The best books of the year are always saved for autumn, and this year they should be well worth the wait. From Allen Lane comes the new Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath, in which the bestselling author develops the thesis of Outliers to prescribe some winning strategies that the weak might successfully use against the powerful; also Think Like a Freak by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, in which the controversial creators of Freakonomics show us how to think bigger, faster and better. Not for them, perhaps, Simon Garfield’s mellow Lost Art of Letter Writing or The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud (both from Canongate), but fans of these gentler offerings might also relish a wander through Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst: The Making of a Garden, edited by Sarah Raven (Virago) and, from the same publisher, Ten Fascinating Women of the Fifties by Rachel Cooke. In fiction, the always brilliant Margaret Atwood’s new novel Maddaddam (Bloomsbury) is the third instalment in the fantastical trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake, and sure to top many people’s Christmas lists this year is the debut novel from everyone’s favourite shaggy-haired Venetian aristocrat, Francesco da Mosto. Based on his own family’s history and centred on artefacts found in their palazzo, The Black King (Little, Brown) promises literary intrigue and beautiful buildings across 16th-century Italy and England. And after 365 days of righteous behaviour, what better tonic could there be?