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Big Books of the Week

3 Days To Live by James Patterson (Grand Central) leads library holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

The Cliff’s Edge by Charles Todd (Morrow)

The Last Orphan by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur)

Death of a Traitor by M.C. Beaton, with R.W. Green (Grand Central)

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin (Holt)

Of note, Bloomsbury is releasing new editions of Sarah Maas’s “Throne of Glass” series this week. 

These books and others publishing the week of Feb. 13, 2023, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Two LibraryReads and three Indie Next picks publish this week:

Take the Lead by Alexis Daria (St. Martin’s Griffin)

“Gina Morales, a professional on a dance competition show, is determined to win this season. However, instead of the Olympian she wanted as a partner, she is paired with survivalist Stone Nielson. Worse, her producer is pushing for a showmance! This is a fun and flirty romance with a wonderful cast of characters. Perfect for fans of Dancing with the Stars!”—Tristan Draper, Dekalb Public Library, Dekalb, IL

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi (Morrow)

“A husband cannot resist prying into his wife’s past when he visits her childhood home.This gorgeously written gothic fairy tale about forbidden knowledge and dangerous love is perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia or V.E. Schwab.”—Mara Bandy Fass, Champaign Public Library, Champaign IL

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“The chills that I got finishing this book! At once a dream and a slow building nightmare, the story is rich and lush as any fairytale. Chokshi’s playful language pulls you into a present whose edges blur into myth and bittersweet yearning.”—Jane Alice Van Doren, Rediscovered Books, Boise, ID

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

Hourglass by Keiran Goddard (Europa Editions)

“Hourglass is a psalm for anyone who’s ever loved and lost and loved again. Messy, darkly funny, and gut-wrenching, this poem-meets-novella will remind you just how fragile a heart can be. I will come back to it time and time again.”—Holly Voorsanger, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

The Applicant by Nazli Koca (Grove; LJ starred review)

“Leyla’s life swallowed me whole. As she waits for a decision about her visa, she’s torn between countries, dreams, and selves. This book speaks to the working class, to millennials, to anyone who’s been lost between a dream and a harsh reality.”—Laura Kendall, Second Flight Books, Lafayette, IN

In The Media

People’s book of the week is Stone Cold Fox by Rachel Koller Croft (Berkley; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin (Henry Holt & Co.), and Bookworm by Robin Yeatman (Harper Perennial). A “New in Nonfiction” section highlights Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru (Harper; LJ starred review), Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House by Alex Prud'homme (Knopf), and We the Scientists: How a Daring Team of Parents and Doctors Forged a New Path for Medicine by Amy Dockser Marcus (Riverhead). 

The “Picks” section spotlights Knock at the Cabin, based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay. Plus, Toya Boudy, Cooking for the Culture: Recipes and Stories from the New Orleans Streets to the Table (Countryman Pr.), shares a recipe.

Reviews

NYT reviews Playhouse by Richard Bausch (Knopf): “There’s a voraciousness to the book, evident in the sheer quantity of all it tackles: marital discord, substance abuse, sexual harassment, hypochondria, dementia, jealousy, celebrity, cancel culture, art”; The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir by Priscilla Gilman (Norton): “Nesbit, the super agent whose clients have included Joan Didion and Robert Caro and Tom Wolfe, is portrayed so coolly in this book that the pages about her almost shatter as you turn them. It’s a devastating portrait”; and The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe by Helene Stapinski & Bonnie Siegler (S. & S.; LJ starred review): “Through these gripping, intertwined stories we see determination and a sponsor’s cash rescue Jules Schulback; witness the birth of Superman, midwifed by a girlie magazine publisher; and watch the abandoned foster child Norma Jeane Mortenson become the biggest star in the world. What’s more American than all that?”

The Washington Post reviews Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams (Penguin Pr.): “the antics of these ancient media men—squabbling over the spoils of decades of movie theater and television riches—feel like the last hurrah of Old Hollywood”; and Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru (Harper; LJ starred review): “By the end of the book, it’s clear that for many of these wives, ‘happily ever after’ meant ‘happily after the divorce’.”

NPR reviews Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. (Dial): “Hijab Butch Blues is more than a must-read. It's also a study guide on Islam, a handbook for abolitionists, and a queer manifesto. It inspires critical thinking, upholds activist self-care, and permits the defining of one's own queerness.” Plus, there are reviews of three books in translation. 

LA Times reviews Last Light: How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph by Richard Lacayo (S. & S.): “What ultimately makes this worth reading is the writing: Lacayo avoids the artspeak in favor of a tone that is erudite but personable.”

Briefly Noted

The Golden Poppy Awards are announced. 

The Association of American Publishers announces finalists and category winners for the Prose Awards. 

LitHub reports that Percival Everett has sold a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective, due out in March 2024. 

The Guardian has an interview with author Amy Bloom, whose In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss comes out in paperback next week. 

LA Times talks to author John Perlin about the updated third edition of A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization (Patagonia), out this week. 

Time shares an excerpt of The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg (Penguin Pr.). 

NYT profiles Geetanjali Shree and how her International Booker Prize–winning book, Tomb of Sand, tr. by Daisy Rockwell (Penguin Pr.), changed India’s literary landscape.

Entertainment Weekly previews Ali Hazelwood’s forthcoming Love, Theoretically (Berkley), due out June 13, and shares an excerpt. 

Jojo Moyes, Someone Else’s Shoes (Pamela Dorman), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire. 

The New Yorker unearths a lost interview with Clarice Lispector. 

USA Today shares 5 books for the week. 

CrimeReads recommends 10 books this week. 

CBC previews 86 works of Canadian fiction to read in the first half of 2023.

The Millions writes: “Quentin Tarantino Writes Books Now.”

NYT recommends books for Valentine’s Day. 

Esquire has 10 romantic books for Valentine's Day. 

The Root's "It’s Lit” shares 15 Black romance books.

NPR writes about the love for romance books, even as sales in other genres have dipped. 

T&C has “The 23 Best Cookbooks by Great British Baking Show Contestants.”

“Solomon Perel, Jew Who Posed as a Hitler Youth to Survive, Dies at 97.” NYT has an obituary. 

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air Weekend highlights Thomas Mallon’s new book, Up With the Sun (Knopf; LJ starred review).

Poet Adam Falkner offers a “brief but spectacular take” on performing privilege and forgiveness, on PBS Canvas. 

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles discusses his favorite new books of 2023 on CBS Sunday Morning.

Jamie Oliver, One: Simple One-Pan Wonders (Flatiron), visits with Drew Barrymore.

Nicholas Sparks, Dreamland (Random), will be on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

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