What do you know about the French Revolution? Last month, I knew precious little. I remembered a few details: There was Bastille day, and then Robespierre was the bad guy, and some guy got murdered in a bathtub, and the Queen got her head cut off, right? But which happened first? And what’s the difference between a sans-culotte and a Jacobin?

If you liked Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies (and you should, they’re amazing), then go back and read A Place of Greater Safety, Hillary Mantel’s similarly excellent treatment of the French Revolution.

(Don’t go thinking history is all Mantel does, though. Her output is wildly diverse. I’m trying to read all of it, and so far, it’s all fantastic. Beyond Black, about a fortune-teller in post-Thatcher Britain, still stays with me).

So, the Revolution: If it confuses us today, it’s because it was confusing then, too. And it was long – the Bastille fell several years before Louis and Antoinette were forced from the throne. All that time, there were shifting and uncertain alliances: Some wanted a constitutional monarchy. Some wanted riots so they could suppress them and become heroes. Some wanted Louis gone and replaced with a different king. Some wanted a republic. Others anarchy. We think about it as good and evil, but of course it’s not that simple, ever. We remember Robespierre as a villain but up until the end, his friends regarded him as the most ethical of revolutionaries.

Even after reading this book, I can’t quite keep all the factions and intrigues straight – but I’m pretty sure that even the participants didn’t, either. I wonder how similar this story is to those of other revolutions, not just the American Revolution but also the current unrest in the Middle East today: All of these noble causes and common enemies come to a boil, and then the realization that the fight is now a struggle to govern.

Fall creeps up on me each year, like a soft kitten stalking prey. All of a sudden there’s a nip in the air, the leaves change colors to a brightly hued spectrum. And suddenly they’re gone. The naked trees, elegantly bare, wave their branches in the Fall wind reminding me that Winter will soon  be here and to get my sweaters ready.

Fall also brings the regional trade shows. Booksellers from all over New England come together in Providence, RI to look at, talk about, and touch all of the Fall books. It’s a great time, seeing old friends and discussing what we’ve all read in the past few months. “You really liked that?”I didn’t at all!” “I’ll add that to the top of my reading queue.”

This year I took the train down from South Station each day to Providence, whose station is only a five minute walk to the convention center. I love, love taking the train. It’s so civilized. You show up 10 minutes before the train leaves, everyone calmly boards, and you hope you get a seat on the good side with the views as you go down the coast. It also gives you a chance to read uninterrupted (unless you get caught up in a conversation about Bobby Valentine with the conductor) for a while.

Usually the pretty foliage distracts me from whatever I’m reading on the train. But this time I was lucky to grab a spectacular debut novel called The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Anyana Mathis that absorbed all of my attention. Each chapter tells the story of a different member of the family. Throughout them all, we see Hattie and how early tragedies in her life echo for generations. In the opening story set in 1925, 16 year old Hattie nurses her twin babies sick with pneumonia. Unable to afford a doctor, they die, devastating Hattie for the rest of her life. From here, we move onto other children of Hattie’s, who feel the lack of tenderness from their mother. I was surprised to find that each story gave such vibrant portraits of each family member, telling a vignette that illuminates their entire lives.

Mathis’s novel induces heartache and tears but also respect for the characters. This first novel launches a rare talent, one that I will watch eagerly for her next works.

Ruta Sepetys’ first novel, about a teenage girl trapped in a Siberian prison, was published last March. Unfortunately, the title was Between Shades of Gray, and it’s probably suffered for having a name so similar to a certain infamous novel written around the same time. I haven’t read it, but it’s been well-reviewed – Sepetys is certainly making a name for herself as a writer who speaks to young adults without dumbing anything down.

Her new book, Out of the Easy, is set in New Orleans in 1950. And while it’s likely to be targeted and sold mostly to young adults, it’s hardly a children’s book. The protagonist, Josie Moraine, begins her tale with the frank but alarming sentence “My mother is a prostitute.”

Josie is determined to escape that shameful legacy and head to college in the Northeast, but it’s a long shot, especially once her mother gets tangled up in a murder…

The subject matter is challenging and mature, but Sepetys manages to avoid being explicit or titillating while still not pulling any punches. Instead, Josie is written convincingly as a young woman trying to keep her head in a world of hurt and danger and disrespect.

I keep reading novels of the Indian underworld, and they keep being good. I’m going to have to balance it out with A Suitable Boy, a non-crime novel about family relationships and manners and class. M. loved it, which is reason enough to read it, but also I suspect that if I skip it I’ll be developing a skewed and unwholesome view of desi fiction. But first… one more tale of crime and dissolution.

Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil, takes place over about 30 years, as Bombay becomes Mumbai and the license raj gives way to global capital. In the slums, that’s less important. There, the ebb and flow of tension and violence between Hindu and Muslim is unceasing, and the only real difference is that chandu (opium) is replaced by garad (heroin). The rich and privileged dabble in drugs, get sucked in, get clean, relapse, get clean again. The poor start out hopeless and never have a chance. Everyone has an excuse and a justification and time stretches out to nothing.

As a companion, consider Steven Martin’s memoir Opium Fiend, which explains a lot about the elaborate and now-outdated opium smoking equipment (it actually just vaporizes, rather than burns, the drug) that seems to play as important a role as the poets and dreamers who get sucked into the opiate undertow of Narcopolis.