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Big Books of the Week

Better Off Dead by Lee Child & Andrew Child (Delacorte Press) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Going There by Katie Couric (Little, Brown, & Co.)

Big Shot (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 16) by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books)

Archangel's Light by Nalini Singh (Berkley)

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)

These books and others publishing the week of October 25th, 2021 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three Indie Next  picks publish this week. There are are no LibraryReads picks out this week.

Murder at Mallowan Hall: A Phyllida Bright Mystery by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington)

“A delightful murder mystery! Murder at Mallowan Hall felt like a combination of Clue; Upstairs, Downstairs; and of course Agatha Christie. I look forward to seeing what sleuthing Phyllida takes on next!”—Stefanie Lynn, The Kennett Bookhouse, Kennett Square, PA

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller (Little, Brown, & Co.)

“Wow, what a book. The world and the characters grow together. In a bleak, unforgiving landscape, Sven is able to discover found family and grow as a person, while offering hard-won insights about human nature that’ll leave you breathless.”—Jessica Williams-Sullivan, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

Cairo Circles by Doma Mahmoud (Unnamed Press: Ingram)

“Mahmoud has crafted a beast of a novel with woven points of view, topics that matter, and enough heart to bring on the feels. I can only hope that this debut is just the beginning.”—Carrie Koepke, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, MO

In the Media

The People "Picks" book of the week is The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller (Little, Brown, & Co.). Also getting attention are The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream by Charles Spencer (William Collins), and Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me by Jamie Foxx & Nick Chiles (Grand Central). A “New in Nonfiction” section features Not All Diamonds and Rosé: The Inside Story of The Real Housewives from the People Who Lived It by Dave Quinn (Andy Cohen Books), How to Stitch an American Dream: A Story of Family, Faith and the Power of Giving by Jenny Doan (Harper Horizon), and Your Guide to Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss: Hope and Healing When You're No Longer Expecting by Kate White (Mayo Clinic Press: S.& S.) Plus, the “Pick-me-up-pick” is Little Pieces of Hope: Happy-Making Things in a Difficult World by Todd Doughty (Penguin Life). The “Picks" section highlights Passing, based on the book by Nella Larsen on Netflix, and Dune, based on the book by Frank Herbert. There are also profiles of Meghan McCain, Bad Republican (Audible Original), and the stars of Dune. Plus Danny Seo, Naturally, Delicious Dinners (Gibbs Smith), shares a recipe. 

Reviews

NPR reviews Going There by Katie Couric (Little, Brown, & Co.): “Couric works hard to fulfill the promise she made in early pages of Going There, of putting as much of her whole self into the book as she can. But Couric built her reputation on seeming ordinary and relatable, with an 'approachable, girl-next-door person,' she can't seem to shake even now.” And, Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire): “This is a creepy, meticulously-crafted tragedy and frankly, one of the most beautifully written haunted stories I've ever read.” Also, Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique (Riverhead): “Yanique deftly explores the role identity, religion and culture as well as family play in who and how we're able to love.”

NYT reviews Lemon by Kwon Yeo-Son, trans. by Janet Hong (Other Press; PRH): “A taut novella in eight vignettes, Lemon is not so much narrated as spilled, confessed, blurted out in the alternating voices of three women recalling a tragedy that took place when they were in high school.” And, The Radical Potter: The Life and Times of Josiah Wedgwood by Tristram Hunt (Metropolitan Books): “His focus is the man and his times, in a book that, with its yellowed maps and extensive quotations from ye olde correspondence, is both utterly transporting and extremely cozy.” Also, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life by Alan Cumming (Dey St.; LJ starred review): “With winning resilience and buoyancy, Cumming revisits a stretch of his young adult life book-ended by two marriages: one straight, one gay.” Plus, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature by Farah Jasmine Griffin (Norton): “Griffin…gracefully weaves the sacred with the profane in her academic memoir, Read Until You Understand, which explores her connection to the sweeping themes found within the African American literature she reveres. In doing so, Griffin makes literary analysis both accessible and relevant.”

LA Times reviews Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane by Paul Auster (Henry Holt: Macmillan): “Auster doesn’t overstate Crane’s talent. But he does want to keep underscoring it, over and over. In that regard, Burning Boy reads more like a poignant lament than a life.”

Briefly Noted

The NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association) Book of the Year Awards were announced, with Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin) winning for best fiction and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Knopf), winning best nonfiction. 

Time has a wide-ranging interview with Alan Cumming about his latest memoir, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life (Dey St.; LJ starred review).

USA Today has an interview with Katie Couric about reactions to her new memoir, Going There (Little, Brown, & Co.).

The Guardian has an interview with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, My Monticello (Henry Holt: Macmillan), about “lessons she learned from teaching art, her mixed feelings about Virginia and her experience of white supremacists.”

Salon has a Q&A with Thomas R. Verny, author of The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness, and Our Bodies (Pegasus Books).  

FoxNews talks with Ron Howard & Clint Howard, The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family (Morrow; LJ starred review), about acting with the Ramones.

Leslie Jordan, How Y’all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived (Morrow), reflects on his childhood bookmobile at the 2021 National Celebration of Reading event. People reports. 

The New Yorker writes about "Brené Brown’s Empire of Emotion."

Entertainment Weekly shares a preview and excerpt of Jennifer Weiner’s forthcoming book, The Summer Place (Atria), due out in May 2022.

CrimeReads has an excerpt from Chris Pavone’s forthcoming book, Two Nights in Lisbon (MCD), which publishes in May 2022.

Vox explains: "Why Dune endures."

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

USA Today has “best new rom-com reads to get us through the rest of 2021.”

NYT shares “eight knuckle-biting, nerve-ripping new tales.”

USA Today shares“12 scariest books we've ever read.” 

Tor recommends nine books featuring literary witches and warlocks. 

Authors On Air

NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday talks with Katie Couric about the “cutthroat world of morning TV news” in her new memoir, Going There (Little, Brown, & Co.).

NPR’s Book of the Day features When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky by Margaret Verble (Mariner: HarperCollins).

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday has an interview with Melissa Lozada-Oliva, about her new book, Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse (Astra House), and Selena’s legacy.

CBS Sunday Morning interviews Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen about their new book, Renegades: Born in the USA (Crown), and shares an excerpt. Plus, Sunday Morning has a profile of Jane Goodall,  The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, written with Douglas Abrams (Celadon: Macmillan), about her hope for the future. 

PBS News Hour talks with veteran journalist Terence Smith about his latest book, Four Wars, Five Presidents: A Reporter's Journey from Jerusalem to Saigon to the White House, and his decades of reporting. 

Christine Pride and Jo Piazza talk about their book, We Are Not Like Them (Atria), writing, and conversations about friendship and race on Good Morning America. 

Bruce Springsteen, Renegades: Born in the USA, written with Barack Obama (Crown), visits Stephen Colbert tonight; Anderson Cooper, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, written with Katherine Howe (HarperCollins) visits The Late Show. Plus, Jane Goodall,  The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, written with Douglas Abrams (Celadon: Macmillan), visits The Tonight Show. Tomorrow, Drew Barrymore, Rebel Homemaker: Food, Family, Life, written with Pilar Valdes (Dutton) visits The Tonight Show;  Chrissy Teigen, Cravings: All Together: Recipes to Love: A Cookbook, written with Adeena Sussman (Clarkson Potter), visits with Kelly Clarkson. And,  Alyssa Milano, Sorry Not Sorry : Stories I Have Lived will be on The Talk.  

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