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Book Club News & Buzzy Books and Listens

Walmart has started a bookclub, featuring Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley), as its first selection.

Vulture shares 7 great audiobooks for the month.

NYT shares newly published books for the week.

AVClub has 10 books to read in September.

BookRiot highlights new releases for the week.

Miriam Margolyes, Alison Steadman, and Adjoa Andoh join the cast reading stories for the audiobook of Marple: Twelve New Mysteries (Harper Audio). The Bookseller has the story. 

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Riverhead): “makes strong demands on readers. Gurnah moves fluidly between the complicated lives of his characters and the reckless actions of old empires. Unless you know early 20th-century African history well, you’ll be googling as you go. But the investment of attention will be fully rewarded.” And, Escape into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions by Evan Puschak (Atria): “It’s clear that Puschak is a talented essayist — like his idol, Ralph Waldo Emmerson — regardless of the medium."

NYT reviews Black Folk Could Fly: Selected Writings by Randall Kenan by Randall Kenan (Norton): “In a sense, the collected pieces function as memoir, or as a series of love letters to the forces that shaped the writer.”  Plus, short reviews of new gothic fiction, including Small Angels by Lauren Owen (Random): “There is no straight road through it. And while the meandering pathways and twisting story lines can at times feel disorienting, this beautifully written modern ghost story is an enchanting place to get lost."

Datebook reviews California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid by Katherine Blunt (Portfolio): “As a portrait of a state in crisis, California Burning isn’t as dramatic as dispatches from the wildfire front lines — instead of heroic firefighters, we get lawyers and engineers — but Blunt is a thorough reporter and a lucid writer. She makes the struggle to supply California with power on a warming planet clear and compelling.”

LA Times reviews My Government Means To Kill Me by Rasheed Newson (Flatiron): “returns the reader to the frightening days when AIDS was called a gay cancer, stoking the fires of homophobia. But it also recaptures the determination of those who decided they wouldn’t lie down for exorbitantly priced drugs and societal ignorance.”

Autostraddle reviews All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews (Viking): "A masterclass in character development, All This Could Be Different provides a textured view of friendship. It looks at not just how we show up for and tend to the people we care about but also how we fail them."

Briefly Noted

Author Rasheed Newson shares books that inspired him while writing My Government Means To Kill Me (Flatiron), at Entertainment Weekly. Bustle talks with Newson about "information overload, sex positivity in stories of the AIDS epidemic, and what he’s working on next."

LA Times features an interview with writer Jon Sternfeld about Michael K. Williams's posthumous memoir, Scenes from My Life (Crown).

The Rumpus chats with Leyna Krow about her debut novel, Fire Season (Viking), scammers, and “coping with the real world.”

Frances Mayes discusses her new book, A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home (Crown), “how places can shape you, and the sweetness of doing nothing,” at Shondaland.

NYPL releases “Harry Styles's House of Books,” featuring titles recommended by the pop star over the years.

Wired has an excerpt from Randall Munroe’s forthcoming What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (Riverhead), due out September 13th.

Gizmodo has a preview and cover reveal of YA bestselling author Claire Legrand’s first adult fantasy romance, A Crown of Ivy and Glass. Due out from Sourcebooks Casablanca next year, the book is the first in the Middlemist Trilogy.

Alissa Wilkinson adapts material from her book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women (Broadleaf), in an essay on "the radical political power of friendship" for Vox. 

Vanity Fair compiles "A Brief History of Trumpworld Tell-Alls."

Candice Carty-Williams, People Person (Gallery/Scout Pr.), answers Elle's Shelf Life questionnaire. 

CSM suggests audiobooks to “thrill, delight, and spread hope.”

BookRiot offers 15 great fantasy audiobooks on the Libby app and 10 romances set in London.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Helena Andrews-Dyer about her new book, The Mamas: What I Learned About Kids, Class, and Race from Moms Not Like Me (Crown).

NPR’s All Things Considered talks with NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitali about her new book, Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House . . . Yet (Dey Street).

The Guardian features book critic Bethanne Patrick’s podcast Missing Pages, which revisits jaw-dropping literary scandals.

T&C recommends 24 best podcasts for women, by women, including author and publisher Zibby Owens's Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books podcast. 

Popsugar previews The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series. 

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