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Big Books of the Week

One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin, Bk. 2) by Lisa Gardner (Dutton; LJ starred review) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Lightning in a Mirror (Fogg Lake, Bk. 3) by Jayne Ann Krentz (Berkley)

Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover (Montlake)

Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby by Ace Atkins (Putnam)

Desolation Canyon by P. J. Tracy (Minotaur)

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

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Two LibraryReads and five Indie Next selections publish this week:

Must Love Books by Shauna Robinson (Sourcebooks Landmark)

“An inspiring romcom debut that tackles the question “Are you happy?” After five years of working for a publisher, Nora gets a pay cut instead of an expected promotion. She decides to work freelance on the side for a competitor, which leads to a hectic juggling of business and personal relationships. For fans of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill and Beach Read.”—Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Library, Austin, TX

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“Being an editorial assistant seems like a dream job for a book nerd. But low pay, long hours, and mundane tasks lead Nora to rethink her career path. Must Love Books is a fun read that I’ll share with family and friends!”—Melissa DeMotte, The Well-Read Moose, Coeur d'Alene, ID

Electric Idol by Katee Robert (Sourcebooks Casablanca)

“A fantastic, modern retelling of the old myth of Psyche and Eros. Their romance is lovely, exploring the trope of fake relationships and forced marriage while both characters are struggling to make it out alive. For those who loved Neon Gods and Lore Olympus."—Brenna Timm, High Plains Library District, Greeley, CO

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“A fantastic Neon Gods follow-up, Katee Robert's modern Olympus is full of drama, sinful men, and spice! A reimagined Eros and Psyche with a plus-sized, cunning Psyche, fake marriage, and a murderous mother-in-law. What's not to love?”—Kristin Saner, Fables Books, Goshen, IN

Three additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Good Son by Jacquelyn Mitchard (MIRA)

“A thrilling mystery and complex redemption story that raises questions about criminal justice, love, resentment, forgiveness, and hope. The Good Son is perfect for book clubs and for fans of We Begin at the End and What Comes After.”—Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books, Beverly, MA

Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang (Random)

““A smart, moving, and entertaining book. Joan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and an ICU doctor in New York City. There's a pandemic looming, but Joan’s going to be okay. A witty and insightful story.”—Claire Benedict, Bear Pond Books, Montpelier, VT

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (Morrow; LJ starred review)

“This collection of connected stories describes the world after a devastating plague. The book is beautiful — striking, unsettling, and darkly gorgeous. It defies categorization and creates its own genre. A shimmering gem of a book.”—Debra Ginsberg, DIESEL, A Bookstore, Santa Monica, CA

The February LibraryReads selections have also been released, including top pick, The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (Morrow), due out February 22.

In the Media

The People "Picks" book of the week is Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang (Random). Also getting attention are To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday), and Honor by Thrity Umrigar (Algonquin; LJ starred review). A “New in Nonfiction” section highlights How to Win The Bachelor: The Secret to Finding Love and Fame on America's Favorite Reality Show by Chad Kultgen and Lizzy Pace (Gallery), You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston (Amistad), and Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox (Grand Central).

There are features on Jamie Lynn Spears, Things I Should Have Said: Family, Fame, and Figuring it Out (Worthy Books), and Roseanne Barr’s daughter, Jenny Pentland, whose new memoir, This Will Be Funny Later (Harper), chronicles their complicated relationship. Plus, Anna Jones, One: Pot, Pan, Planet; A Greener Way To Cook for You and Your Family (Knopf) and Linda Shiue, Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipes (Hachette Go), share recipes.

Reviews

NPR reviews Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove Press): “Here, one of the foremost writers of the age unwinds her career and life. In doing so, she has given us a nonfiction bildungsroman that is a towering monument to the creative life of Black women.” And, What Is Otherwise Infinite: Poems by Bianca Stone (Tin House): “Stone's poems reframe the search for meaning by addressing the self-care and self-perfection complex.”

NYT reviews The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan (Harper): “Sullivan writes with absolute dedication and precision, bringing a previously obscure suspect to the fore.” Also, The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy by Christopher Leonard (S. & S.): “there’s a satisfying clarity to reading a book that puts the jumble of political and economic turmoil into such stark narrative terms, but there’s more to the story than that.” And, Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller by Paul Cantor (Abrams): “Cantor, working without the cooperation of his subject’s family, makes hay from wide-ranging interviews with the artist’s friends and associates, in addition to the usual trove of media clips.”  Also, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove Press): “is the sturdy, exuberant memoir of a writer who, in pushing herself, also pushed an entire field.”  And, The Book of All Books by Roberto Calasso, trans. by Tim Parks (FSG): “Calasso’s insistence on the centrality of sacrifice is the key to an organizing thread that runs half-hidden through his sprawling book.” And, How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (Morrow; LJ starred review): “is a book of sorrow for the destruction we’re bringing on ourselves. Yet the novel reminds us there’s still hope in human connections, despite our sadness.” Plus, Red Milk by Sjón, trans. by Victoria Cribb (MCD): “The novel feels boldest when it moves toward embracing the quotidian, letting Nazism drift to the edges of the frame.” Lastly, Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi (Norton): “Ypi’s memoir about growing up during Albania’s transition from totalitarian communism to liberal capitalism is the story of a childhood cleaved, sometimes violently, into before and after.”

LA Times reviews Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Y. Davis (Haymarket): “continues to fulfill that goal as the rare book that even almost 50 years later feels timely and relevant. Maybe too relevant, considering how little has changed in the interim.”

Slate reviews The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future by Stephen Marche (Avid Reader: S. & S.): “Marche has made a real contribution by endeavoring to fill in the details for possible futures that remain, for most of us, the creatures of wee-hour anxieties and feverish imaginations.”

Briefly Noted

According to Gallup, "Americans Surveyed Say They’re Reading Fewer Books."  Publishing Perspectives has more. 

Valerie Bertinelli talks with USA Today about her new memoir, Enough Already (HarperCollins), and her relationship with Eddie Van Halen.

LA Times interviews David Sanchez about his new book, All Day Is A Long Time (Harper), an “addiction novel that redeems the genre.”

People talks with Nike executive Larry Miller about his new memoir, Jump: My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom, written with Laila Lacy (Morrow), and his incarceration for murder. 

Entertainment Weekly shares details from Brian Cox’s new memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Grand Central). Cox also talks with USA Today about the book and turning down GOT. 

CrimeReads has a discussion with T. Jefferson Parker, A Thousand Steps (Forge: Macmillan), positing that he is "the quintessential California crime fiction writer."

The Guardian talks with TS Eliot award winner Joelle Taylor about “bringing the LGBTQ+ community together.”

Steph Curry shops $10 Million memoir. LitHub asks: it is worth it?

Bitch considers Mayukh Sen's Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (Norton; LJ starred review), as a “starting point for the problematic history of recipes and food media.”

The Guardian celebrates 30 years of Julia Cameron's creativity classic, The Artist's Way.  

Popsugar recommends Wahala (Custom House; LJ starred review) as “Your First ‘Friendship Thriller’ For 2022.”

The Millions releases "The Great First-Half 2022 Book Preview.” Plus, notable new releases this week. 

Entertainment Weekly has a winter thriller guide.

USA Today picks five books for the week.

The Washington Post recommends audiobooks with singular narrators. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

Bustle has “16 LGBTQ+ Fiction Books To Look Forward To In 2022.”

Authors On Air

NPR's Fresh Air talks with attorney Laura Coates about her new book, Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness.

NPR's Book Of The Day features Gabriela Garcia and her novel, Of Women and Salt (Flatiron).

T&C has everything we need to know about Hulu’s forthcoming adaptation of A Court of Thorn and Roses, based on the series by Sarah Maas. 

Marvel’s Moon Knight, with associated titles, gets a trailer.

Valerie Bertinelli, Enough Already (HarperCollins) visits The View today and Brian Cox, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Grand Central), will visit Stephen Colbert tonight. 

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