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Reading Lists

Vulture picks “7 New Books You Should Read This August.”

The Millions offers its August Preview.

O: The Oprah Magazine gathers “45 of the Best LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2019.”

io9 selects “New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books Coming to Brighten Up August.”

The Washington Post collects audiobooks to “savor — and to avoid.”

LJ spotlights its Fall Editors' Picks.

For more reading suggestions, join EarlyWord's GalleyChat today.

Reviews

NPR reviews The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai (Avon: Harper): "[a] feminist-as-hell, emotional whopper of a romance.”

USA Today reviews Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King (Doubleday: Random House), giving it three stars and writing “What Boaz and his acolytes pioneered was the notion that there are myriad cultures and lifestyles, and that ranking them or arbitrarily separating humanity into categories based on nationality, ethnicity, gender, IQ, sexuality or religion is a mistake, sometimes a disastrous one.”

The NYT reviews The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom (Grove Press): “forceful, rolling and many-chambered.” Also, A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin (S. & S.): “there are no simple resolutions; only encounters, fragile connections, the mere suggestions of answers.” White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination by Jess Row (Graywolf Press: Macmillan; LJ starred review): “works like a Freudian analyst in these searching, loosely structured essays.” Travel Light, Move Fast by Alexandra Fuller (Penguin): “[a] beautifully written and deeply loving portrait.” Time Song: Journeys in Search of a Submerged Land by Julia Blackburn, illustrated by Enrique Brinkmann (Pantheon: Rando House; LJ starred review): “has a talent for envisioning bygone worlds.” In the Country of Women: A Memoir by Susan Straight (Catapult): “family memoir that stretches back to the mid-19th century and traverses a forest of family trees.” A Pure Heart by Rajia Hassib (Viking: Penguin): “articulates the full-bodied chorus of Egypt’s voices.” Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson (S. & S.): “Exhaustive in scope and upbeat in tone.” The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony by Rick Moody (Henry Holt: Macmillan): “he has relayed a story so devoid of insight and full of ego it’s essentially mummified.” Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution by Shlomo Avineri (Yale): “Avineri’s humane biography capably makes the case for taking Marx seriously today as a pragmatic realist, as well as a messianic visionary.” This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev (PublicAffairs: Hachette): “the post-truth world is already at our doorstep, with Russia less an outlier than an outrider of the states that are putting disinformation to use.” In the paper as well is “Duplicity, Grace and Violence: New Spanish-Language Fiction.”

The Washington Post reviews White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination by Jess Row (Graywolf Press: Macmillan; LJ starred review): “open[s] a dialogue about how white literature often ignores nonwhite experiences and narratives, and how to create a space for inclusivity that starts with the writing arena.” Row suggests "three books and two films about white flight" for LItHub.

Briefly Noted

Vulture reports that Toni Morrison has died.

Elle has a poem from U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s newest collection, An American Sunrise: Poems (W.W. Norton).

The Mythopoeic Awards winners are announced.

In forthcoming book news a cookbook is coming out based on Disneyland's Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge ride. The book will be titled Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, Marc Sumerak (Insight Editions: S. & S.). The Hollywood Reporter has details. The Times (London) reports that Meghan Markle is writing a children's book.

Electric Lit considers how The Travelers by Regina Porter (Hogarth: Random House) “explores how trauma moves through generations.”

CrimeReads explores "Parenthood Noir and the Rise of the Psychological Thriller."

Publishers Weekly reports that Tim Tingle's forthcoming Doc and the Detective has been canceled by Scholastic. Details are scant, but PW writes “the cancellation comes just weeks after allegations of inappropriate behavior were made against Tingle by two booksellers.”

Deadline Hollywood writes that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is getting pushback for a tweet he posted about the mass shootings over the weekend.

Authors on Air

Deadline Hollywood reports that Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High has been optioned for the movies, with Acevedo to adapt. David Grossman’s A Horse Walks Into a Bar has also been optioned for the big screen. ABC is planning a limited series based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11. HBO Max is adapting Anna K by Jenny Lee. ABC’s new The Little Mermaid live special event will be “half-live musical and half-original animated feature.”

Tommy Orange, There There (Knopf, LJ starred review) will be on with Seth Meyers tonight. Marianne Williamson will be on The Daily Show.

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