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Big Books of the Week

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens (Mulholland; LJ starred review)

Midnight Black by Mark Greaney (Berkley)

Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong (Minotaur)

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming (Berkley)

These books and others publishing the week of February 17, 2025, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Awards & News

The Southern Book Prize winners are announced, including The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich (Little, Brown), Rednecks by Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s), and Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo (Bloomsbury YA).

The Walter Scott Prize longlist is announced.

The Dell Award winners are announced. Locus has details.

PEN America will honor Sarah Jessica Parker and Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged at its annual gala on May 15.

Actress Julianne Moore responds to her children’s book being removed from schools run by the U.S. Department of Defense. Deadline has the story.

The Des Moines Register reports on House File 274 which would remove Iowa obscenity-law exemption for libraries and schools.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three LibraryReads and three Indie Next picks publish this week.

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming (Berkley)

“When Dory Valentine is abducted and transported to another planet, she ends up falling for not one, but two sexy aliens. As you might expect, this book is funny, sexy, and very fast-paced. The subplot related to being abducted by aliens and why she was abducted was interesting and intricate. Readers will absolutely look forward to more from this up-and-coming author.”—Dontaná M., Oak Park Public Library, IL

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“Hilarious and adventurous in Kimberly Lemming’s signature style! The characters and story are so imaginative, from the dinosaurs, to talking owl-like creatures, to flamethrowing sexy aliens with hooves and horns. Such a fun read!”—Vanessa Nicolle, Femme Fire Books, Jacksonville, FL

The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens (Mulholland; LJ starred review) *Good for Book Clubs

“Hana, a librarian in a small town in Minnesota lives a quiet life until the day a detective informs her of her close friend’s murder. Knowing her friend’s death is tied to her, Hana’s afraid she's next. This historical thriller alternates between present day and 1995 Bosnia with a plot that’s intense and gritty and writing that’s moving and heartbreaking.”—Connie Laing, Great River Regional Library, MN

Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis (Bramble)

“This cozy romance features a librarian hiding out as a dark wizard, a witch queen who’d rather nerd out about experiments, and the most wonderfully supportive found family. This has all the tropes you love of romantasy with the added bonus of witty banter, snarky witch queens, and a heart-melting romance. Give this one to fans of The Princess Bride.”—Sarah Bean Thompson, Springfield-Greene County Library, MO

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Garden by Nick Newman (Putnam; LJ starred review)

“This book is creepy. It has a ton of twists and turns. What is actually happening and what comes from the mother’s twisted imagination? Should the sisters keep going the way they always have, or take a look at the outside?”—Andrea Iriarte, Molly’s Bookstore, Melrose, MA

Dream State by Eric Puchner (Doubleday)

“Dream State is a wide-ranging, richly textured novel that defies any simple description. Starting in a familiar past, old college pals prepare for a wedding in Montana and end up decades ahead in an uncomfortably plausible near future.”—Stan Hynds, Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma (Atlantic Monthly). Also getting attention are We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes (Viking: Pamela Dorman) and Live Fast by Brigitte Giraud, tr. by Cory Stockwell (Ecco). 

“Cozy Winter Fiction” includes The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict (St. Martin’s; LJ starred review), Every Tom, Dick & Harry by Elinor Lipman (Harper), and Three Days in June by Anne Tyler (Knopf). 

The “Picks” section spotlights Asura on Netfix, based on the novel by Kuniko Mukôda. Plus, the best books of February.

Reviews

NYT reviews Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (Catapult): “The excesses of 1980s academia are ripe fodder for de Kretser’s mordant wit, but her aim here is more ambitious — and the results more rewarding.” Washington Post also reviews: “The result feels like a Sally Rooney-ish, political/feminist picaresque, whose fiercely truth-seeking narrator both acts within and reports upon the shape-shifting social and academic organisms she’s part of.”

NYT also reviews The Echoes by Evie Wyld (Knopf): “Wyld’s sharp story of living doesn’t need traumatic climaxes to make its point. The time to enjoy the love we have is now”; Dream State by Eric Puchner (Doubleday): “Dream State is at its best when Puchner allows his characters to be unpredictable even to themselves”; Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina (St. Martin’s): “While her book is at times fragmentary and episodic, marked by abrupt discontinuities, the cumulative effect is powerful, eloquently testifying to the horrific consequences of this conflict”; How To Be Avant-Garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art by Morgan Falconer (Norton): “What’s fascinating in Falconer’s brief studies of these avant-gardists is how, in stark contrast to many artists today, their art-making seemed to exist outside the context of the market”; Snowy Day and Other Stories by Lee Chang-dong, tr. by Yoosup Chang & Heinz Insu Fenkl (Penguin Pr.): “The vivid, realist stories depict 1980s South Korea during the oppressive military dictatorship of President Chun Doo-hwan; over each hangs the shadow of the Gwangju massacre, in which hundreds or more protesting Chun’s power grab were brutally killed”; and Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church by Philip Shenon (Knopf; LJ starred review): “Much of the pit through which the popes in this book slog is fed by the sex abuse crisis, a journey through contemporary circles of hell for victims and their advocates.” Plus, more from the book review.

Washington Post reviews a reissue of the 1938 novel There’s No Turning Back by Alba de Céspedes, tr. by Ann Goldstein (Washington Square): “With its imperfect, passionate characters, and its passages of intense analysis of their relationships and inner lives, Céspedes’s novel will appeal to fans of Ferrante and Natalia Ginzburg”; Lion by Sonya Walger (New York Review): “Above all else, though, Lion circles around the death of Walger’s father, definitive and final proof that he will never be fully hers, to love or to know”; Blood on Satan’s Claw: or, The Devil’s Skin by Robert Wynne-Simmons (Unbound): “Wynne-Simmons’s story still reads like a morality play about the ‘breakdown of values,’ but it has other lessons to teach, too”; and Fearless and Free: A Memoir by Josephine Baker (Tiny Reparations): “Josephine Baker certainly shook things up. This memoir demonstrates—vividly—the pleasure she took in doing it.”

Briefly Noted

The March LibraryReads list features top pick Saltwater by Katy Hays (Ballantine). 

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week. 

Lithub highlights 26 new books for the week. 

LA Times reveals five details from Susan Morrison’s book Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live (Random; LJ starred review).

Podcaster Jen Hatmaker has written a new memoir, Awake (Avid Reader/S. & S.), due out September 23, People reports.

Authors on Air

CBS Sunday Morning talks with Susan Morrison about her new book, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live (Random; LJ starred review), plus an excerpt. 

Also on CBS Sunday Morning, David Macaulay discusses his book The Way Things Work (Clarion), along with the new exhibition Building Stories at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Plus, Marvin Kalb, A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course (Brookings Institute Pr.) comments on a potential Trump-Putin summit; there’s also an excerpt from the book.

Hulu’s series adaptation of Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” romantasy novels has been cancelled. Variety has the story.

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S. & S) will get a big-screen adaptation, Deadline reports.

Ruby Bridges, author of Ruby Bridges: A Talk with My Teacher (Orchard) visits The Today Show.

Will Packer, author of Who Better Than You?: The Art of Healthy Arrogance & Dreaming Big (Harmony), visits GMA and The View.

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