Twenty-six-year-old Brit Bennett comes charging out of Oceanside, California, with her stunning debut, The Mothers (Riverhead), a refreshingly fast-paced story of young love, race, and religious hypocrisy. Set in the author's hometown (she began writing it in high school), the novel is narrated by a chorus of churchgoing gossips who tell the story of a trio of teenagers entangled in a close-knit black community, shaped by the secrets they share. As they become adults, they yearn to leave their younger selves behind. But the past isn't dead; it isn't even past. Sing it, Faulkner.

This Thanksgiving, read with one hand and eat with the other with Mario Batali's patriotic Big American Cookbook (Grand Central), Eataly (Phaidon) fresh Italian twists, Aleksandra Crapanzano's more-than-meats-the-pies The London Cookbook (Ten Speed), and Marcus Samuelsson's buttery The Red Rooster Cookbook (Houghton Mifflin). While you're at it, get your emojis off the table with Jeremiah Tower'sTable Manners (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Go back to the future in David Hajdu'sLove for Sale (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) as he traces pop music in America from the late 19th century to this one. Alternatively, watch it all just flicker by in David Thomson's Television (Thames & Hudson).

At the homecoming game: Wayne Gretzky's99 (Putnam) glides across a lifetime of high sticks and higher stakes. Cait Murphy'sA History of American Sports in 100 Objects (Basic) has the balls to map our love of the game, one photograph at a time. Jonathan Lethem gets acey-deucey in A Gambler's Anatomy (Doubleday). Shaun Assael gives the blow-by-blow of The Murder of Sonny Liston (Blue Rider). Simon Morrison's Bolshoi Confidential (Liveright) offers a toe-bleedingly close look at the Russian ballet.