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Big Books of the Week

The Exchange by John Grisham (Doubleday) leads holds this week. Grisham talks with NPR’s Morning Edition about this sequel to 1991’s The Firm.

Other titles in demand include:

The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young (Delacorte)

The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Susan Wiggs (Morrow)

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow (Crown)

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig (Orbit)

These books and others publishing the week of October 16, 2023, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three LibraryReads and three Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young (Delacorte)

“When her grandmother dies, June worries about falling prey to the family curse of hallucinations, which stole the sanity of her mother and grandmother. When a door opens leading to the past, June learns more about her family and discovers unexpected truths about herself—and her place in time.”—Nanette Donohue, Champaign Public Library, IL

Bonus LibraryReads pick Straw Dogs of the Universe by Ye Chun (Catapult) is also an Indie Next pick:

“In this book, young Chinese villagers flee flood and famine for a ‘better life’ in California, and lurch through bitter hardship, unspeakable racism, and repeated brutality. They fight, love, and struggle to survive with their souls intact.”—Reiko Redmonde, Revolution Books, Berkeley, CA

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall (Sourcebooks Casablanca; LJ starred review) is a Hall of Fame pick.

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

One Woman Show by Christine Coulson (Avid Reader/S. & S.)

“This journey through a museum exhibit via wall tags provides insightful commentary on the way women are often sidelined as ornamental accessories, even in the story of their own lives. A wholly unique masterclass on economy in language.”—David Vogel, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Bloomsbury)

“A lovely historical novel set in a 1920s British colony in Penang. Somerset Maugham appears as a house guest who spins his friends’ lives into a tale for his book. There’s forbidden love, unhappy marriage—now I want to read Maugham’s work!”—Susan Taylor, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, NY

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Madonna: A Rebel Life by Mary Gabriel (Little, Brown; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are Touched by Walter Mosley (Atlantic Monthly) and Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee (Astra House). A “New in Nonfiction” section highlights This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained by Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett (Rodale), Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina (Norton), and Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s by Gary Gulman (Flatiron; LJ starred review). 

The “Picks” section spotlights Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry, based on the book by Bonnie Garmus, featuring a Q&A with the author. Other forthcoming adaptations include Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers, based on the novel by Edith Wharton, Netflix’s All The Light We Cannot See, based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning book by Anthony Doerr, and Hulu’s forthcoming series Black Cake, based on the novel by Charmaine Wilkerson. Also highlighed is The Exorcist: Believer, based on the novel The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and Amazon’s Foe, based on the novel by Iain Reid. 

The cover feature goes in depth with Jada Pinkett Smith and her new memoir, Worthy (Dey Street). Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell-Horner reflects on her life and new kids’ book, Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen (Philomel), and sports agent Rich Paul discusses his new memoir, Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds, written with Jesse Washington (Roc Lit 101). Former ambassador Nicole Avant shares the ordeal of her mother’s murder and road to forgiveness, along with her new book, Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude (HarperOne). There is also a feature on the real story behind the new film Killers of the Flower Moon, based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. Plus, a spooky recipe from Maegan Brown’s Brilliant Bites: 75 Amazing Small Bites for Any Occasion (Rock Point; LJ starred review).

Reviews

NYT reviews I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury; LJ starred review): “It’s a little odds-and-endsy, like the old Saturday Night Live sketch of Jon Lovitz as Picasso scribbling on a cocktail napkin, but a pleasurable rummage nonetheless”; Dartmouth Park by Rupert Thomson (Other Pr.): “Dartmouth Park provides a powerfully evocative catalyst for thought and feeling, one Thomson must hope will incite as much inquiry and introspection in his readers as that innocuous airport card reader beep did in Philip”; The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Gregg Hecimovich (Ecco; LJ starred review): “Hecimovich gives the author a sweeping, densely researched biography, beginning with the arrival of her enslaved ancestors in North Carolina in 1779 and ending with her death in New Jersey around 1905. He also chronicles the lives of others in her circle, providing a rich, complex view of slavery as it was actually lived”; Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee (Astra House): “By the end the novel feels like a dream that cannot be forgotten. Abernathy is too sweet, too small, too alone for us not to worry about him being swallowed by this nefarious business”; and My Work by Olga Ravn, tr. by Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell (New Directions): “At the novel’s start, Ravn’s narrator is protective of the text (‘there’s madness here, and exposed flesh’ ) and feels it should be read only by those who are pregnant or raising small children. I disagree. It should be read by everyone.” There are also short reviews of My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon (Gallery) and other horror books, plus a paired review of Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow (Crown), and Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson (Viking), tracing fascist strains in the U.S.

Washington Post reviews Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones by Dolly Parton, written with Holly George-Warren & Rebecca Seaver (Ten Speed): “Behind the Seams delivers a unique opportunity: to hang out in Parton’s closet while she chats her way around a lifetime of looks”; The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind by Melissa S. Kearney (Univ. of Chicago): “Her ingenuity fails her whenever she quits the terrain of numbers and enters the territory of human chaos—whenever, that is, her book threatens to become interesting”; and The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism by Adam Nagourney (Crown): “Nagourney’s narrative benefits from the sheer drama of events: the nation’s most august journalistic institution, brought low first by its own blunders and then by economic circumstance, only to come back stronger than ever. It gives new meaning to the old saying, both blessing and curse: may you live in interesting Times.”

The Guardian reviews A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing by Hilary Mantel (Holt; LJ starred review): “A Memoir of My Former Self is a fine testament to that remarkable imagination—a reminder of what a voice we have lost, and how fortunate we are that she left us so much.”

Briefly Noted

The Hamas-Israeli war leads to tensions, cancellation, and controversy at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publishing Perspectives and Shelf Awareness have coverage.

Teju Cole discusses his latest novel, Tremor (Random; LJ starred review), with NYT. 

USA Today reveals details from Jada Pinkett Smith’s new memoir, Worthy (Dey Street).

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week. 

NYT distills “The Essential Vladimir Nabokov.”

Nobel Prize–winning poet Louise Glück dies at 80. NYT has an obituary. NPR and LA Times also have remembrances. NYT recommends five poems to start.

Novelist Louise Meriwether dies at 100. NYT has an obituary.

TV star and author Suzanne Somers dies at 76. NYT has an obituary. Variety also remembers Somers.

Authors on Air

Jada Pinkett Smith, Worthy (Dey Street), will visit with Stephen Colbert tonight.

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