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Big Books of the Week

Dream Town by David Baldacci (Grand Central) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Beautiful by Danielle Steel (Delacorte)

Death of the Black Widow by James Patterson and J. D. Barker (Grand Central)

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez (Forever)

Kingdom of Bones by James Rollins (Morrow)

These books and others publishing the week of Apr. 18th, 2022 are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Two Library Reads and two Indie Next picks publish this week:

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez (Forever)

“Jimenez delivers a powerful romance about overcoming domestic abuse. Alexis must decide if she will follow love and happiness or give in to family tradition and emotional abuse. Over the course of the novel, she learns to trust herself again, and finds her true calling. For fans of The Road to Rose Bend, Like Lovers Do, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown.”—Jennifer Davidson, Richardson Public Library, Richardson, TX

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe (Harper Voyager; LJ starred review)

“These science fiction stories are set in a universe adjacent to the one featured in acclaimed actor/musician Monáe’s concept albums and offer hope when despair is at its ripest. Tales of invented homes, found families, hard choices, and the exhausting work of imagining a better future jump off the page. For fans of Octavia Butler and Rivers Solomon.”—Krista Feick, Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, OH

Two Indie Next picks publish this week:

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery/Saga Press; LJ starred review)

“I didn’t think it was possible to love a book more than Black Sun, but Rebecca Roanhorse has outdone herself with this follow up adventure. I read it in two sleepless nights and felt hollow returning to boring real life. Counting down to #3!”—Amy McClelland, Bright Side Bookshop, Flagstaff, AZ

Spear by Nicola Griffith (Tordotcom)

“Griffith does it again! I could read 200 more pages of this gorgeous, moody reimagining of one of the many tales surrounding King Arthur. It reminded me of Alex Myers’ The Story of Silence in its exploration of the gender (non)binary.”—Elayna Trucker, Napa Bookmine, Napa, CA

In the Media

The People "Picks" book of the week is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday). Also getting attention are The Wise Women by Gina Sorell (Harper), and Tasha: A Son's Memoir by Brian Morton (Avid Reader Pr: S. & S.). There is a Q&A with Diane Keaton about her newest book, Saved: My Picture World (Rizzoli).

The “Picks” section spotlights The Flight Attendant, based on the book by Chris Bohjalian on HBO Max, and Roar, based on the short story collection by Cecelia Ahern on Apple TV+.

The cover feature showcases Viola Davis and her new memoir, Finding Me (HarperOne). There are also features on Nyle DiMarco, Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—and a Love Letter to a Way of Life, written with Robert Siebert (Morrow; LJ starred review), and Karen Duffy, Wise Up: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother Who's Been Through It (Seal Press). Also, an exclusive interview with actor Scott & author Kelley Wolf, Flow: A Recipe for Living Joyfully (Three Trees), about their “party of five.” Plus, Eric Kim, Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home (Clarkson Potter), and Christina Tosi, Dessert Can Save the World: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes for a Stubbornly Joyful Existence (Harmony), share recipes.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai by Matti Friedman (Spiegel & Grau): “Cohen had been close to death, and had seen death, on the battlefield in the Sinai. But he did not die there; he was reborn.” And, The Bin Laden Papers: How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth about al-Qaeda, Its Leader and His Family by Nelly Lahoud (Yale Univ. Pr.): “a comprehensive, meticulously constructed and eye-opening look at bin Laden as husband, father and leader-in-hiding.” And, The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation by Scott Carney and Jason Miklian (Ecco; LJ starred review): “Do weather catastrophes, which these days are often blamed on climate change, cause war and other human conflicts? Scott Carney and Jason Miklian offer a convincing answer in the affirmative in a fast-paced work of narrative nonfiction.”

NYT reviews The Crocodile Bride by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen (Hub City Pr.): “the author delicately handles the messy union between human culpability and generational damage. That insatiable crocodile might be made of human cruelty, or abject loneliness, redundancies and foreclosures — or a muddy mess of it all.” And, Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes by Jerry Z. Muller (Princeton Univ. Pr.): “This book reminds us just how erotically charged ideas can be, and not just sexually. Taubes’s writings show that he understood something about the human striving for connection with what seems to lie just over the ever receding horizon, and what that yearning can make people do.”

Briefly Noted

Dead Space by Kali Wallace (Berkley), wins The Philip K. Dick Award, and The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon Publications), receives a special citation. Locus has details.

Bad and Boujee by Jennifer Buck (Wipf and Stock), has been pulled by the publisher due to criticism. NYT has the story, and The Cut provides a perspective on the backlash.

Publishing Perspectives provides context for NPD’s latest report on Q1 book sales.

NYT features Jennifer Grey’s new memoir, Out of the Corner (Ballantine), due out May 3rd.

Salon interviews Francis Fukuyama, author of the forthcoming Liberalism and Its Discontents (Farrar; LJ starred review), about “Putin, Trump and why Ukraine is key to saving liberal democracy.”

NYT writes about the overlooked work of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, writer of Levantine identity.

NYT profiles Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, whose book, Their Four Hearts trans. by Max Lawton (Dalkey Archive Pr.), will be reissued next week. 

The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing" looks at diary writing and shares “what we’re reading."

USA Today picks five books for the week, and 20 books for spring.

Tordotcom has five darkly comic SFF books.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week, 10 must-read nonfiction serial killer and true crime, and 5 atmospheric, setting driven novels.

“Christopher Coover, Auction Expert on the Printed Word, Dies at 72.” NYT has an obituary.

“Kevin Lippert, Publisher of Architectural Books, Dies at 63.” NYT has an obituary.

Authors On Air

Janelle Monáe talks with NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday about the nightmare that inspired the world of The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Harper Voyager; LJ starred review).

CBS Sunday Morning talks with Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life (Little, Brown & Co.; LJ starred review), about “love, cancer, and a second chance.” Plus, “The Book Report: Recommendations from Washington Post critic Ron Charles.”

HBO Max adds Neil Gaiman’s "Dead Boy Detectives" series to its lineup. Tor has details.

Bustle notes the Harry Potter book easter egg in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. 

Sherlock Holmes is headed to Broadway. Playbill has the news.

Garcelle Beauvais, Love Me As I Am (Amistad), will visit Drew Barrymore today and Michelle D. Hord ,The Other Side of Yet: Finding Light in the Midst of Darkness (Atria), will be on with Tamron Hall. Rachel Bloom, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are: Essays and Other Stuff (Grand Central), visits Kelly Clarkson. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Welcome to the Universe in 3D: A Visual Tour, written with Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott & Robert J. Vanderbei (Princeton Univ. Pr.), visits Stephen Colbert tomorrow.  Janelle Monáe, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Harper Voyager; LJ starred review), will be on Live with Kelly and Ryan. Alexis deBoschnek, To the Last Bite: Recipes and Ideas for Making the Most of Your Ingredients (S. & S.) will visit Drew Barrymore. Plus, Sabaa Tahir All My Rage (Razorbill), will be on with Kelly Clarkson.

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