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Big Books of the Week

No Plan B: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf)

Livid: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell (Grand Central)

Go-To Dinners: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter)

The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake (Tor)

These books and others publishing the week of Oct. 24, 2022, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

One LibraryReads selection publishes this week:

Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris (William Morrow Paperbacks; LJ starred review)

“This fast-paced heart stopper is set in Jim Crow Mississippi, where two sisters are on the run after a murder in their town. And as they run, their secrets follow. With pulse-pounding suspense that’s also filled with empathy and hope, give this to fans of historical thrillers such as Lady in the Lake and American Spy.”—Carol Ann Tack, Merrick Library, Merrick, NY

Three Indie Next picks publish this week:

The White Mosque: A Memoir by Sofia Samatar (Catapult; LJ starred review)

“Samatar weaves together myths, faiths, histories, and memoir to tell the story of a 19th-century pilgrimage by Mennonites into Uzbekistan and her own trip along the same route. A wondrous book written by a writer whose sentences sing.”—Sabir Sultan, Strand Book Store, New York, NY

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf)

“The Passenger is Cormac McCarthy’s best novel. Not his best since The Road, not his best since The Border Trilogy, not his best since Blood Meridian; his best, ever. It’s an astonishing work of art, and I feel grateful to be alive to read it.”—John Duvernoy, The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

Inciting Joy: Essays by Ross Gay (Algonquin)

“The Book of Delights author returns with a new essay collection—a meditation on the ways ordinary life, and particularly a life of community and compassion, can spark joy. The writing is free-flowing and spontaneous—just as joy can be.”—Barbara de Wilde, Frenchtown Bookshop, Frenchtown, NJ

In the Media

The People magazine “Picks” book of the week is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper). Also getting attention are Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (Knopf), and When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar (One World). People’s “Star Picks” section highlights Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra (Hogarth), Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green (Farrar), and Fire Season: Selected Essays 1984–2021 by Gary Indiana (Seven Stories Pr.).

In addition, People’s “Picks” section spotlights Netflix’s new animated film Wendell & Wild, based on an unpublished novel by Henry Selick and Clay McLeod Chapman. There is also a feature on Matthew Perry and his forthcoming memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (Flatiron), due out next week. Plus, Anna Gass, author of Heirloom Kitchen: Heritage Recipes and Family Stories from the Tables of Immigrant Women (Harper Design), shares a recipe.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown): “Schiff paints a vivid portrait of a demagogue who was also a decorous man of ideals, acknowledging Adams’s innovative, extralegal activities as well as his personal virtues.” And The Confessions of Matthew Strong by Ousmane K. Power-Greene (Other Pr.): “Has been categorized as a thriller, and fans of the genre will delight in Power-Greene’s studied interpretation: His deft choreography inspires genuine suspense.” Also, The Pachinko Parlor by Elisa Shua Dusapin, tr. from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter): “It’s a formidable challenge to translate a novel that deals so centrally with language, and Higgins manages to call the reader’s attention to both the beauty of Dusapin’s writing and the linguistic and cultural switching that demands so much of Claire’s energy.” Also, The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone (St. Martin’s; LJ starred review): “Livingstone pays generous tribute to a woman who proved uncrushable, tracing her eventual rise to the status of national treasure as ‘the Queen of Fleas,’ a campaigning environmentalist and talk-show charmer.” Plus, Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan by Darryl Pinckney (Farrar): “At times painful and poignant, Come Back in September is nonetheless a delight to read, full of deft character sketches and delicious gossip.” The Washington Post also reviews: “Because Pinckney, now in his late 60s, kept detailed journals in his younger days, he has been able to re-create conversations with ‘Lizzie,’ as she was known to intimates, while also providing incisive vignettes of the Review’s co-editors, Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein, as well as anecdotes about the era’s superstar critic, Susan Sontag.”

The Washington Post reviews Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders (Random House): “Though in many ways the new collection is typical Saunders, it also speaks more directly to our current moment.”

WSJ reviews Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty by Mark G. Pomar (Potomac): “Mr. Pomar’s detailed account of Rahr’s tenure as host of this and other programs debating the place of religion and nationalism in post-Soviet Russia makes for fascinating reading.”

Briefly Noted

Kia Abdullah wins the 2022 Diverse Book Award in the adult category, for Next of Kin (HQ: HarperCollins).

Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and use of one hand, due to an attack in August, but is on the road to recovery. The Guardian reports.

USA Today will launch its book club with a Twitter Spaces conversation of Stephen King’s Fairy Tale (Scribner), on October 27.

NYT profiles Matthew Perry and his addiction memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (Flatiron).

The Star Tribune talks with Dani Shapiro about her new novel, Signal Fires (Knopf), and how chance, quick decisions “can change a life in an instant.”

Barbara Kingsolver, author of Demon Copperhead (Harper), discusses rereading George Eliot’s Middlemarch and more, at The Guardian.

LaToya Watkins discusses “matrilineal storytelling, the burden of parenthood,” and writing her novel Perish (Tiny Reparations), at The Millions.

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

Tor.com recommends 13 gothic horror books.

Authors On Air

CBS Sunday Morning discusses “the writer’s life” with John Irving and shares an excerpt of his newest novel, The Last Chairlift (S. & S.).

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Bob Woodward about the audiobook version of The Trump Tapes (S. & S. Audio), which feature Woodward’s recorded conversations with Donald Trump; there is also a preview of the new audio release.

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday interviews Samanta Schweblin about her new story collection Seven Empty Houses, tr. from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead).

Namwali Serpell talks about “death, dreams and the haunting nature of grief” in her novel The Furrows: An Elegy (Hogarth), on Writers & Company.

Entertainment Weekly rates the changes between George R. R. Martin’s 2018 Game of Thrones tie-in novel Fire & Blood and House of the Dragon, the new HBO series based on it.

A new Star Wars movie is in the works, reports THR.

Netflix will premiere its TV series The Lying Life of Adults, based on the novel by Elena Ferrante (tr. from Italian by Ann Goldstein; Europa), on January 4, 2023. Variety reports.

Damian Lewis will star in The Radleys, based on the novel by Matt Haig. Deadline reports.

Ina Garten, author of Go-To Dinners: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (Clarkson Potter), will visit with Stephen Colbert tonight. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, author of Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System (Regnery), visits The View today. 

Jennette McCurdy, author of the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died (S. & S.), visits Drew Barrymore. 

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