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Book Clubs

Oprah's latest Book Club focuses on all four Gilead novels by Marilynne Robinson: Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack. O: The Oprah Magazine has an explainer about the books, noting "Gilead may have been published more than 16 years ago, but today it seems prescient, gesturing to our own time."

The April book club pick from BuzzFeed is Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia (Flatiron: Macmillan). There's an excerpt available from the book, which is out March 30.

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon: Random House), answers readers' questions for the PBS NewsHour/NYT book club.

Reviews

The NYT reviews This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism by Don Lemon (Little, Brown: Hachette): "...he delivers a forthright, historically supported examination of the racial divisions that have plagued our nation." Also, 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell (MCD x FSG: Macmillan): "...that feeling of eternal recurrence is beautifully by design, it is the very argument of the book." Mona by Pola Oloixarac and translated by Adam Morris (FSG: Macmillan): "There are moments so casually well observed — hat-tip to her translator, Adam Morris — that you’re almost eager to prolong the conference beyond its antic and hallucinatory (in a bad way) conclusion." The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens—and Ourselves by Arik Kershenbaum (Penguin: Random House): "Kershenbaum offers some otherworldly ideas." 

The Washington Post reviews How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (Random House): "Through some rare alchemy, she has blended the specificity of a documentary with the universality of a parable to create a novel that will disturb the conscience of every reader." To Raise a Boy: Classrooms, Locker Rooms, Bedrooms, and the Hidden Struggles of American Boyhood by Emma Brown (Atria/One Signal: S. & S.; LJ starred review): "Brown is at her best in her chapter on consent, as she engages intellectually with thorny issues involving language, school culture and the more troublesome aspects of today’s parent universe." 

The L.A. Times reviews Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley (Solaris: S. & S.): "Rarely has a writer who is not Philip K. Dick had so much fun building a world only to take it apart."

NPR reviews Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching by Rachel Marie-Crane Williams (Verso): "Williams demonstrates how to fight the kind of evil that stuns you into silence. If you can't do it with words, go beyond them." Also, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis (FSG: Macmillan): "MacGillis lays out, with detail gathered through freedom of information requests, exactly how Amazon methodically built its presence in several communities."

Briefly Noted 

Nicole Krauss has won the 2021 Sami Rohr Inspiration Award for Fiction, which gives a $100,000 prize to "an emerging writer who demonstrates the potential for continued contribution to the world of Jewish literature." At Kirkus, one of the prize judges explains the choice this year to award a more established author.

The NYT recommends new titles "From Jazz-Age Cairo to a Catholic Memoir."

BuzzFeed picks the best new books out this week.

The Millions lists "Ten Thrillers Based on Real-Life Events."

LJ offers read-alikes for Win by Harlan Coben (Grand Central: Hachette), the top holds title of the week. 

The forthcoming In the Heights: Finding Home (Random House) "will give a look at the beginnings of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 breakout Broadway debut and journey to the soon-to-be-released film adaptation." It's due out June 22. The Hollywood Reporter has more.

The Skinny Confidential's Lauryn Evarts Bosstick announced her new book, Get the F*ck Out of the Sun (Abrams Image), on Instagram. It's due out June 15.

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch will narrate the audiobook version of Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn (FSG: Macmillan). It's due out June 1. The Hollywood Reporter has details.

Entertainment Weekly has an excerpt from They'll Never Catch Us by Jessica Goodman (Razorbill: Penguin). It's due out July 27.

Tor.com has an excerpt from Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas (Swoon: Macmillan), which is out next week.

Entertainment Weekly interviews Angeline Boulley, Firekeeper's Daughter (Henry Holt: Macmillan). And at CrimeReads, she recommends "mysteries and thrillers involving crimes occurring within or near Native communities."

"This was my first time being completely free, no rules, unchained," says former Late Show with Stephen Colbert writer Jen Spyra about her short stories collection Big Time (Random House), in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Rebecca Carroll discusses Surviving the White Gaze (S. & S.) with Bitch Media.

The Book Marks "Questionnaire" goes to Sanaë Lemoine, The Margot Affair (Hogarth: Crown: Random House; LJ starred review).

Craft supply chain Michaels tossed copies of Feminist Cross-Stitch by Stephanie Rohr into the trash after realizing some patterns contain expletives. The NYT has details.

The NYT speaks with a woman who recently returned a book to the Queens Public Library in New York. It was 63 years overdue.

Authors on Air

Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal (HMH: LJ starred review), is on The Ezra Klein Show.

Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw discuss Bring Back Our Girls: The Untold Story of the Global Search for Nigeria's Missing Schoolgirls (Harper) with the Keen On podcast.

The Thresholds podcast interviews Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias (Graywolf: Macmillan).

The Between the Covers podcast features Brandon Hobson, The Removed (Ecco: HarperCollins; LJ starred review).

Edward Hirsch, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart (HMH), is on The Quarantine Tapes podcast.

Ralph Eubanks discusses A Place Like Mississippi : A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape (Timber: Workman) with NPR's All Things Considered.

Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation (Random House), appears on NPR's Fresh Air.

The Verlaque & Bonnet crime series by M.L. Longworth will be adapted as a TV series. Colin Trevorrow will direct and Benedict Cumberbatch will star in the feature adaptation of War Magician by David Fisher. Deadline has the news.

Diane von Furstenberg, Own It: The Secret to Life (Phaidon), will be on Late Night with Seth Meyers tonight.

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