Horror | Fantasy & Science Fiction | Literary Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers | Nonfiction | Matthew’s Book Corner
East of the River
Guadalupe Rosales
September 8, 2026
Guadalupe Rosales chronicles her Boyle Heights childhood and adolescence in East LA, finding joy and danger from Commerce Center to Whittier Boulevard. Her frank, intimate prose captures the freedom and fear pulsing through that time and how sisterhood helped her survive it.
After losing loved ones to violence and struggling with drugs and depression, Rosales moved across the country to New York City. A stack of starshots from her youth became a lifeline and eventually inspired her to create two Instagram archives while she was away from home: Veteranas and Rucas celebrates ’90s LA women, while Map Pointz focuses on the party crew scene. Thanks to her, they’re thriving online communities.
Now this beloved artist—whose work hangs in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and elsewhere—extends her project of collective memory by sharing her own story of adolescence in a treacherous time, finding herself as an artist far from home, coming to terms with her own queerness, and returning to her beloved Los Angeles transformed. Elegantly designed, the text is interspersed with photography, flyers, Rosales’s own artwork, and social media conversations.
An altar to a past era and a map to the future, this book is a reminder that memory, celebration, and community make us whole.
Pardon Our French
Alex Durand & Tom Carles
September 8, 2026
From the beloved creators of AT Frenchies, a witty, heartfelt, and delightfully practical guide to finding a happier life by embracing l’art de vivre—the French art of living.
Best friends Alex and Tom grew up in Paris chasing their soccer dreams before an unexpected twist landed them in small-town America. Out of that culture clash came a revelation: The French mindset—presence over efficiency, depth over superficiality, quality over quantity—can help all of us experience more joy and contentment when we need it most.
Now, with their signature mix of humor, vulnerability, and French flair, they share their playbook for living with a little less stress and a little more zest, including advice for:
- Savoring life’s pleasures—from long lunches to the perfect croissant
- Loving authentically—why romance should be playful, unhurried, and game-free
- Living with style—effortless, intentional, never overdone
- Building real friendships—choosing quality over quantity, depth over numbers
- Balancing work and play—ditching burnout culture for a healthier rhythm
Whether you’re sipping red wine in Provence or iced coffee in Ohio, Pardon Our French shows you a better, happier way to be.
A Life in Lyrics: The Official Creative Legacy of Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury & Mary Austin
September 15, 2026
Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest showmen of the twentieth century. With his unparalleled voice and searing on-stage energy, he was a great pretender, a killer queen and a champion of the world.
But behind the glamour lived a musician and lyricist talented beyond measure, and the creative force behind one of the most culturally significant and musically diverse bands the world has ever seen. When Freddie passed away in 1991, he left to his former fiancé and dearest friend, Mary Austin, not only his house and possessions, but also a creative archive spanning almost two decades. From his earliest works before Queen was formed, right through to the end of his solo career, his notebooks and doodlings contain previously unpublished material including alternate lyrics and abandoned verses for “Bohemian Rhapsody” and multiple drafts of “Don’t Stop Me Now,” as well as entire songs that were never recorded.
Accompanied by stories, memories, and anecdotes from his lifelong companion, and illustrated with photographs from Freddie’s personal collection, many of which have never been published before, A Life in Lyrics is the definitive creative record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City
Anand Giridharadas
September 29, 2026
In 2023, the lives of two men—Jordan Neely, a homeless man known in better days for his Michael Jackson impersonations, and Daniel Penny, an ex-Marine who had moved to the big city seeking more than Long Island could offer—collided tragically in a New York subway car. In Man in the Mirror, award-winning reporter and bestselling author Anand Giridharadas renders this deadly encounter and its aftermath as a propulsive crime story that opens onto a larger human drama: the search for belonging in an age of estrangement.
Inhabiting the perspectives of an unforgettable cast of characters, Giridharadas immerses us in the places where this story plays out, from the corridors of power in City Hall to subway benches where New Yorkers spend the night, from a Marine Corps base to a Harlem church in mourning—and, ultimately, to a courtroom where a riveting battle unfolds. In his painstakingly reported, richly novelistic narrative, these characters’ strivings and struggles—to care for loved ones and strangers, to protect the public, to seek justice—reveal the humanity behind the headlines. Through one character’s eyes and then another’s, Giridharadas presents a chapter of American history too often reduced to divisive clickbait as something far more complex and full of life.
At once panoramic in its scope and finely detailed in its emotional immediacy, Man in the Mirror is a tour de force of narrative reporting and an indispensable portrait of our times.
