17 Best Books to Read This November

Maria Semple follows up her lauded Where'd You Go, Bernadette with Today Will Be Different, another novel about a white woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Eleanor Flood has 99 boutique problems, including a son interested in makeup, an overdue graphic memoir manuscript, and a quiet marriage to a hand doctor to the stars. But during one overwhelming day, these minor irritants coalesce into a perfect storm of frustration, threatening to expose Eleanor's not-so-plush childhood. What ultimately keeps Eleanor from toppling off the cliffs of insanity is her heroic sense of the absurd.