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Book Clubs and More Buzz

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (Pamela Dorman: Penguin) is Reese Witherspoon's February book club pick.

This month's GMA book club choice is How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (Little, Brown: Hachette).

BuzzFeed recommends 26 books released this week.

Notable books of the week from The Millions.

The Booklist Reader picks the best books of the week.

Time has the 14 best books of the month.

Shondaland picks the 5 best books of February.

Lit Hub lists "20 new books to warm your cold, unfeeling heart."

"These 15 Books on Climate Change Are Essential Reading" according to Esquire.

Barbara Hoffert has new Prepub Alert columns in LJ. 

See a reading list featuring a book for each state in out country at the L.A. Times. 

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke (Knopf: Random House): "If you can ignore the author’s motive for creating such a sensitive and endearing cad, you’ll find here a novel that explores the demands of acting and the delusions of manhood with tremendous verve and insight." Also, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (Little, Brown: Hachette): "The novel’s a stunner." Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad (Random House): "Her insights about the self, connectedness, uncertainty and time speak to all of us, not only readers who’ve faced a life-changing — and potentially life-ending — diagnosis." 

The NYT reviews Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin (Little, Brown: Hachette): "...a restless and intelligent cultural history of queer nightlife." Also, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Reuben Jonathan Miller (Little, Brown: Hachette): "Miller wants us to understand incarceration’s 'afterlife' — how prison follows people 'like a ghost,' a permanent specter in the lives of the 19.6 million Americans who have a felony record." Plus, the "Graphic Content" column reviews The Black Panther Party by David F. Walker and illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson (Ten Speed: Random House) and Come Home, Indio by Jim Terry (Street Noise). And brief reviews of four novels that "take you back in time."

NPR reviews Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris (Penguin): "It's difficult, of course, to write a book that seeks to know someone who seemed incapable of being known, but Harris does so perfectly; 'Mike Nichols' is a masterful biography, and essential reading for anyone interested in theater or film."

USA Today reviews The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's: Macmillan; LJ starred review), which earns 3.5 stars: "'The Four Winds' is epic and transporting, a stirring story of hardship and love that is likely to lead to a film adaptation."

Briefly Noted

The longlist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is out. Finalists will be announced in March.

Nominees for the 52nd NAACP Image Awards are up. There are several awards in the literary category, and the voting is open to the public through March 5.

Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO, but will stay involved as executive chairman, of Amazon. Publishers Weekly has details.

NetGalley, along with its parent company Firebrand, have been sold to the U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Media Do. Publishing Perspectives reports.

George R.R. Martin says he wrote a whole lot of The Winds of Winter last year, but adds, "I will make no predictions on when I will finish."

Tor.com has an excerpt from Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil (Soho Teen). It's due out July 6.

Michelle Duster, Ida B. The Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells (Atria/One Signal: S. & S.), writes about what Wells and Kamala Harris have in common for People.

Randa Jarrar, Love Is an Ex-Country (Catapult: Penguin), answers "Ten Questions" at Poets & Writers Magazine.

The L.A. Times interviews Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Unfinished: A Memoir (Ballantine: Random House).

The Shelf Awareness "Reading with…" column features John Hart, The Unwilling (St. Martin's: Macmillan).

"Humans are complex, so characters should be," says Cherie Jones, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (Little, Brown: Hachette), in an interview with the L.A. Times.

Kristin Hannah talks about writing The Four Winds (St. Martin's: Macmillan; LJ starred review) with Shondaland.

"A part of what my project was for this collection was to explore what those terms we think of as absolutes—good, bad, right, wrong—are actually subjective," Dantiel W. Moniz tells Electric Lit about Milk Blood Heat (Grove; LJ starred review). She explores this idea with The Rumpus as well.

Esquire has a Q&A with Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts (Catapult: Penguin). She also does the "Questionnaire" for Book Marks, and is interviewed by Lit Hub.

Melissa Broder, Milk Fed (Scriber: S. & S.), talks food and sex with BOMB. And more food and sex with Vogue. And just sex with Vulture. 

Vanity Fair talks with Mark Harris about Mike Nichols: A Life (Penguin).

Te-Ping Chen discusses Land of Big Numbers: Stories (Mariner: HMH) with Electric Lit.

Courtney Summers talks with Shondaland about the depressing work of researching cults for The Project (Wednesday: Macmillan).

"I was channeling my inner eighth grader," says Chang-rae Lee about writing My Year Abroad (Riverhead: Penguin), in an interview with Kirkus.

Rachel Ricketts discusses Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy (Atria: S. & S.; LJ starred review) with Shondaland.

Bustles asks Catherine Cohen, God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal About Town (Knopf: Random House) about writing advice, music, and more. 

Robert Jones, Jr. talks about writing The Prophets (G.P. Putnam's Sons: Penguin; LJ starred review) at Amazon.

Mariah Carey's sister Alison is suing her over stories included in her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. People has details.

A book club in Washington, D.C. that gathered to talk about A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Random House) had a surprise guest: the former president himself popped in with a personalized, recorded message. People has more.

Authors on Air

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick are producing a six-hour documentary about Ernest Hemingway for PBS, which is set to air in April. Lena Dunham will write and direct a feature adaptation of Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. Following his adaptation of White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, Ramin Bahrani will direct and produce a feature adaptation of Amnesty by Adiga for Netflix. After competitive bidding, Jessica Rhoades and Alexander Tsekalo secured the rights to adapt The Vapors by David Hill for TV. Deadline reports on all.

Jackie Wang, The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void (Nightboat), discusses dreams with NPR's Morning Edition.

"I'm now kind of a great believer in family history in general," says Russell Shorto, Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob (W. W. Norton), on NPR's Fresh Air.

Rachel Lynn Solomon discusses public radio and The Ex Talk (Berkley: Penguin) with NPR.

Matthew Salesses talks about Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (Catapult: Penguin) on the WMFA podcast.

The Keen On podcast interviews Simon Winchester about Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (Harper).

Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life (Penguin), appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

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