The Butcher By Philip Carlo, Out Now The author of Gaspipe and Iceman tells the story of Tommy “Karate” Pitera, one of the most feared mob hit men ever, and the DEA agent who hunted him down in 1980s New York.

To Sound in the Know:Pitera, who trained in the martial arts in Japan as a teenager, killed an estimated 60 people.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress By Rhoda Janzen, Out Oct. 13 In this memoir, Janzen attempts to recover from a car accident after her husband leaves her for a guy by moving back into her childhood home with her Mennonite parents. That’s right…memoir. Not Lifetime movie. Memoir.

To Sound in the Know: Janzen was poet laureate of the University of California from 1994 to 1997.

Chronic City By Jonathan Lethem, Out Oct. 13 Boerum Hill poster boy Lethem turns his sights across the East River to pen a novel about a former child star, a pop critic, a ghostwriter and a political fixer exploring the mysteries of Manhattan.

To Sound in the Know: Lethem seems to have gone all Pynchon in naming his characters—Chase Insteadman, Perkus Tooth and Oona Laszlo, just to name a few. Perhaps it’s just the chronic.

Look at the Birdie By Kurt Vonnegut, Out Oct. 20 A collection of 14 previously unpublished short stories from early in Vonnegut’s writing career.

To Sound in the Know: This is Vonnegut’s second posthumously published book.When discussing it, make sure to sigh, shake your head and mutter “so tragic.”

Invisible: A Novel By Paul Auster, Out Oct. 27 Auster’s 15th novel follows three different narrators from 1967 to 2007, from Manhattan to Paris to the Caribbean in this story of memory, identity and all those wonderful themes that make Auster’s novels so Austerian.

To Sound in the Know:The story begins with a 20year-old at Columbia in 1967. Auster also was a 20-year-old at Columbia in 1967.

Bad Reputation By Penny Arcade, Out Oct. 30 This collection of three of Arcade’s cutting-edge plays also includes interviews, photographs and essays with the art-scene dynamo.

To Sound in the Know: Arcade (real name Susana Ventura) came up with her pseudonym at 17 while on LSD.

Girldrive By Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein, Out Nov. 1 Journalists Aronowitz and Bernstein took to the road in 2007 to interview 127 women that they profile in this exploration of young women and feminism.

To Sound in the Know: Think Kerouac and Cassady cruising Route 66 in search of Steinem. Or the riot grrrl episode of Roseanne.