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Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Robert Crais, Grady Hendrix, Layne Fargo, and Scott Turow. People’s book of the week is I’ll Come To You by Rebecca Kauffman. The Philip K. Dick Award nominees and the Story Prize finalists are announced. Brooke Shields discusses aging and her new memoir, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old. SLJ shares how to help those impacted by the California wildfires. Jim Murphy’s Inner Excellence hits #1 on Amazon after a viral video captured Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown reading it during Sunday’s NFC wild-card game. Plus, NYPL acquires the archive of Jhumpa Lahiri.
Thao Thai’s Banyan Moon wins the Crook’s Corner Book Prize for the best debut novel set in the American South. Winners of the Silvers-Dudley Prizes, for literary criticism, arts writing, and journalism, are announced. Crown, a division of Penguin Random House, has launched Storehouse Voices, a new imprint devoted to elevating Black voices, and Simon & Schuster has announced a new audio-first imprint, Simon Maverick, focused on self-published authors. Publishers Weekly has Barack Obama’s list of his favorite books of 2024. Plus, interviews with Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Stuart Turton, and Tracy Clark.
Winners of the Pacific Northwest Book Awards are announced. The shortlists for the Westminster Book Awards, for political books and books by UK parliamentarians, are revealed. Jenna Bush Hager, host of the Read with Jenna book club, is starting her own publishing venture with Penguin Random House. Plus interviews with Graham Norton, Jean Hanff Korelitz, and Liz Moore.
For those participating in Dry January or anyone looking to consume less alcohol, here’s a tempting array of cookbooks containing ideas for nonalcoholic cocktails.
El-Mohtar’s solo debut is a heart-wrenching fairy tale about the bonds of love and family. It’s a murder ballad in book form that will linger long after the final page is turned.
Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.
The author of Where They Last Saw Her brings back Cash Blackbear in a tragic, unforgiving crime novel that emphasizes the perils of the foster care system for Indigenous children.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joy-Ann Reid, Alyssa Cole, Essie Chambers, and more are nominated for NAACP Image Awards. Oprah picks Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose for her 110th book club. Other January book club picks include Kate Fagan’s The Three Lives of Cate Kay (Reese Witherspoon and Target), Emma Knight’s The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus (Read with Jenna and Barnes & Noble), and Karissa Chen’s Homeseeking (GMA and Good Housekeeping). LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams. Reba McEntire will star in and produce an adaptation of Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. Plus, Eliza Kennedy’s forthcoming novel Lucky Night will be adapted for the stage.
LitHub releases the list of its most anticipated books of 2025. New year previews also arrive from Electric Lit, BookRiot, and Vogue. Barnes & Noble announces plans to open 60 new stores in 2025. Meta signals an end to its third-party fact-checking program. Diana Gabaldon shares a new Outlander excerpt. Vox examines: “Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis?” Bestselling thriller author Andrew Pyper has died at the age of 56.
Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by James Patterson and Brian Sitts, Fiona Davis, Danielle Steel, and Alafair Burke. People’s book of the week is Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin. Audiofile announces the January Earphones Award winners. Jenna Bush Hager selects The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight for her January book club. The film and TV adaptations for Conclave, Wicked, Shōgun, I’m Still Here, and The Penguin win Golden Globes. Plus, what to read in 2025.
Cooks who fell in love with the food of Southern France in Rebekah Peppler’s Le Sud or discovered the joys of cooking in Maine with Erin French’s The Lost Kitchen will be equally enamored with Clark’s loving culinary celebration of the best that California’s Central Coast has to offer.
Worth picking up for Gay’s introspective yet inclusive introduction alone, this new collection provides accessible entry points into feminism and offers even advanced scholars new ways of viewing the complex, intersectional histories of feminist thought, literature, and action.
This book is recommended and appropriate for libraries supporting students and general readers interested in exploring governmental policies from abroad that could work in the U.S.
Emotional, raw, and real, this memoir is a deep dive into one couple’s trials and triumphs to redefine marriage to fit their lives and needs. A valuable addition to memoir collections.
A fresh take on banking that will show readers how credit unions and community banks can improve the social, economic, and environmental situations of the people they serve.
This compelling, evocative book expertly centers queer writing and resilience to imagine new approaches to living during environmental crises. It’s an excellent choice for scholars, students, and general readers of queer studies and ecocriticism. Pair with The Queerness of Water: Troubled Ecologies in the Eighteenth Century by Jeremy Chow.
Written in clear prose with well-founded arguments, this book, heavily illustrated with archival photographs and drawings, makes an excellent addition to history collections. For general audiences interested in Americana.
Steves’s journal offers a window into time, before travel through the greater Middle East became vastly more complicated. Recommended for Steves’s fans and armchair travelers.
Fascinating insight into the lives of two remarkable women who may be unfamiliar to readers in the United States. Especially recommended for readers interested in biographies about royals.
Allensworth gives readers accessible descriptions of the professional licensing process and attendant problems. She explains the reasons for caring about this weighty topic and suggests solutions.
This well-written, accessible history is a significant contribution to the literature on the American Revolutionary War. Maass’s blend of thorough research, engaging stories, and expert analysis make this book a must, especially for U.S. history readers.
Brilliant, unflinching, and written with the same heady, literary sophistication as Yuknavitch’s novels. Compounded by real moments of narrative vulnerability, this memoir is as much an act of dismembering as it is of remembering.
This scholarly work does a good job of indicating the nuances and the conflict between Okinawa and the U.S.-Japan alliance. Recommended for graduate students and readers interested in modern East Asia.
This exhaustive work will find a readership among specialists, as it details key battles and ideological impetuses of important figures. Sheppard also succinctly explains the reasoning behind crucial events during a turning point in European history.
Blending serious scholarship with a chatty and lively narrative style, this introduction to plenary power within the context of relations between the U.S. and Indigenous peoples will intrigue law students, advocates, and general readers.
Using archival records, stories from Maynial’s family, and an interview with the last surviving nurse from the Blue Squadron, this book delivers a gripping, affectionate account of these women’s heroic work. Best for history, gender studies, and human-interest readers.
Green offers a foundational understanding of Black Civil War memory and encourages readers to continue to ask questions and gather more stories before they are further lost to time, thus continuing to dispel misconceptions and misinterpretations. An excellent companion to Levin’s Searching for Black Confederates and Roberts and Kyrtle’s Denmark Vesey’s Garden.
The lack of books on the Boy Scouts largest summer camp makes this deeply personal, captivating, and accessible title an essential addition to true crime collections.
A thought-provoking analysis of modern marketing tactics that empowers consumers to ameliorate its effects. This will appeal to social sciences–based critics of contemporary marketing.
Based on a unique set of sources, this heart-wrenching work should be read by all focused on enslavement studies as well as American and Civil War history.
Ewing’s profound work is a must read for politicians, school board members, education administrators, and teachers. It would also be an excellent addition to professional development and teacher education programs.
Vulnerable yet acerbic, this moving interrogation of the stories that helped Chihaya survive in a predominantly white environment validates the real and raw ways in which books shape people’s internal and external identities in personal, political, psychological, and social ways.
This is a highly recommended, necessary read for anyone who finds themself grating against those with different political beliefs. Ross’s book has plenty of potential for discussions and healing relations between friends and family and maybe even strangers too.
Taking a whole-army approach, Sarantakes describes the contributions of all units and levels of command, along with discussions of unit mobility, intelligence, and tactics. This strategy makes for a detailed and comprehensive treatment of a generally under-researched but crucial battle. This deeply researched and well-written work will certainly be enjoyed by readers of World War II history.
An illuminating and vibrant collection of work for scholars of women’s and queer studies, as well as readers interested in women’s empowerment, paganism, and witchcraft.
A powerful book (winner of Britain’s Writers’ Prize for Poetry in 2023, as well as the Writers’ Prize for overall Book of the Year) that will linger with readers long after the last word.
Well thought-out, the selections in this anthology beautifully introduce readers to this special college and to poets deserving of high praise and appreciation.
This book models the research and scholarship needed to more fully represent women in the history of architecture. The result is a richer story of both women in architecture and modernism in the United States.
This dialogue with Baker revels in her poetic and often humorous way of speaking. Pair with Chris Chase and Jean-Claude Baker’s authoritative biography Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart.
This excellent book skillfully showcases Smith’s method for identifying and healing from grief and finding wholeness. It can be read individually or as a study group. Each chapter opens with a quote by an accomplished Black woman, covers an issue that Black women face, infuses God’s Word, provides solutions, and ends with an encouraging letter to Black women.
This title is not merely essential for any collection on popular music or queer history. Savage’s ability to turn a wealth of information into a compellingly readable narrative should make this volume of interest to readers of all stripes.
This work can easily be used for individual and ministry training. In each chapter, specific characteristics of God are explained and demonstrated, followed by a listing of holy habits, reflection questions, and prayers.
Readers interested in the Catholic Church and religious history will enjoy this insightful work. Contributions from top theologians about the roles that various women played in papal households add considerable depth and detail to the stories of the popes.
Catholic readers celebrating Lent will appreciate Varden’s hopeful insights and distinctive Cistercian perspective on the passion of Christ. The book is designed and billed as a 2025 Lenten devotion, but it would be suitable for using other years or even outside of Lent, especially for people experiencing illnesses or chronic pain or readers interested in hymns.
Ivey takes readers on an emotional literary journey that includes touches of magic woven throughout and the question of whether love is enough to change someone. Recommended for book discussion picks.
Hart’s second novel (after Weyward) weaves a lyrical story, intricately blending family dynamics with the magic of folklore. For fans of family relationship stories with elements of magical realism, such as the novels of Sarah Addison Allen.
Metaphors abound in Watts’s fiction, but this work solemnly ponders whether accepting negation opens up alternative paths toward the future. Her novel movingly covers multitudinous forms of grief: ecological, political, and familial.
Full of humor, heart, and hope, this novel is a delight for anyone looking for a Western with a little less grit and a little more gentleness. Readers who like happy endings to their adventures will be drawn in by evocative period details, engaging characters, and strong narrative voice.
This is a lyrical and unique work of historical fiction. The Kingdom is based on a real place about which readers will want to know more after reading Perkins-Valdez’s novel. Fans of hidden-history narratives will enjoy her hopeful, empowering tale.
With themes of relationships, love, and family, this tale will resonate with readers who have faced hardships and who have had to search for and embrace their identity. A welcome addition to collections.
This often less-read novel, here with annotations by Wells (English, Goucher Coll.), holds many of the strong pleasures of Austen, most centrally her keen characterizations and social observations.
Book clubs will enjoy this wonderful novel about family, friendship and inner strength. It is a must-read for those who like the work of Kristin Hannah and Jojo Moyes.
In her latest, Dermansky (Hurricane Girl) distills a potent brew from the sad consequences of power disparities among people. No arena of domestic human emotions is safe from her biting wit and analysis. Mother-daughter, employer-worker, husband-wife, rich-poor conflicts: all get their moment in the spotlight. It’s a laugh-till-you cry experience that will send readers to Dermansky’s backlist for more.
Redemptive, heartrending, and emotionally powerful, this finely crafted, deeply observant novel is among the treasures of 19th-century British fiction.
Based upon a little-known true event, this haunting and emotional story from pseudonymous Anthony, who has published women’s fiction under another name, could not be timelier. Women in the United States are not the only ones who must fight to protect personal rights, and this powerful novel will remind readers of the fragility of those freedoms.
This debut is a beautiful, if sometimes harrowing exploration of one woman’s journey, not only from one country to another but through the pain and trauma of unimaginable childhood abuse to a life built by her own grit and determination.
This is a fast-moving, relatable story that would be a good addition to a historical fiction section or fiction of special interest to women. Fans of Lisa Wingate and Chris Bohjalian will also enjoy.
In the end, the plot does not matter, really; what makes Rudnick’s book so memorable are the well-drawn friendships among characters, their allegiance to one another, and a surprisingly touching reflection on love, trust, and the passage of time.
Quick-moving, clever, and interrogative, Austen’s popular love story, edited by the late literary scholar Kinsley and with a new introduction by Christina Lupton (English, Univ. of Warwick), is far more than a quest for a happily-ever-after.
A sharply written novel with surprise comedic twists. Readers will enjoy this tale of two ex-lovers who are reunited by espionage and who ultimately find true love as they race through the beautiful streets of Italy, trying to stay alive.
The excellent writing in Score’s (“Knockemout” series) latest small-town romance pulls readers into Hazel’s new life, featuring snarky humor, lots of banter, and hot chemistry between the well-developed protagonists. Highly recommended.
Ruggle’s sequel to The Scenic Route (and her fourth novel featuring the Pax sisters) is a delight for fans of romantic suspense who also appreciate a sprinkle of humor. The epilogue, featuring an unexpected discovery by the fifth Pax sister, is sure to keep readers anxious for the next book.
Williams (Technically Yours) writes a sexy fake-dating romance with charm, featuring a protagonist navigating the challenges of family expectations and love.
A nonintimidating introduction to short- and long-term food plans and gardening techniques that will help readers develop their emergency food supply plan.
The sound, money-saving ideas boil down to planting seeds, whether collected or purchased, dividing plants, and making cuttings using numerous methods.
A gorgeous, informative, browsable book for armchair travelers, vacation planners, and readers interested in North American Japanese-style gardens and their history.
An excellent Black history title, definitely for Southern libraries, but also a welcome choice for collections focused on the civil rights movement and a fun teaching aid.
This lovely, browsable, wide-ranging, authoritative book will be relished by Texas gardeners of all experience levels. It’s perfect for readers who are looking for plant suggestions so that they can design or expand their own gardens with native species.
Perhaps this will be the nudge that less-confident cooks will need to try something new. Recommended for readers seeking new options in both their gardens and their kitchens.
