Book News

Notaro’s historical crime novel The Murderess fictionalizes the notorious case of Winnie Ruth Judd, who in 1931 murdered her two best friends and placed their bodies in trunks. The grisly crime was discovered when Judd attempted to ship the trunks via train from Phoenix to Los Angeles. Notaro tells LJ about Phoenix’s “boogeyman,” her research work, and how it feels to get inside a murderess’s head. 

Award–winning author Bernice L. McFadden and actor Ione Skye offer memoirs while biographies feature F1 race car driver Sir Lewis Hamilton and three free-spirited Victorians on a quest to decipher cuneiform.

Maureen Dowd shares profiles of infamous celebrities, Scaachi Koul offers another collection of autobiographical essays, and Giaae Kwon considers the impact of K-pop.

Chris Bohjalian writes a Civil War love story, Emma Donoghue offers a novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station, and Natasha Pulley reimagines the story of Dionysus.

Expect demand for the latest from bestselling and award–winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Colum McCann, and Torrey Peters.

The National Book Award longlists for Translated Literature and Young People’s Literature are announced. Earlyword’s September “GalleyChat” spreadsheet arrives. Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us has sold 10 million copies. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Liane Moriarty’s buzzy book Here One Moment. Clémence Michallon’s The Quiet Tenant will be adapted for TV, and a new adaptation of Georges Simenon’s iconic “Maigret” mystery series heads to Masterpiece. Plus, fall cookbooks.

Fans of Patricia A. McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld or Marie Brennan’s Driftwood will be in awe of Berry’s (The Manual of Detection) wonderfully odd ode to language, story, and family.

Cookbooks by Valerie Bertinelli, Lidey Heuck, and Gisele Bündchen are topping the charts.

Pushcart Prize winner Sanam Mahloudji debuts with a family saga, Jill Santopolo offers a much-anticipated sequel to The Light We Lost, and bestselling Emilia Hart pens a tale of sisters and the sea.