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Big Books of the Week

Win by Harlan Coben (Grand Central: Hachette) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs (Ace: Penguin)

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai (Berkley: Penguin)

Not Dark Yet by Peter Robinson (William Morrow: HarperCollins)

These books and others publishing the week of March 15, 2021 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet. 

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

There are two LibraryReads selections arriving this week. There are no Indie Next selections for the week.

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai (Berkley: Penguin)

"Daisy is shocked when she runs into Liam, who stood her up at her high school prom. To save her employer and Liam’s family legacy, they must fake an engagement and marriage and not fall in love. A whirlwind of a romcom with South Asian American and Irish American families providing background drama and entertainment. Daisy and Liam are lovably imperfect in this quick escapist read. Give to readers who liked Take a Hint, Dani Brown and The Right Swipe." —Laura Bonds, Harris County Public Library, Houston, TX

Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs (Ace: Penguin)

"Mated werewolves Charles and Anna investigate a malevolent presence that has inexplicably made an entire community vanish in northern California. In this latest Alpha & Omega installment, Briggs again creates a vivid world where the commonplace and the supernatural reside together." —Linda Tilden, Mount Laurel Public Library, Mount Laurel, NJ

In the Media

The People "Picks" book of the week is We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (Henry Holt: Macmillan). Also getting attention are The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende (Ballantine: Random House) and Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman (Atria: S. & S.). A "New in Paperback" section highlights Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers (Park Row: HarperCollins), Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn (MCD: Macmillan; LJ starred review), and The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai (Algonquin: Workman; LJ starred review). The "Picks" section also features Cherry, based on the book by Nico Walker, Yes Day, based on the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld, and Moxie, based on the book by Jennifer Mathieu. There are interviews with Melissa Bernstein, LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light (LifeLines), and Chip Gaines, No Pain, No Gaines: The Good Stuff Doesn't Come Easy (Thomas Nelson: HarperCollins Christian). Plus, there's a recipe from Trevor Lui, The Double Happiness Cookbook (Figure 1).

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution by John Archibald (Knopf: Random House): "Archibald’s point is not to beat up ourselves or the people we love over the failures of the past, but to learn from them and do better."

NPR reviews The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (Park Row: HarperCollins): "...you can trust Sarah Penner's The Lost Apothecary to keep you turning the pages of a story that doesn't ease up until the very last sentence." Also, Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All by Laura Bates (Sourcebooks): "...an often harrowing read; an uncompromising guide to the misogynistic backlash of the past decade or so." The Impudent Ones by Marguerite Duras translated by Kelsey L. Askett (The New Press): "Whether or not it is great literature, the book offers a roadmap for what was to come."

The Atlantic reviews The New York Times Cooking No-Recipe Recipes by Sam Sifton (Ten Speed: Random House): "I think Sifton isn’t all that fixated on dinner. I think he’s fixated on us—or rather, who we are when we cook."

The NYT reviews Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions by Michael Moss (Random House): "Moss’s argument is that free will is an illusion, at least for certain foods. He’s right."

Briefly Noted

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth by Rachel Maddow (Random House Audio) won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album.

USA Today picks five books for the week. Also, recent rom-coms.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week. 

Town & Country lists "The Best Books of 2021... So Far."

Book Riot recommends 18 books by Asian American and Pacific Islander writers.

Entertainment Weekly has an excerpt from A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: Hachette), which is due out Oct. 5.

The Yale Review excerpts Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury: Macmillan). It's due out March 30.

"I don't have personal fears anymore. What I have is an immense worry for our world and an enormous desire for things to change and overthrow the patriarchy," says Isabel Allende, The Soul of a Woman (Ballantine: Random House), in an interview with PopSugar.

Poet Kate Baer discusses What Kind of Woman (Harper), "her first piece of paid writing," which debuted at the top of the NYT paperback trade fiction best-seller list, with the NYT. The paper also speaks with Simon Doonan about his two recent books, How to Be Yourself (Phaidon) and Keith Haring (Laurence King: Chronicle).

Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck (HMH), details his love of waffles in TheGrub Street Diet. 

The New Yorker profiles Derek DelGaudio, Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies (Knopf: Random House).

Lambda Literary's "May We Present…" column features poet Nicholas Wong, Besiege Me (Noemi Press).

"There’s a magic about a cat which we desperately need, in these times more than ever," says Catriona Ward, The Last House on Needless Street (Tor Nightfire: Macmillan), in The Guardian.

The Book Marks "Questionnaire" goes to Miranda Popkey, Topics of Conversation (Knopf: Random House).

Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (Random House; LJ starred review), shares books that helped her "cross the distance between the no-longer and not-yet" with The Rumpus.

Elizabeth Brooks, The Whispering House (Tin House: W. W. Norton), "recommends books about the power play between the artist, subject, and viewer" at Electric Lit.

The NYT's Jessica Winter, The Fourth Child (Harper), investigates "Our Autofiction Fixation." Plus, the paper looks at some of the ways "the Pandemic Changed the Way We Read."

At The Guardian, Nick Cornwell, whose father David wrote as John le Carré, details the role his mother Jane played in David's writing.

As part of the American Rescue Plan, the National Endowment for the Humanities will distribute $135 million in relief funding, through a competitive process, to libraries, archives, and academic institutions, and more. Publishers Weekly has information about how to apply for a grant.

Authors on Air

The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin has been optioned for series development. Dahvi Waller will write the adaptation of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Deadline has details.

The USC Libraries Scripter Awards, which honor "the year's best adaptation of the printed word into film," go to Nomadland and The Queen’s Gambit. 

CBS Sunday Morning features Julia Sweig, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight (Random House), and Melissa Bernstein, LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light (LifeLines).

The NYT Book Review podcast interviews Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were (Random House), and Annalee Newitz, Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age (W. W. Norton).

Layla AlAmmar discusses Silence Is a Sense (Algonquin: Workman) with NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.

The New Yorker Radio Hour features Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby (One World: Random House), and James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War (Penguin).

Don Lemon, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism (Little, Brown: Hachette), will be on The View today.

Sanjay Gupta, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age (S. & S.), will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight.

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