The Best Fall Book List: My Favorite Cozy Autumn Reading Recommendations

With a free Fall Bucket List worksheet for planning your perfect pumpkin spice latte season

As I write this the bees buzz outside of my window, the sun shines down strong and bright, and the creek in front of my house bubbles and chatters abundant with wildlife. These are the last high days of summer and I am doing my best to enjoy them. Each season is a gift and I find I am happiest when I am enjoying what is directly in front of me. 

This is my first summer living on a farm coming from the stark opposite of New York City and a concrete Suburban Utopia. And nature has been this incredible marvel; a wise and gigantic teacher. When I lived in the city I honestly didn’t notice the seasons changing until I did or did not need a coat anymore. The subtle shifts like the tips of leaves turning yellow or the bugs in the air changing; you kind of miss these when you’re surrounded by brick and mortar. It’s a magical feeling to notice the earth spinning and feel like you’re a part of it all. 

However, nature on a farm in the summer is also quite brutal. The rain and the animals and the plants, and the heat all come together to create what is a kind of buggy, muddy swamp fest. Beautiful! But quite gross at times. (Seriously, the creatures cow dung attracts. *shudder*) 

So I’ve been having what I call an “indoor kid summer.” I read, I make ice cream from scratch, I sit under the ceiling fan with an iced coffee (even thought it’s PSL launch day, I’m saving my pumpkin spice latte psychosis for September!) and watch the sunset over the valley. It’s been quite lovely! But now that the breeze is slowly chilling at night I am unleashing my burgeoning excitement for…

Oh the sweet intoxication of laying in the grass with a good book, a PSL, and no swarm of flies. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and burn out all my excitement for fall before it’s even here so I am enjoying my summer activities while planning. And that’s the beauty of life, we only have the present moment but seasons always inevitably change. To be grateful for what is here and excited for what is to come is the most powerful position a person can place themselves in. So I watch Charmed and daydream about pumpkin cream cold foam and fill out my Fall Bucket List. 

Books are of course, the main way I get into the spirit of anything. These are all STAPLES for me that are always on my fall book list and I look forward to re-reading all year long. I also find a way I like to savor fall is to break the season up into four different seasons: “Pre-Fall”, “Warm Fall”, “Spooky Fall”, and “Cold Fall.” 

It just makes the ephemeral delight of Autumn easier to savor and slows down my obsessive fall fervor so I don’t get sick of jack o lanterns and PSL’s too soon. Each book recommendation corresponds with its mini season so you have the perfect autumn reading recommendations to set the right vibe and enjoy every last autumnal morsel. 

The Perfect Fall Book List for Every Autumn Mood

Free Cozy Worksheet!

If you’re buzzing for Fall and want to make sure you get in every book, pumpkin patch, and PSL; I made a cute little Fall Bucket List download. The version that has text boxes you can automatically start typing in on your computer is here and the one you can print so you have a beautiful and constant reminder to seize your fall days is available if you subscribe to my Substack. (All free!)

Pre-Fall Reading (Late August): Summer Mysteries Meet Autumn Vibes | Too Good to Be True by Carola Lovering 

These are the last days of summer. You’re still enjoying ice cream and long daylight and shorts. But with each breezy day that comes your fantasies of pumpkin carving and big sweaters intensify. You’re not ready to light the cinnamon candles yet but you want just a taste of the sweet nectar of autumn. 

The perfect transition book for Pre Fall is a good mystery. It’s got enough of a summer paperback on the beach vibe but also starts getting you in the headspace of spooky season. I RIPPED through Too Good To Be True and even though I know what happens now (which is the entire engine of the book so don’t read any review or summaries of this one) I’ve reread it. The first time I read it, I finished it in a single day that’s how much I enjoyed it. 

The Plot: A young woman working through past hurts finds the man of her dreams. Or is he?

The Vibes: old money, whirlwind romance, suspicious husband, luxury society wedding, and unreliable narrators. 

*There are some brief mentions of SA so if that’s a no for you I wouldn’t do this one.* 

Warm Fall Cozy Reads (September): Witchy Outdoor Adventures |The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater 

Warm Fall is tough. It’s now justifiable to go full Pumpkin Mode but the weather is juuust a little too warm half the days to wrap up in a sweater without feeling like you’re cooking. But you still can spend time outside without a jacket and are getting that evening sunshine. You need an activity that is half summer, half fall. 

A park, an iced pumpkin spice latte, and The Raven Boys is my answer (although I do have a growing soft spot for the apple crisp macchiato!)  Maggie Stiefvater is one of my favorite authors of all time and The Raven Boys is like perfect 90s nostalgia, Practical Magic house, wiccan type witches, herbs drying on the ceiling coziness to keep one foot in the grass and one by the fire. 

The Plot: Blue is a young girl living in a family of clairvoyant women but she herself has never had the sight. Until one night on St Mark’s Eve in a cemetery she sees the spirit of a boy from the local private boarding school. She is inexplicably drawn to him and his obsessive quest to discover ancient magic. Blue is set on a  journey with Gansey and his group of friends steeped in magic even she can’t explain. 

The Vibes: fairytale, celtic witches, teen love in a cemetery, coming of age, boarding school bad boys, and nature spirits. With genuinely amazing prose. 

Spooky Fall Book Picks (October): Peak Pumpkin Spice Season Reading | Cackle by Rachel Harrison

 This is the peak of Fall. This is jack-o-lanterns, apple cider donuts with a big scarf, Uggs and sweatshirt perfection. You have to max out on every opportunity to soak up the autumnal high during October. 

Cackle is the perfect accompaniment. I love this book so much. I went to an all girls high school so I love any book about female friendship and getting over breakups but this one has everything: witchiness, baking, magical subterfuge, ghosts, finding your divine feminine power… You get that like cutesy fall aesthetic you want from Gilmore Girls but a little darkness and emotion from the amazing plot. 

The Plot: A New York City teacher and her long term boyfriend break up, upending her entire understanding of where her life is going. She decides to take a teaching job in a small New England town that has the most perfect, quaint, Main Street USA atmosphere. She makes a new friend who happens to be a witch. And that’s the least surprising thing about her. 

The Vibes: women finding their power through witchcraft, small New England towns, gothic mansions, female friendship, and cozy coffee shops with fall coffee specials. 

Cold Fall Literature (November): Atmospheric Books for Long Nights | The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland 

Fall is coming to a close and we’re coming down from the exhilaration of Spooky Season. It’s a little sad. The weather’s getting a little too cold to be outside for too long. And we want to hold on tight to the last days of Autumn. 

The God of Endings is the book for long nights in, cozied up under a blanket, with a pumpkin hot chocolate in hand; it’s one of those cozy fall reads that makes you excited for shorter days. Its themes of the seasons of life, enduring darkness, and finding purpose within ourselves is exactly what’s needed as the days get shorter and we start getting ready for a new year. Rick Riordan called it “painterly in style” and that is so accurate. It’s vivid, dark, rich, and uplifting all at the same time. 

The Plot: Collette is a 150 year old vampire (although vampire is not a word used in the book) who is living life denying her vampiric nature and running a children’s preschool in her mansion in Upstate New York. All is relatively calm until she starts developing an insatiable craving for blood that endangers her students and must grapple with her past and the reality of who she is if she is to survive. 

The Vibes: Anne Rice vampires, candelabras down wood paneled halls, death and rebirth, 1800’s villages scared of witches, the Hudson Valley, and grand oil paintings. 

I will personally be reading every one of these and hope you do too. Some journal prompts and more downloads over on Substack!

That’s all! Thank you for reading! 🍁

and for updates on more posts like this with special extras and more of my experience experimenting with small, gentle ways to build a life full of love, you can subscribe (for free) to my Substack below.