okay
Adib Khorram
Darius has never fit in anywhere — until a boy in Yazd teaches him the Farsi word for friend.

Patron Saints of Nothing
Randy Ribay
His cousin was killed in the drug war. The family won't say his name. Jay flies to Manila for the truth.

Like a Love Story
Abdi Nazemian
New York, 1989: three teenagers, one closet, and a revolution set to Madonna.
Enjoying Back to School?
Next month's collection lands on the 1st. Get it in one email — plus The Starter Shelf, 25 essential reads, free.

Yesterday Is History
Kosoko Jackson
His new liver came with a side effect: time travel. And a boy in 1969.

The Gravity of Us
Phil Stamper
His dad joins the Mars programme, reality cameras move in — and Cal falls for the astronaut’s son.

Rez Ball
Byron Graves
The whole rez shows up for the Warriors. This season, Tre plays for his brother.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns
Julie C. Dao
Every villain has a first chapter. This is the Evil Queen’s.

We Set the Dark on Fire
Tehlor Kay Mejia
Trained to be the perfect wife, Dani was never supposed to fall for the other one.

Elatsoe
Darcie Little Badger
Ellie can raise the ghosts of animals. Her dead cousin just asked her to solve his murder.
Your call
How did this collection land?
Anonymous. One vote per person, please.