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Big Books of the Week

Abandoned in Death by J. D. Robb (St. Martin’s) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

City of the Dead by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (Atria)

Steal by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Grand Central)

Dark Horse by Gregg Hurwitz (Minotaur)

These books and others publishing the week of Feb. 7th, 2022 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

One LibraryReads selection and two Indie Next picks publish this week:

Not the Witch You Wed by April Asher (St. Martin’s Griffin)

“Violet is perfectly happy being the triplet without magical powers. However, since reconnecting with high school heartbreaker and wolf shifter Lincoln Thorne, she suddenly has magic and is afraid she’ll be forced into an arranged marriage. What’s a witch to do but to fake-date a werewolf? A fun and light read for fans of The Ex Hex.”—Alicia Ahlvers, Henrico County Public Library, Henrico, VA

Two Indie Next picks arrive this week:

Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda, trans. by Sarah Booker (Coffee House Pr.)

“When a group of friends find an abandoned building, their afternoons escalate from scary stories and dares into dangerous rituals and grave consequences. An unsettling novel of friendship, adolescence, and ‘inquietude.’”—Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA

Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay (Putnam)

“Love & Saffron reminds us of the beauty of letter writing. I loved the simplicity of this book — it filled my heart with love and connection to the human spirit, and left me with the desire to kindle a friendship by sending a letter.”—Annette Avery, Bright Side Bookshop, Flagstaff, AZ

In the Media

The People “Picks” book of the week is Free Love by Tessa Hadley (Harper). Also getting attention are Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine; LJ starred review), and Violeta by Isabel Allende (Ballantine; LJ starred review). A “Star Picks” section highlights Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (Little, Brown; LJ starred review), The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Scribner), and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper; LJ starred review). Plus, Yewande Komolafe, Waffles + Mochi: Get Cooking!: Learn To Cook Tomato Candy Pasta, Gratitouille, and Other Tasty Recipes (Clarkson Potter), shares a recipe. 

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso (Hogarth): “Manguso portrays the fears surrounding girlhood with a blistering clarity.” The NYT also reviews: “The book is strong enough as a compendium of the insults of a deprived childhood: a thousand cuts exquisitely observed and survived. The effect is cumulative, and this novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”

NPR reviews Free Love by Tessa Hadley (Harper): “with its carefully wrought contrasts between women with the guts ‘to be shameless, careless, frank’ versus one who, decades earlier, was not, Free Love is a fresh, moving evocation of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” 

The NYT reviews Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need To Save Them by Dan Saladino (Farrar): “Saladino’s eye for detail is photographic when he is describing places and things; it is less so when it comes to his human subjects.” Plus, the “Otherworldly” column reviews three genre-bending titles.

Briefly Noted

The Millions has an interview with Karen Joy Fowler about her forthcoming novel, Booth (Putnam), due out March 8th.

The Rumpus talks with Adrian Nathan West about his new book, My Father’s Diet (And Other Stories), “living and writing from abroad, superficiality, and literary convention.”

Rick Bleiweiss, Pignon Scorbion & The Barbershop Detectives (Blackstone), highlights “12 great mystery authors readers still love” for CrimeReads.

Florence Williams, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey (Norton), writes an Op-Ed in the LA Times about how our cells “listen for loneliness.”

Vulture profiles Filippo Bernardini, the man accused of stealing unpublished book manuscripts.

The NYT features Yiddish scholars who are elevating forgotten novels by female Jewish immigrants.

The Chicago Tribune’s book critic shares lessons learned about BookTok.

The Atlantic considers HGTV and “America’s self-help conundrum.”

Writers share Black History Month reading recommendations at Vogue.

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week. 

GMA has “15 new books to add to your February stack.”

ElectricLit recommends books about “living outside the mainstream.”

CBC previews “46 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in spring 2022.”

“Ashley Bryan, children’s illustrator and author, has died at 98.” NPR has an obituary.

“Todd Gitlin, a Voice and Critic of the New Left, Dies at 79.” The NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday talks with Heather Havrilesky about her memoir, Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage by (Ecco).

NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday talks with the 8-year-old author of The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis, and his advice for aspiring writers. 

NPR’s Life Kit features advice for artists from Finance for the People: Getting a Grip on Your Finances by Paco de Leon (Penguin Life).

CBS Sunday Morning features “The Book Report: Recommendations from Washington Post critic Ron Charles.”

NPR asks “which great books by Black authors should be brought to the screen?”

Lauren Groff reads “Annunciation” on The New Yorker podcast and discusses the story in an interview for the magazine. 

Popsugar gives a first-look at Hulu’s Conversations With Friends series, based on the book by Sally Rooney. 

Essence shares casting news for The Color Purple remake, based on the book by Alice Walker. 

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