Saying farewell to summer is hard, but fall brings a new season for reading curled up inside with an apple or a cup of tea and a cookie — and maybe sitting outside on sunny afternoons as the leaves begin to turn.

I got some great little gala apples at the Mount Hope Farmers’ Market last weekend, and enjoyed one with a book out in the backyard. Below are some tempting new offerings.

“The Museum of Extraordinary Things” (2014) by Alice Hoffman is another spectacular offering from a talented author, whose most recent books reflect an interest in history. This one is a love story, a mystery, a fascinating look at New York City, and rich with a mix of magic and hard truths. In 1911, New York is opulent and glittering and poor and miserable at the same time. In Coney Island, Coralee Sardie’s father runs the Museum of Extraordinary Things, where Coralee is a “Mermaid” in a tank. But, times are changing and the Wolfman or Butterfly Girl are no longer a big draw during the summer season. The professor decides he needs a spectacular monster to compete with the new Dreamland being built next door. Then, one night, Coralee spies a photographer, Eddie Cohen, in the woods near the Hudson River. She’s beginning to rebel against her father’s rules and life, and Eddie, who has rebelled against his own life, will steal her heart.

“The Book of Secrets” (2013) by Elizabeth Joy Arnold. On Chloe’s eighth birthday, she gives herself a present — the Sinclair family. To Chloe, Nate, Grace and Cecelia and their mother, who reads them magical books, are the ideal family. Little does she know quite how dysfunctional they really are. But, the book opens years later. She and Nate have been married for 20 years and they own a bookstore. One evening, he takes off, leaving a note saying he has to return to their hometown. While trying to reach him, she finds a hollowed-out book with a notebook inside written in code. While decoding it, Chloe relives the story of their lives. I don’t want to give too much away. This really is a book of secrets — secrets among families, between parents and children, and husband and wife. It also touches on love of books, how they affect our lives. Chloe posits that it could even be possible to determine compatibility based on the books you each like.

“Winter Solstice” (2000) by Rosamunde Pilcher. I love Pilcher’s books. There are no murders, spies, vampires, car chases or shocking discoveries that turn everything you thought about the characters upside-down. They are about real people living quiet, ordinary lives with all the day-to-day minutiae of life and death that real living entails. “Winter Solstice” is no exception. She takes a cast of characters from around Britain and them brings them all together for a satisfying ending in Scotland, a place she brings to vivid life. Maybe her plots are tied up a little too neatly, but sometimes that’s very satisfying. Retired actress Elfrida Phipps moves from London to a village in Hampton where she meets Oscar and Gloria Blundell, who become good friends. But when tragedy strikes, she finds herself in an old estate house in the north of Scotland where her open heart and generosity will bring her family, love and companionship in equal measure.

“Vertigo 42” (2014) by Martha Grimes. If you aren’t acquainted with Superintendent Richard Jury of New Scotland Yard and his group of eclectic friends and acquaintances, you don’t know what you’re missing. This is Grimes’ 23rd book featuring the likable detective. The titles of the books are the names of pubs (and more recently, nightclubs) in London and environs. In this one, Jury is on leave but is asked to meet with Tom Williamson, who believes his wife’s fatal accident 17 years earlier, was anything but. Grimes’ books are so much fun and have a great sense of humor amid the murder and mayhem. If you aren’t familiar, by all means start at the beginning and read them in order to get all the juicy details about Jury’s friend in Devon, Melrose Plant and his odd friends, who hang out at the Jack & Hammer; his sexy neighbor, Carol-anne; his detective sergeant, Alfred Wiggins; and other sundry characters who appear intermittently.

“The Transcriptionist” (2014) by Amy Rowland. Lena is a transcriptionist for a big New York City newspaper. She works alone on the 11th floor, rarely visited by anyone, and transcribes stories from tape and over the phone from reporters in the building and in the field. She has a cryptic conversation with Arlene, a blind woman on the bus, and then the next day, transcribes a story about Arlene, who swam the moat around the lion enclosure at the zoo during the night and was mauled to death. Lena has started to feel that she is losing herself in her job. “It’s too difficult to eat the news with my ears every day... I have letters in my bloodstream, nut graphs in my gut, headlines around my heart. It usurps my soul.” She becomes obsessed with the manner of Arlene’s death and it will upend her life. I loved this book. It’s Rowland’s first and, I hope, not her last.

“Abe and Fido” (2015) by Matthew Algeo is subtitled “Lincoln’s Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion.” But this 156-page book is so much more. It includes details on Lincoln’s life, the politics of the period from 1855 to 1866, the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, the elections, slavery, and the Civil War, in addition to how Lincoln cared about his two youngest sons, Tad and Willie, pets and animals in general. There are even some bits about other presidential pets and a charming letter from an 11-year-old Grace Bedell of New York who advised Lincoln that whiskers might make his thin face more appealing to voters. It’s a fascinating slice of the famous man’s life and his famous pooch, the eponymous Fido, a “yaller dog” loved by the Lincolns — well, maybe not Martha Lincoln — and even their Springfield neighbors.

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