I’ve been reading a lot of fall previews lately, and while they’ve tipped me off to/reminded me of a lot of awesome books coming out soon (big hitters: Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, John Updike. personal favorites: Stewart O’Nan), they seem to concentrate mostly on hardcovers, missing a lot of amazing paperback originals coming out soon. Here are some of our books I’m excited about:

Broken (Harper Perennial): Narrated by an 11-year-old girl in a coma, a brilliantly observant, darkly funny debut novel about a British suburb upended by petty lies, malignant indifference, and one just-plain-awful family’s penchant for violence. (I took that straight from the catalog copy, but hey, I write the catalog copy, so I’m allowed.)

Who By Fire (Harper Perennial): “Impossible to put down . . . a remarkable tale about fear and forgiveness and the bonds that hold a family together even as its members are falling apart.” —Aryn Kyle

21st Century Voices (Harper Perennial): Joyce Carol Oates picks the best contemporary short stories.

The Book of Lists: Horror (Harper Paperbacks): A compendium of all things macabre and mysterious. I already read this one and it’s the best thing ever if you are obsessively into horror movies as I am.