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Book Clubs & Awards

B&N selects Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart (Random; LJ starred review) for its November Book Club. B&N talks with Shteyngart about the book on its Poured Over podcast. 

Jenna Bush Hager selects coming-of-age mafia drama, The Family by Naomi Krupitsky (Putnam) for her November book club pick.

Still Life by Sarah Winman (Putnam), is the Good Morning America pick.

Roxane Gay is reading Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins (Grand Central; LJ starred review), at Literati.

Netflix’s new book club launches this month with Nella Larsen’s Passing (Penguin). The first episode of “But Have you Read the Book?” debuts November 16th. Passing, based on the book, airs on Netflix this month. 

The November 2021 Earphone Awards are posted at Audiofile.

Reviews

NPR reviews Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma Abedin (Scribner): “her memoir is less about the "many worlds" she inhabits, and more about the one world that has dominated her life since her senior year of college: Hillaryland.”

The NYT reviews Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma Abedin (Scribner): “Huma still fascinates, not because of any lurid details she exposes but because her story serves as a parable, a blinking billboard of a reminder that no one is exempt from suffering.” Also, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth by Sam Quinones (Bloomsbury; LJ starred review): “Quinones depicts his subjects affectingly, but along with his rich reporting is the problem of excess. A natural storyteller, he applies those skills to such an array of characters that it is difficult to register their true significance to his larger narrative."And, The Interim by Wolfgang Hilbig, trans. by Isabel Fargo Cole (Two Lines Press: Ingram): “C. can be entertaining when he seems to be playing up his mopey self as a clown, but the tale circles and circles, like a drunk’s conversation, and a reader sometimes feels a little cornered by it.” Also, Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America by Michael Eric Dyson (St. Martin’s: Macmillan): “Michael Eric Dyson offers an idea: Black performance and presence is the foundation from which America, as a nation and a concept, emerges.” And, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America by Noah Feldman (FSG): “displays its author’s usual brilliance and boldness in his contrarianism, and a passionate engagement with the past. What it lacks is historical soundness. In the end, Jefferson Davis’s constitutionalism proves, once again, no match for Abraham Lincoln’s.” Also, Still Life by Sarah Winman (Putnam): “Winman makes the case over and over again that beauty is truth, truth beauty, and of course it raises the reader’s expectations. If the book itself isn’t transcendent, the scaffolding will not hold.”And, Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart (Random; LJ starred review): “The novel’s strengths abound. It upends clichés, pieties and commonplaces while also noticing salient details of the lockdown.” And, New York, My Village by Uwem Akpan (Norton): “succeeds in making the too-rare observation that identity exists not as a fixed, individual thing, but in relation to others, and thus is constantly shifting. To those who forget this, Akpan extends a depth of kindness and forgiveness that gives this sometimes frustrating, but ultimately illuminating, book its sense of hope.” And, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience by Zoë Playdon (Scribner): “When autonomy is granted and easily taken away, whole groups of citizens may experience unpredictable swings in their legal rights, social customs and ability to be heard. Zoë Playdon’s erudite, passionate, occasionally frustrating, yet ultimately persuasive new book…encapsulates this reality by telling three stories at once.” And, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age by Debby Applegate (Doubleday): “the very trait that made Polly Adler survive and succeed is also what makes her defiantly elusive. Applegate, armed with formidable skills, may be the biographer who can come closest to revealing her.” And, Burntcoat by Sarah Hall (Custom House): “carries a flavor of that form — in its lush intensity, its abrupt leaps in time and its reliance on mood and image and theme over scope or gradual development. There’s a quality akin to Marilynne Robinson, though Hall pays less attention to the intricacies of psychology.” Plus, The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy (Knopf): “At this point, the most radical and surprising path forward for McCarthy would be to write a novel in which human beings are treated with the same dazzling complexity as ideas.” Lastly, three short reviews of historical fiction and more reviews on the books page. 

The Washington Post reviews The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom (Harper): “Panning a book like this may feel like harpooning a minnow, but I think treacly metaphysical fiction does us a cultural disservice. To borrow a word, it narcotizes people in search of real spiritual wisdom. That’s a shame because every religious tradition and many thoughtful writers of faith provide profound guidance through dark times of despair and grief.”

Briefly Noted

The buyer’s pick in the November issue of Costco Connection is Better Off Dead by Lee Child & Andrew Child (Delacorte Press) and the assistant buyer’s pick is Never by Ken Follett (Viking). There is also a cover feature on Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present (Liverlight: Norton), and a feature on Jesus Listens: Daily Devotional Prayers of Peace, Joy, and Hope by Sarah Young.

The NYT asks Kat Penn 5 things about his new book, You Can't Be Serious (Gallery).

USA Today talks with Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa about their new book, Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos (William Morrow: HarperCollins), that sprang from their popular weekly podcast.

LA Times has an interview with Ai Weiwei about his memoir,1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir trans. by Allan H. Barr (Crown; LJ starred review), his persecution and the power of art. 

Rebecca Solnit, Orwell's Roses (Viking), explains why it is important that George Orwell was a gardener, in conversation with Paul Holdengräber on The Quarantine Tapes. LitHub has the clip.

The Guardian publishes Margaret Atwood’s introduction to On Cats: An Anthology, photography by Elliot Ross (Notting Hill Editions: PRH), which comes out today.

Entertainment Weekly has a preview and cover reveal for Lisa Taddeo’s forthcoming collection, Ghost Lover: Stories (Avid Reader: S. & S.), due out in June, 2022.

The NYT shares “16 New Books Coming in November.”

Entertainment Weekly has must-reads for November.

Time recommends 10 new books for November.

LitHub has 20 new books for the week.

The Millions looks at notable books coming out this week. 

Vulture has an updated “Best Books of the Year (So Far)” list.

CrimeReads has “masterful mysteries set in the midwest.”

Tordotcom shares “All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in November!”

Authors On Air

NPR’s Book of the Day features Melissa Lozada-Oliva's debut, Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse (Astra House).

NPR’s Code Switch talks with Kat Chow about her memoir, Seeing Ghosts (Grand Central).

Andrew McCarthy will direct a documentary based on his memoir, Brat: An ’80s Story (Grand Central). Deadline has the story.

The Boogeyman adaptation, based on a story by Stephen King, will be a two hour movie on Hulu. Deadline reports. 

Willa's Grove by Laura Munson (Blackstone) is being adapted as a film. Deadline reports.

Chris Pratt will voice Garfield, with associated titles, in new animated movie.

Tamron Hall, As the Wicked Watch (Morrow), visits The View tomorrow. David Chang and Priya Krishna, Cooking at Home: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes (And Love My Microwave): A Cookbook (Clarkson Potter), will be on with Drew Barrymore. Andy Cohen, Glitter Every Day: 365 Quotes from Women I Love  (Holt), will be on The Talk and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

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