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Anne Rice Remembered

Anne Rice, author of Interview with a Vampire, died Saturday at the age of 80, following a stroke. Her son Christopher Rice announced the news on Facebook.  

Obituaries have appeared in The NYT, LA Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, People,  PBS Canvas, and The Guardian.   

The LA Times also writes about “how authors and 'Vampire' actors are honoring her legacy.”  

Big Books of the Week

Skinnytaste Air Fryer Dinners : 75 Healthy Recipes for Easy Weeknight Meals by Gina Homolka and Heather K. Jones, R.D. (Clarkson Potter) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Jane Austen's Lost Letters : A Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery by Jane K. Cleland (Minotaur: Macmillan)

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (Knopf)

Fix It with Food: Every Meal Easy : Simple and Delicious Recipes for Anyone with Autoimmune Issues and Inflammation by Michael Symon (Clarkson Potter)

These books and others publishing the week of December 13th, 2021 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

One Library Reads and one Indie Next pick publishes this week:

The Love Con by Seressia Glass (Berkley; LJ starred review)

“Engineer Kenya is a finalist on the reality show Cosplay or No Way, but to win she needs pal Cam to pretend he’s her boyfriend. This is a fun friends-to-lovers, fake dating romance that will best suit folks into cosplay, cons, or geeky pursuits. For fans of Jen Deluca and Sara Desai.”—Alezandra Troiani, Sno-Isle Libraries, Marysville, WA

One Indie Next pick arrives this week:

A Different Distance : A Renga by Marilyn Hacker & Karthika Naïr (Milkweed Ed.)

“Friends, poets, and Paris residents Marilyn Hacker and Karthika Naïr wrote a renga (a linked poem) over the course of a year, from March 2020 to March 2021 during the full lockdown. Reading this collection is a lovely, lovely experience.”—Jen Wills Geraedts, Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery, Park Rapids, MN

In the Media

This week's issue of People picks its top ten TV shows, movies, albums, and books of the year. People’s top ten books of 2021 are: The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper: HarperCollins), The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon), A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies (HMH), Ghosts by Dolly Alderton (Knopf), Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl (S. & S.), The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present by Paul McCartney (Liverlight: Norton), Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf: Random House; LJ starred review), Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris (Penguin Pr; LJ starred review), How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (Random House), and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday; LJ starred review). 

There are features on Anthony Broadwater, who was recently exonerated in the 1981 rape case that formed the basis of Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky; also, Andy Cohen and his mother, who inspired Glitter Every Day: 365 Quotes from Women I Love  (Holt). Plus, Martha Stewart, Martha Stewart's Fruit Desserts: 100+ Delicious Ways to Savor the Best of Every Season: A Baking Book (Clarkson Potter), shares a recipe.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks (Ballantine; LJ starred review): “Still, for those who maintain their fondness for Brooks, All About Me! is an indispensable culmination of his work (copious helpings of legendary dialogue from the films and shows don’t hurt).”  And, Under Jerusalem : The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City by Andrew Lawler (Doubleday): “‘In Jerusalem,” he writes, ‘everything is a symbol.’ Lawler’s timely book builds on that insight, showing how and why ordinary men and women, and great empires alike, continue to seek meaning in the dirt and debris beneath this magnetic, confounding city.

NYT reviews The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (Knopf): “Mohamed balances colonial history and violence with the evocative interior lives of Mahmood and Violet Volacki, a fictionalized Volpert.”

Briefly Noted

The 2021 Robert N Stephenson Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) Short Story & Flash Fiction Winners are announced. Locus has details.

Salon talks with Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan about his new book, From Staircase to Stage: The Story of Raekwon and the Wu-Tang Clan, written with Anthony Bozza (Gallery Books).

Shondaland interviews Lisa Harding, Bright Burning Things (HarperVia; LJ starred review), about “motherhood and the ugly reality of addiction.”

Parade talks with Catherine Price, The Power of Fun : How to Feel Alive Again (Dial; LJ starred review), about how to have more fun. 

People has an interview with Anna Pasternak, The American Duchess : The Real Wallis Simpson (Atria), about Wallis Simpson on Saturday’s December 11th anniversary of King Edward VIII’s abdication. 

Marvel announces new Captain Carter five-issue comic series about What If...? breakout character, due out in March. Entertainment Weekly has the story.

The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing” considers how “Truth Is Stranger Than Autofiction.”

Oprah Daily highlights and excerpts I'm Possible : A Story of Survival, a Tuba, and the Small Miracle of a Big Dream by Richard Antoine White (Flatiron).

The Millions releases its November top ten list, with The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell (Tin House: Norton) in the #1 spot. Also, José Vadi, Iľja Rákoš, Anne K. Yoder, Sonya Chung, Nick Moran, and more share their year in reading. 

USA Today picks five books for the week. Plus, 17 books that received a 4-star review. 

CrimeReads rounds up the best debut novels of 2021.

Time has “The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021.”

Tor.com releases Best Books of 2021. Locus has more.

NYT has “The Best Poetry of 2021.”

Entertainment Weekly has “The 10 best romance novels of 2021."

Slate has “The Best Audiobooks of 2021.”

NPR’s Maureen Corrigan releases her 2021 Best Books list.

LitHub shares 6 of the best winter weather descriptions in literature.

Buzzfeed shares titles that are trending on BookTok.  And, Popsugar has 17 Favorite Books of 2021, 32 Spellbinding books about witches, and 40 Christmas Books.

A first edition of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for $471,000 at auction, the highest ever for a “commercially published 20th-century work of fiction.” LitHub has the story.

Authors On Air

CBS Sunday Morning features Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader (Vintage), subject of the Netflix series, Pretend It's a City, directed by Martin Scorsese.

NPR’s Book of the Day speaks with Dave Eggers, The Every (McSweeney’s), about the challenges of publishing and distributing the book “off-road.”

Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City (Hachette), talks to T&C about her one-woman show, Is There Still Sex in the City?.

Deadline interviews attorney Jake Levy about developing film And TV from book sources. 

Melba Wilson, Melba's American Comfort : 100 Recipes from My Heart to Your Kitchen (Atria) will be on Live with Kelly and Ryan tomorrow.  Also, tomorrow: David Baddiel, Jews Don’t Count  (TLS) visits Seth Meyers, and Dwyane Wade,  Dwyane (Morrow), visits with James Cordon.  

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