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Big Books of the Week

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin’s) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Holmes, Marple & Poe: The Greatest Crime-Solving Team of the Twenty-First Century by James Patterson & Brian Sitts (Little, Brown)

The Night Island by Jayne Ann Krentz (Berkley)

The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Norton)

The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake (Tor)

These books and others publishing the week of January 8, 2024, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

January Book Club Picks

Jenna Bush Hager selects The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Norton). 

Reese Witherspoon selects First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (Pamela Dorman Bks.).

B&N picks Mercury by Amy Jo Burns (Celadon).

GMA selects The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (S.& S./Marysue Rucci).

Target’s book club pick is Where the Dead Sleep by Joshua Moehling (Poisoned Pen).

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three LibraryReads and ten Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan (Viking; LJ starred review)

“Hoping for a fresh start after tragedy, Sana and her father move into a South African apartment building with a host of quirky neighbors. Sana becomes fascinated by the story of Meena, a former resident when it was the estate of a wealthy, troubled family. A lonely girl, a heartbroken djinn, and long-buried secrets come together in this gorgeously gothic tale of love and grief.”—Mara Bandy Fass, Champaign Public Library, IL 

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“A once magnificent mansion is suffused with sadness. The lives of the tenants, past and present, have been destroyed by love. A young woman seeks assurance that love can be real and that real love can last. In gorgeous prose, Khan weaves a gripping tale.”—Lisa Wright, Oblong Books, Millerton, NY

Hall of Fame title Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com) is also an Indie Next pick:

“Another perfect contribution to the ‘Wayward Children’ series. Of all the worlds I would be happiest in is the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, so I love that we get to learn more about the Shop and Antsy in this book. Fans will love this one!”—Rayna Nielsen, Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, LA

Hall of Fame title The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin’s) is also an Indie Next pick:

“This story has everything—a glamorous widow, a mountain top mansion haunted by the past, secrets, the power of money and privilege to corrupt—all woven into settings vividly painted. The perfect book to curl up with on a weekend retreat.”—Emily Lilley, The Book & Cover, Chattanooga, TN

Seven additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random)

“Hisham Matar provides us a profound view of the experiences of those in exile. Readers accompany Khlaled’s journey through London as he sorts through 30 years of his memories. A powerful rumination on friendship, love, and loneliness.”—Shane Grebel, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS

Holiday Country by Inci Atrek (Flatiron)

“Holiday Country is a gorgeous and poignant bildungsroman of womanhood, motherhood, identity, and the nuances that stitch them together set against the resplendent Aegean Coast. A book to keep close to your chest in the cold months ahead.”—Lauren Abesames, Wind City Books, Casper, WY

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare (Bloomsbury)

“Make sure to put those pearls you’re clutching away before starting Sugar, Baby! This one is electric, jaw-dropping, and absolutely shimmers on the page. Celine Saintclare’s commentary on race and class is razor sharp. An excellent debut!”—Jessica Nock, Main Street Books, Davidson, NC

You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley (Holt)

“Heartwarming, charming, and funny, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble has characters that will become imprinted on your heart. Stephen McCauley gives us a novel that will set the bar for your 2024 reading!”—Mary O'Malley, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, MO

The Fetishist by Katherine Min (Putnam)

“The Fetishist is an exploration of serious emotions, accompanied by a degree of absurdity and humor. Min expertly highlights the female Asian American experience of being fetishized with unforgiving, razor-sharp prose.”—Stuart McCommon, Interabang Books, Dallas, TX

Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky (Ecco)

“Poor Deer is a fantastic reminder that only we can see the burdens we carry. Oshetsky writes about the way we shape our memories of trauma, guilt, and loss in order to cope an earnest, heartfelt way. This book will linger in the corners of my mind.”—Lindsay Ryon, Books Inc., San Francisco, CA

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban (Avon)

“What a vibrant beginning to a new historical romance series! Full of intrigue, stolen kisses, and London drama, this sweet queer love story follows two women who dare to hope in a world not built for them.”—Vaughn Lachenauer, Main Point Books, Wayne, PA

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Invisible Woman by Katia Lief (Atlantic Monthly). Also getting attention are You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley (Holt) and Northwoods by Amy Pease (Atria: Emily Bestler). “Star Picks” include recommendations from Octavia Spencer (Becoming by Michelle Obama [Crown]), Julia Roberts (Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World’s Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West by David Wolman & Julian Smith [Morrow]), and Hoda Kotb (The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest [Thought Catalog Bks.]). 

The “Picks” section spotlights American Fiction, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, The Boys in the Boat, based on the book by Daniel James Brown, and Ferrari, based on the book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine by Brock Yates (Random). Plus recipes from Mary McCartney, Feeding Creativity (TASCHEN), and Bee Wilson, The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen (Norton).

January’s Costco Connection features an interview with Mary Kubica. The paperback edition of Just the Nicest Couple (Park Row) arrives this week.

Reviews

NYT reviews Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky (Ecco): “With Poor Deer, Oshetsky proves themself the bard of unruly psyches. They show how loss warps our realities, and how that distortion can be both a coping mechanism and a destructive force”; The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice by Elizabeth Flock (Harper): “The violence in her book is committed by women who are in many ways perfectly ordinary, and though we may not agree that the sum of their actions ‘added up to something worthy setting events into motion that very well may change the world after them,’ Flock has done a service by portraying her subjects’ human complexity”; Goldenseal by Maria Hummel (Counterpoint): “Only at the end of the book do we learn Edith’s secret. After so long trapped in an airless hotel room, I wished that payoff had arrived sooner”; and You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue (Riverhead; LJ starred review): “In an odd way, You Dreamed of Empires is in part about what Tom Wolfe called ‘status radar.’ It is about powerful people eyeballing one another, scoping one another out, using their peripheral vision. It is also a novel about spectacle.”

Washington Post reviews Weak in Comparison to Dreams by James Elkins (Unnamed Pr.): “Even having finished it, it’s hard to place. Elkins, who is 68, has written many works of art history and criticism, but this is his first novel. A deeply unconventional debut, it’s an invitation into a teeming imagination”; Inverno by Cynthia Zarin (Farrar): “And though Inverno is Zarin’s first novel, it carries the grace and intellectual heft of her decades as a poet, where she’s specialized in elegant, fragile, metaphorically rich verse, in the vein of Louise Glück or Elizabeth Bishop”; and Beatrice’s Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages by Mark Gregory Pegg (Oxford Univ.): “In sum, Beatrice’s Last Smile provides insightful and instructive reading, yet also makes clear that the Middle Ages are too rich, too complex, too diverse for any one book or historical approach to do those astonishing centuries full justice.”

Briefly Noted

The February 2024 Indie Next List Preview is out now, featuring #1 pick Bride by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley; LJ starred review). 

Audiofile announces the January 2024 Earphones Award Winners.

The 2024 Silvers-Dudley Prize winners are announced.

The Millions offers its “Most Anticipated: The Great Winter 2024 Preview.”

LA Times talks with Deborah G. Plant about the inspiration behind her new book, Of Greed and Glory: In Pursuit of Freedom for All (Amistad).

Author Kate Mosse has been made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for “services to literature, to women, and to charity.” Locus reports.

PW recounts the week in libraries.

USA Today lists the best books of 2023. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

LitHub previews the most anticipated books of 2024.

LA Times explores the Los Angeles Public Library’s foray into book publishing with its recent acquisition of Angel City Press.

“Arno J. Mayer, Unorthodox Historian of Europe’s Crises, Dies at 97.” NYT has an obituary. 

Former New York Times Executive Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld dies at 86. Deadline remembers his life. 

Authors on Air

At a revamped Golden Globes, several literary adaptations took home honors: Oppenheimer, based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird, won five awards; Poor Things, based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, won two awards; and Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the book by David Grann, won one award. THR has a full list of winners. 

Oprah Winfrey has optioned the rights to Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water (Grove; LJ starred review). Hollywood Reporter has the story.

John Flanagan’s “Ranger’s Apprentice” YA novels will be adapted for the big screen. Deadline has details.

Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra (Viking), will visit with Stephen Colbert tonight. 

Damona Hoffman, F the Fairy Tale: Rewrite the Dating Myths and Live Your Own Love Story (Seal Pr.), visits CBS Mornings. 

James Patterson, Holmes, Marple & Poe: The Greatest Crime-Solving Team of the Twenty-First Century (Little, Brown), appears on GMA today. 

Vivian Tu, Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life (Portfolio), will also appear on GMA.

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