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Big Books of the Week

It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria) leads holds this week. The Bookseller reports that the title is Simon & Schuster's most pre-ordered novel of all time. AARP examines Hoover's popularity. 

Other titles in demand include:

The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham (Doubleday)

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)

The Last Chairlift by John Irving (S. & S.)

The Christmas Spirit by Debbie Macomber (Ballantine)

These books and others publishing the week of Oct 17, 2022 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Four LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week:

Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai (Avon; LJ starred review)

“Former lovers Mira and Nareen unexpectedly share close quarters when they are kidnapped by a gang lord. In this madcap romantic comedy, the heroine and hero transform from mild-mannered accountant and lawyer to secret agent types. While the adventure aspect entertains, the romance satisfies with a hero and heroine who evolve convincingly in their relationship.”—Janet Schneider, Peninsula Public Library, Lawrence, NY

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“Partners in Crime is Alisha Rai at her very best! This is an action-packed, swoon worthy second-chance romance with humor, heart, and fun. Perfect for fans of The Lost City, Lovebirds, or Date Night; this book is an absolute blast!”—Christine Bollow, Loyalty Bookstores, Washington, DC

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen (Forge; LJ starred review)

“This mystery, just a step past cozy, is set in 1950s San Francisco, where a P.I. is hired by a woman who needs to know the truth about the death of her wife. When he discovers their home is a protective haven for a found family of queer couples, it opens his eyes. This is an absorbing, locked-room mystery that works in commentary.”—Rebecca Swanson, Fitchburg Public Library, Fitchburg, WI

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (Ballantine)

“Novelist Harriet “Harry” Reed is blissfully engaged to the scion of the Holbeck family, a clan with the money and power to hide the darkest secrets. Harry knows something about secrets herself, but when she embarks on a mysterious game with the Holbecks, she realizes they’re stranger, and more dangerous, than fiction. For fans of Ruth Ware.”—Jenifer French, Shreve Memorial Library, Shreveport, LA

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)

“From abusive foster homes to the collapse of the coal and tobacco industry and rise of the opioid epidemic, this masterpiece follows one of the most unforgettable characters in recent literary history, who comes-of-age in an Appalachian Virginia community filled with people of extraordinary character. For fans of Dopesick and Raising Lazarus.”—Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier Public Library, Warrenton, VA

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“Come for Kingsolver’s classic mastery of language and descriptions that leave you overwhelmed in the most soulful way. Stay for a heart-wrenching and compassionate story of survival that will go down as one of her best works of all time.”—Libby Monaghan, Twice Told Tales, McPherson, KS

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders (Random House)

“When I read this collection, I knew I was looking at one of the finest, most complete, most skillfully-created literary works I have ever experienced. A masterwork that will surely become one of the most noteworthy books of the decade.”—Sophia Hardin, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (Knopf)

“This book will most likely be my favorite of the year! Dani Shapiro weaves together two families’ lives, telling their stories and secrets in nonlinear time. Between the gorgeous writing and perfect plotting, I didn’t want this to end.”—Sue Kowalski, The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn, Glen Ellyn, IL

In the Media

The People "Picks" book of the week is Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen (S. & S.). Also getting attention are Entry Level by Wendy Wimmer (Autumn House Pr.), and It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria). There is a Q&A with Bethany Hamilton about her new children’s release, Surfing Past Fear (Brave Books). The “Picks” section spotlights Netflix’s The Good Nurse, based on the book by Charles Graeber, Hulu’s Rosaline, based on the book When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle.

Paul Newman’s private world is featured in The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man (Knopf; LJ starred review), and there is a feature on the life and legacy of Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter,(Grand Central). Plus, Kristina Cho, Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries (Harper Horizon; LJ starred review), and Christina Tosi, All About Cookies : A Milk Bar Baking Book (Clarkson Potter), share recipes.

Reviews

USA Today reviews Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders (Random House), giving it 4 out of 4 stars: “Saunders bends form and voice to put readers in the hearts of characters bloodied to pulp in the meat grinder of society, creating empathy for the lowliest funhouse ghouls as they try and fail and try again to love in a world broken by fascism, climate change and wealth inequality.” And, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper), giving it 3 out of 4 stars: “Some of the flaws in her approach still apply here – the notes of sanctimony, the occasional compulsion to lecture. But the voice of Demon, the novel’s puckish narrator, is so original, and the plot so engrossingly hectic, that there’s less room for that didacticism to intrude.” NYT also reviews: “Like Dickens, Kingsolver generates momentum by galloping the reader through escapades that accumulate to advance a larger question — in this case, about how an artist’s consciousness is formed."

NYT reviews Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing by Robin McLean (And Other Stories): “Her prose moves with muscle and rhythm, the dialogue swift and captivating. Story lines occasionally opt — some more successfully than others — for a dreamlike space that collapses time and expands metaphor.” And, In the Mouth of the Wolf : A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press by Katherine Corcoran (Bloomsbury): “Katherine Corcoran investigates the murder of a fellow reporter in Mexico, offering a chilling and nuanced look at press freedom in a country persistently rated among the most dangerous in the world for journalists.” And, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont (Viking; LJ starred review): “In interweaving numerous meticulously researched narratives — the stories of soldiers and nurses, journalists and activists — Delmont illustrates the epic battle for racial equality on all fronts, foreign and domestic, by more than one million people.”

The Washington Post reviews The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man by Paul Newman (Knopf; LJ starred review): “did he foresee that, three decades later, surviving family members would dig up Stern’s transcripts and set the process back in motion — creating, through their joint efforts, a kind of multiplatform tell-all?” And, Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton (Grand Central: Life & Style): “Ultimately, the hook of Felton’s memoir is his perspective on living a one-in-a-billion experience. Yet Beyond the Wand is most insightful when Felton translates his tale into something more universal.”

The Guardian reviews Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman (Holt): “From his obituaries I got the feeling he was wonderful company. These diaries confirm it.”

Datebook reviews The Passenger and Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf): "Eschewing body counts for philosophical debate, the legacy of McCarthy’s new offerings is, much as the author would surely wish, both magnificent and cruelly impossible to define."

Briefly Noted

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will publish a collection of his war speeches called A Message From Ukraine (Random), in November. The Guardian reports.

Winners of The Kitschies are announced.

Publishers Weekly reports that Ingram plans to back NFT Book Marketplace, book.io.

NYT features Paul Newman’s postumhous memoir, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man (Knopf; LJ starred review), “assembled from five years’ worth of interviews.” LA Times explores how Newman’s “revealing new memoir came out years after his death.”

Barbara Kingsolver discusses Dickens, writing, and the inspiration behind her latest book, Demon Copperhead (Harper), with NYT. Plus, NYT interviews Ralph Macchio about his new memoir, Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me (Dutton).

The Rumpus talks with Robin McLean about her book, Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing (And Other Stories), and "this country’s myths and monsters."

Shondaland chats with Emma Bolden about her new book, The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis (Soft Skull), and "her battle with endometriosis."

NYT’s Group Text recommends Poster Girl by Veronica Roth (Morrow; LJ starred review) for book clubs, and offers discussion questions.

Margaret Sullivan pens an essay adapted from her new memoir, Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life (St. Martin’s), about NYT’s coverage of the 2016 Democratic nominee, at Vanity Fair.

Slate explores the news in Chaucer scholarship.

Time has an interview with U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

FoxNews suggests 30 books for fall.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Anand Giridharadas about his new book, The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy (Knopf), and the “Americans fighting for democracy.”

Jon Grinspan, Smithsonian curator and author of The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 (Bloomsbury LJ starred review), discusses “when America's politics turn ugly, violent,” with CBS Sunday Morning.

PBS Canvas has a feature on Afghan poets in exile.

Correction: An earlier edition of this post stated that It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria) was S&S most pre-ordered title of all time. That is not correct. It is Simon & Schuster's most pre-ordered novel of all time. LJ regrets the error. 

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