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Buzzy Book News & New Year Reads

The HarperCollins Union discusses “bargaining, pay, union security,” Publishers Lunch reports. Those interested in more news can subscribe to the union’s newsletter.

Fox News reports on upcoming plans to ban books in North Dakota.

Vulture announced the launch of Parapraxis, a new magazine on the subject of psychoanalysis.

The Independent delves into the consequences of “brutally honest memoirs” with authors who wrote about their familial relationships.

Oprah Daily recommends “14 Books for (Just About) Every New Year’s Resolution.”

Lit Hub shares “The Best Debut Novels Coming Out in January.”

Tor.com lists “30 SFF Titles to Look Forward to in 2023”

New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers 

Fiction

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron; LJ starred review) shines at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

The House of Wolves by James Patterson and Mike Lupica (Little, Brown) climbs to No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica (Park Row) links to No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

Trust by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead) debuts at No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Spare by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex (Random House) reserves No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot To Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill by Brad Meltzer (Flatiron) charts No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World by Lauren Fleshman (Penguin Pr.) races to No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews The Villa by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin’s): “A spooky, intricate thriller to read for pure entertainment rather than for its striking prose or social commentary. If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, think about the last time you were simply entertained by a good story”; The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House by Chris Whipple (Scribner): “Goes the conventional route of profiling the administration as a whole—a choice made more dubious by the conspicuous absence of Biden himself, or at least on the record”; and Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed (Pantheon): “The panels move briskly, full of big movement and emotional pacing, including the clever use of full-bleed pages, and storytelling that zooms in and out of modern Egyptian history.”

NYT reviews How To Sell a Haunted House  by Grady Hendrix (Berkley; LJ starred review): “Gripping, wildly entertaining exploration of childhood horrors.”

The Los Angeles Times reviews Please Report Your Bug Here, by Josh Riedel (Holt): “Novels are not unlike a complex piece of programming: A bewildering number of hidden components must work in concert to make seemingly simple functions possible, and as Riedel’s debut shows, tiny bugs in the code can collapse the entire enterprise.”

Locus Magazine reviews Fairy Tale, by Stephen King (Scribner): “Shifts between humor, lighthearted storytelling, and darkness. King is fine form here, perhaps in the best form he’s been in a while, and the pure joy of storytelling is present in every page.”

NPR reviews The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis (Knopf): “Hermetic, paranoid, sleek, dark—and with brief explosions of the sex and violence that have characterized Ellis’s oeuvre—The Shards is a stark reminder that the American Psycho author is a genre unto himself.”

Tor.com reviews Lost in the Moment and Found, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com; LJ starred review): “If you’ve been on the fence about Seanan McGuire’s “Wayward Children” series or needed an excuse to return to it, consider Lost in the Moment and Found your signal to get to it.”

Book Marks shares “5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

The Millions talks to Amina Cain about authenticity and what she learned while writing her latest book, A Horse At Night: On Writing (Dorothy: NYRB).

Jinger Dugger Vuolo discusses her new memoir, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear (Thomas Nelson), and “harmful religious practices” of her life in an interview with USA Today. 

NYT’s “Inside the Best-Seller List” profiles Ana Reyes, who found "inspiration in a classroom" for her debut book, The House in the Pines (Dutton).

Aleksandar Hemon, author of The World and All That It Holds (MCD), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

The Washington Post considers “why some books should not be made into audiobooks” and gives a list of such books.

Lit Hub shares the new cover for The Best Possible Experience by Nishanth Injam (Pantheon). 

Tor.com has an excerpt from Wild Massive by Scotto Moore (Tor.com). 

NYT recommends books as an exploration of Boston.

Tor.com provides a list of 5 books with “Cautionary Tales About Artificial Intelligence.”

Lit Hub gives book recommendations for those looking for “joy in retirement.”

CrimeReads a list of books containing “North Atlantic Noir."

Authors on Air

Heather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory (Avid Reader Pr./S. & S.; LJ starred review), discusses “the profundity of our unruly bodies” in a conversation on the Thresholds podcast.

Bruce Wagner chats about “oral histories and our culture’s obsession with fame,” as explored in his book Roar: American Master (Arcade: S. & S.), on the Otherppl podcast.

NPR’s Throughline explores the themes of “history, humanity, and American exceptionalism” as detailed in El Akkad’s 2018 book, American War (VIntage). 

Exile Content Studio will produce an adaptation of Hunter’s Run (Harper Voyager), a space opera co-written by George R. R. Martin, Daniel Abraham, and Gardner Dozois, according to Variety.

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