Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Life After Death by Sister Souljah (Atria/Emily Bestler: S. & S.) debuts at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 2 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf: Random House; LJ starred review) rises at No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Later by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime: Random House) takes No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Dark Sky by C.J. Box (G. P. Putnam's Sons: Penguin) is No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Affair by Danielle Steel (Delacorte: Random House) starts at No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (Park Row: HarperCollins) finds No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel (Avid Reader: S. & S.) claims No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster (Grand Central: Hachette) is No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (Henry Holt: Macmillan) begins at No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

The Dangerous Gift (Wings of Fire, Book 14) by Tui T. Sutherland (Scholastic) flies in at No. 14 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove) is No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff (Avid Reader: S. & S.) finds No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (Portfolio: Penguin) is No. 10 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Reviews

The L.A. Times reviews Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis (FSG: Macmillan): "Here they are, people with dreams and families and flaws and aspirations, and something bad is going to happen to them. That bad thing is Amazon."

The NYT also reviews Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis (FSG: Macmillan): "MacGillis suggests that one-click satisfactions distract us from taking in the bigger picture, whose contours can only be discerned with a patient and immersive approach." Plus, brief reviews of recent romances, and of graphic novels with "A Child’s-Eye View."

The Washington Post reviews Festival Days by Ann Beard (Little, Brown: Hachette): "Over the course of nine beguiling pieces — which seamlessly meld observation and imagination — she effects an intimacy that makes us want to sit on the rug and listen." Also, The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage by Erika Fatland and translated by Kari Dickson (Pegasus: S. & S.): "...she traveled to all these places, seeking answers to one unspoken question: What is life like when you live next door to an aggressive bully?"

NPR reviews Reality and Other Stories by John Lanchester (W. W. Norton): "The eight tales in Lanchester's Reality and Other Stories are meant to entertain, to take you out of yourself for a space — and that they deftly do. Also, Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter (Little A: Amazon): "It's not an easy book to read — the details of the terrorist act are, as you might expect, extremely horrifying — but it's a fascinating look at one of the most unspeakable events in American history."

Book Marks picks “5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

The 2021 Shortlist Finalists for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, sponsored by the Simpson Literary Project, is out: Danielle Evans, Jenny Offill, Darin Strauss, and Lysley Tenorio are up for the $50,000 prize. A free "Meet the Finalists" virtual event is scheduled for March 30. The winner will be announced in late April.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist is out, featuring 16 writers in a range of genres. A shortlist will be announced on April 28, and the winner on July 7.

USA Today editors share "The best books of 2021 so far."

Entertainment Weekly selects the best comics out in March.

Shelf Awareness previews new books out next week.

Tor.com lists the YA SFF books out this month.

NYPL suggests "Recent Books That Reflect Diverse Jewish Experiences."

The Seattle Times recommends audiobooks that "recount American history as written and voiced by Black women."

Entertainment Weekly has an excerpt from You'll Be the Death of Me by Karen McManus (Delacorte: Random House). It's due out Nov. 30.

Tor.com excerpts Defekt by Nino Cipri (Tordotcom: Macmillan), which comes out April 20. 

Anne Lamott, Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage (Riverhead: Random House), speaks with Salon about "hope and despair and second winds."

People interviews Melissa Bernstein of Melissa & Doug Toys about LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light (LifeLines).

The NYT goes "Inside the List" with Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (Random House; LJ starred review). The paper's "By the Book" column features Jo Ann Beard, Festival Days (Little, Brown: Hachette).

Electric Lit interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Committed (Grove).

Shondaland talks to John Archibald about Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution (Knopf: Random House).

Elizabeth Knox, The Absolute Book (Viking: Penguin), looks at books about fictional books at Lit Hub.

Book Riot has a brief history of dime novels.

A second translator has been removed from working on The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman (Viking: Penguin). The Guardian has details.

Ken Follett is donating the proceeds from Notre-Dame: a Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals to help restore the Saint-Samson de Dol-de-Bretagne cathedral in Brittany. The Guardian reports.

The Washington Post details the growing ebook problem: "It’s one thing to haggle over business — but another for Amazon to have the power to unilaterally force libraries to stay in the 20th century. It’s a price we pay for letting Big Tech get so big."

To commemorate a year of this pandemic, the NYT has "75 Artists, 7 Questions, One Very Bad Year."

History professor and author Walter LaFeber has died. The NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison will be adapted as a limited series, likely by Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom director George C. Wolfe. The Burning Girls by CJ Tudor will be adapted as a series. An adaptation of Wild Cards by George R.R. Martin, which has been in development by Hulu since 2018, has moved to Peacock and is now looking for a new writer. The series Invisible Women, based on Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray, is in the works at Sony Pictures Television. Deadline has more on all.

Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o will star in a series adaptation of Lady in the Lake by Laura Lipman. Variety has details.

NPR's All Things Considered interviews Elly Griffiths, The Postscript Murders (HMH).

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.