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Buzzy Books

The February Indie Next list is out. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (Atria: S. & S.) is the top pick.

The Millions provides "The Great First-Half 2021 Book Preview," plus a look at new books out this week.

USA Today provides a "Winter reading guide."

Entertainment Weekly picks 15 books to check out this year.

The Chicago Tribune lists the "25 best books to read in so far in 2021."

Kirkus has "10 Nonfiction Books to Look for in 2021."

NPR provides "A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 1."

Electric Lit also previews some of this year's poetry books.

Book Riot looks at "24 Must-Read 2021 Books in Translation."

BookPage recommends new mysteries.

Bustle selects the best books out this week.

The NYT recommends some recent releases.

Amazon previews the best sci-fi and fantasy out this month, as well as forthcoming true-crime books.

BuzzFeed rounds up "40 Contemporary Books We're Looking Forward To Reading In 2021."

Sara Evans shares her favorite reads from the past year with Amazon.

Reviews

The NYT reviews Life Among the Terranauts by Caitlin Horrocks (Little, Brown: Hachette): "The title captures the collection’s breadth, its mixture of the strange and the mundane."Also, Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel (Riverhead: Penguin): "In a commendable display of chutzpah, he has written an Argentine Gothic." Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is by Gretel Ehrlich (Pantheon: Random House): "At their best, Ehrlich’s reminiscences carve a melancholy track, depicting the disastrous losses, human and otherwise, that accompany global warming." Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent by Rich Cohen (FSG: Macmillan): "What emerges for Cohen in this warmhearted memoir is a love for his son beyond hockey." The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution by James Oakes (W. W. Norton; LJ starred review)" "...[a] very solid, carefully and rigorously argued book." Summerwater by Sarah Moss (FSG: Macmillan): "...pretty close to a great rain novel." Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt (Knopf: Random House): "...an entertaining read that avoids the trap of forced anecdotes and excessive contrarianism that plague lesser titles in the genre." That Old Country Music: Stories by Kevin Barry (Doubleday: Random House): "...a nervy mix of high poetry and low comedy that he applies with unceasing vigor." Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear by Dr. Carl L. Hart (Penguin): "Hart’s argument that we need to drastically revise our current view of illegal drugs is both powerful and timely, but the question of addiction lingers in the background." The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata by Gina Apostol (Soho): "She writes historical fiction like Hilary Mantel on acid." The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Memoir by Justine Cowan (Harper): "Like an experienced litigator, Cowan shows us one exhibit after another, building a case that her mother was a victim of this harsh system." Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection by Marissa King (Dutton: Penguin): "King’s work is one of a number of new books that emphasize the importance of social interaction at this moment of social distancing."

NPR reviews That Old Country Music: Stories by Kevin Barry (Doubleday: Random House): "There's not a bad story in the bunch, and it's as accomplished a book as Barry has ever written."

The Washington Post reviews Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne (Grove): "...an elegiac memoir that explores the interior life of a Dublin boy who finds himself almost accidentally — and incidentally — famous."

USA Today reviews The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution by James Oakes (W. W. Norton; LJ starred review), which earns 3 stars: "Most often Oakes brings clarity and insight to a political conundrum of bewildering complexity."

NPR's Fresh Air reviews The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams (Doubleday: Random House): "Every page is intoxicated with words. Williams laces her book with so many enjoyable ones that I kept my own dictionary at the ready."

Briefly Noted

The American Library Association announces the winners of the I Love My Librarian Awards.

A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Random House) led book sales in 2020, according to Publishers Weekly.

Tordotcom Publishing has acquired two books from Aimee Pokwatka. Her first, In Self-Portrait With Nothing, is due out next summer, with another to follow in the next year.

Anna Konkle, co-creator and star of the Hulu series PEN15, is working on the memoir The Sane One, which Random House will publish. Deadline reports.

Tor.com has an excerpt from Amid the Crowd of Stars by Stephen Leigh (DAW: Penguin). It's due out Feb. 9.

Rachel Kushner, The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020, (Scribner: S. & S.), writes about growing up in San Francisco for The New Yorker.

Lit Hub hosts a "Questionnaire" for five authors with new books: Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck; Kevin Barry, That Old Country Music; Keisha Bush, No Heaven for Good Boys; Susan Conley, Landslide; and Anna North, Outlawed. Also, Q&As with George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (Random House), and Koa Beck, White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind (Atria: S. & S.; LJ starred review).

Lee Child is in conversation with Paraic O'Donnell at CrimeReads.

"I once read that the greatest thing about reading is that it’s like a simulation for life," Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck (HMH), tells The Rumpus.

The L.A. Times interviews Olga Grushin, The Charmed Wife (G.P. Putnam's Sons: Penguin).

Charles Yu discusses Interior Chinatown (Pantheon: Random House) with Shondaland.

Guernica has a 30-year-old conversation with Susana Thénon, whose last book of poems, Ova Completa, is due out from Ugly Duckling in March.

Ken Quattro talks about Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books (Yoe) with USA Today.

Kirkus speaks with Angie Thomas about Concrete Rose (Balzer + Bray: HarperCollins).

"California crime writers discuss police, fires, pandemic, proposition politics, and the future of crime fiction" with CrimeReads.

Book Riot provides "A History Of Antiracist Literature."

Tordotcom Publishing and Tom Doherty Associates announced the new horror imprint Nightfire. See the initial lineup of books here.

HarperCollins is the latest publisher to raise the minimum salary for its employees. Publishers Weekly reports.

Authors Ron Chernow and Taylor Branch are among the more than 300 historians and constitutional scholars who have signed an open letter demanding the impeachment of Donald Trump. The NYT Reports.

Author and journalist Ved Mehta died at age 86. The Washington Post has an obituary.

Authors on Air

David E. Kelley is working on the TV adaptation of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer series for Netflix. Also, teen casting news is out for the new series adaptation of I Know What You Did Last Summer, based on the book by Lois Duncan. Deadline has details.

The film rights for Richard Powers’ forthcoming novel Bewilderment, which is due out this fall, have been picked up by Black Bear Pictures and Plan B Entertainment. Variety reports.

Ashley Audrain discusses The Push (Pamela Dorman: Penguin) with the CBC's Sunday Magazine.

The Keen On podcast talks with Daniel Lieberman about Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding (Pantheon: Random House).

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar (Grand Central: Hachette) is featured on The Today Show.

Lil Nas X, C Is for Country (Random House Books for Young Readers), is on The View today.

Sanjay Gupta, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age (S. & S.), appears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show today.

Michelle Buteau, Survival of the Thickest: Essays (Gallery: S. & S.), is on with Wendy Williams today.

James Comey, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust (Flatiron: Macmillan), will be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

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