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Big Books of the Week

Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver (Zando) leads holds this week. Previously self-published, the viral TikTok hit is available in print this week. 

Other titles in demand include:

The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino, tr. by Giles Murray (Minotaur)

Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan (Berkley)

These books and others publishing the week of December 11, 2023, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

No LibraryReads or Indie Next picks publish this week.

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen (Harper). Also getting attention are The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong (Minotaur; LJ starred review) and The Other Mothers by Katherine Faulkner (Gallery). Star picks include Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday), Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf; LJ starred review), and No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman (Grand Central).

People’s “Most Interesting People of the Year” include: Britney Spears, The Woman in Me (Gallery; LJ starred review); Pamela Anderson, Love, Pamela (Dey Street); Prince Harry, Spare (Random; LJ starred review); Ariana Madix, Single AF Cocktails: Drinks for Bad B*tches (Clarkson Potter); and Jada Pinkett Smith, Worthy (Dey Street). People also highlights authors who have died this year, including Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (Flatiron); and Sinead O’Connor, Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life (Dey Street). Lastly, Nik Sharma, Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals (Chronicle), and Eric Ripert, Seafood Simple (Random), share recipes.

Reviews

NPR reviews Transitions: A Mother’s Journey by Élodie Durand, tr. by Evan McGorray (Top Shelf Productions; LJ starred review): “Transitions is a moving, demanding read, not least because it candidly traces a disjunction between an otherwise loving parent and her response to an unexpected situation in which her own intolerances get in the way of her relationship with her child.” Also, there are reviews of four coffee table art books: Art Is Art: Collaborating with Neurodiverse Artists at Creativity Explored by Ann Kappes (Chronicle), Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilic & Beth Kleber (Monacelli), Aino + Alvar Aalto: A Life Together by Heikki Aalto-Alanen (Phaidon), and Islamic Architecture: A World History by Eric Broug (Thames & Hudson).

NYT reviews Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood by David Mamet (S. & S): “What warmth there is in this book derives from his love for, and encyclopedic knowledge of, old movies, especially noir.”

Washington Post reviews Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney (Little, Brown): “One has the strong feeling that Liz Cheney and many of her colleagues ‘all knew the truth’ in 2019, just as she says they did after Jan. 6. Had they acted on it the first time, 'the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office,' as she calls Trump, would probably not now be closing in on the GOP nomination and a possible second term.”

LA Times reviews Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Atlantic Monthly; LJ starred review): “Even at under 200 pages, Orbital is a complete novel, all the way to its conclusion. With a few tiny strokes of foreshadowing and a few lovely paragraphs of description, Harvey manages to bring readers back down to Earth, astounded that they’ve traveled so far in such a short period of time, having finished their own orbit through the realms of her rich imagination.”

Bookmarks shares “The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2023.”

Briefly Noted

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting (Farrar; LJ starred review) wins the An Post Irish Book of the Year.

The 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards are announced. 

Earlyword announces that while there will be no #libfaves23 this year, library staff can nominate their favorite books of 2023 through a Google spreadsheet starting today. 

CrimeReads shares the best debut crime novels of 2023. 

Time names the 10 best fiction books of 2023 and the 10 best nonfiction books of 2023. 

AP recaps the year 2023 in book coverage. 

People recommends the best books to read in December.

NYT talks with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage about their new book, Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History, written with Alan Sepinwall (Mariner).

Washington Post highlights the work of Japanese manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, including Nejishiki (Drawn & Quarterly; LJ starred review), now available in English. 

Kenan Thompson, When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown (Harper), tells People the best advice he got from Tracy Morgan. 

The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing” offers “The Best Strategy for Late-December Reading.”

Novelist William Collier sues Adam McKay, author/director of Don’t Look Up, over copyright infringement. USA Today has the story.

Author-reader site pioneer Cissy Hartley, proprietor of Writerspace, has died.

Authors on Air

Anastacia-Renee, Side Notes from the Archivist: Poems (Amistad), offers a “brief but spectacular” take on legacy and poetry on PBS Canvas. 

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday talks with former NPR producer Peter Breslow about his new memoir, Outtakes: Stumbling Around the World for NPR (Mojo Hand). 

NPR staffers share their fiction picks from “Books We Love” on Weekend Edition.

Hannah Nicole Maehrer’s romantasy Assistant to the Villain (Entangled: Red Tower) will be adapted as a TV series. Deadline reports.

Vox calls American Fiction, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, “wry and surprisingly warm-hearted race satire.”

Ariana Madix, Single AF Cocktails: Drinks for Bad B*tches (Clarkson Potter), visits Watch What Happens Live today.

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