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Big Books of the Week

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren (Gallery) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead)

In the Blood by Jack Carr (Atria/Emily Bestler)

The Island by Adrian McKinty (Little, Brown)

The Lost Summers of Newport by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White (Morrow)

These books and others publishing the week of May 16, 2022, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Awards & Events

The Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards 2022 are announced.

The Atlantic Monthly expands its book coverage.  New this week:  a summer reading guide, and essays by Imbolo Mbue, Caitlin Flanagan, Maxim Osipov, Vivian Gornick, Ling Ma, and more. 

The U.S. Book Show kicks off May 23 through May 26. PW shares the schedule. 

The Jerusalem International Book Forum launches its in-person event with a conversation with Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. Publishing Perspectives covers the program.

TikTok will be the digital media partner for the Hay Festival. The Bookseller reports.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three LibraryReads selections and four Indie Next picks publish this week:

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead)

“On the day before Alice turns 40, her father is near death. She then wakes the next day to find that it’s her 16th birthday and her dad is young and healthy. Is there anything she’d change about the past, now that she has the chance? A poignant look at the paths we choose in life. For fans of Fredrick Backman and Rebecca Serle.”—Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Library, Austin, TX

It is also the #1 Indie Next pick:

“Time travel and 1990s teen angst and awkwardness with Emma Straub at the helm? Sign me up! This is the perfect blend of heartbreak and heartfelt laughter that we could all use a dose of right now.”—Javier Ramirez, Exile in Bookville, Chicago, IL

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren (Gallery)

“Lily and Leo had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, but then Leo disappears. Ten years later, they are brought back together when Leo’s on a boy’s trip at Lily’s cowboy retreat, but suddenly a misstep finds the group seeking a buried treasure. Crazy plot-twists and betrayals guarantee a fresh, readable romance.”—Taylor Banze, St. Charles City-County Library, O’Fallon, MO

Adult Assembly Required by Abbi Waxman (Berkley)

“Laura Costello, a recent transplant to L.A.’s Larchmont Village, is still recovering from the emotional and physical trauma of a car accident. With the help of some new friends and the return of beloved characters like Nina Hill and hilarious little Claire, Laura slowly finds herself and her voice.”—Jaime Bink, Harford County Library, Belcamp, MD

Three additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

Metropolis by B.A. Shapiro (Algonquin)

“Metropolis is a riveting read by a remarkable storyteller. Shapiro’s cast of characters will keep you guessing. A tribute to old Boston and how people live—in wealth or poverty—and remain human and connected to one another. Well done!”—Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach (Holt)

“An insightful, moving, funny, and deeply relatable novel. Alison Espach masterfully brings to life a coming-of-age story in the midst of a terrible and sudden tragedy. This novel will stick with you and make you want to share it.”—Keith Vient, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner (St. Martin’s)

“A satisfying read about three ladies in a London bookshop in 1950. Through friendship, acuity, and boldness, they triumphantly break through the restrictive roles of womanhood to take control of their own futures and happiness!”—Annette Steinmetz, The Well-Read Moose, Coeur d'Alene, ID

In the Media

The People “Picks” book of the week is This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead). Also getting attention are Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach (Holt), and Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles (Algonquin). A “Star Picks” section highlights Billy Joel by Fred Schruers (Crown Archetype), The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (Dey St.; LJ starred review), and Cracking the Menopause by Mariella Frostrup (Bluebird).

The “Picks” section highlights HBO’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the book by Audrey Niffenegger; Firestarter, based on the book by Stephen King; Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with assoc. titles; and Netflix’s Operation Mincemeat, based on the book by Ben Macintyre.

The cover feature spotlights Selma Blair and her new memoir, Mean Baby (Knopf), about learning to thrive after a traumatic past. There is also a feature on Marvel’s Simu Liu and his new memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story (Morrow; LJ starred review).

Entertainment Weekly has its 2022 Summer Preview with book coverage featuring sizzling beach reads, 16 novels of sweet escape, and a kids’ summer reading list. Taylor Jenkins Reid, whose forthcoming novel, Carrie Soto Is Back (Ballantine), drops August 30, talks about the books of her life. EW also shares details from The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey (Dey St.), including how the show could have run for two more seasons.

Reviews

NYT reviews River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard (Doubleday; LJ starred review): “a lean, fast-paced account of the almost absurdly dangerous quest by those two friends turned enemies, Richard Burton and John Speke, to solve the geographic riddle of their era.” And, Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery by Paul Craddock (St. Martin’s): “And so we are off, on a thrilling and often terrifying ride through transplantation and the theories and techniques that made it possible.” Also, The Familia Grande: A Memoir by Camille Kouchner, trans. by Adriana Hunter (Other Pr.): “The book is a sharply focused portrait of a certain kind of privileged French family of its era, first revolutionary and then bourgeois: their sexual mores, their thirst for power and fame, the collateral damage to children.” Plus, several more reviews in today’s books section. 

The Washington Post reviews Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar by Alan Shipnuck (Avid Reader Pr./S. & S.): “Shipnuck’s most stunning revelation relates to Mickelson’s gambling losses, which totaled more than $40 million between 2010 and ’14.” And, Mean Baby by Selma Blair (Knopf): “Blair’s memoir of her life thus far is funny and frank, a chance to spend time with a brave and big-hearted woman who’s grown up to be not so mean, after all.” NYT also reviews: “Mean Baby is not an illness memoir. It is a traditional autobiography, in that it covers the whole of Blair’s life so far. But M.S. haunts the book—it’s what we know is in those cards. Blair’s disease offers her a new way to see her past, and she uses it to divine her own history.”

USA Today reviews This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead), giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: “Straub is concerned with love–its different forms and expressions, how it evolves over time, and how we can be better at giving and accepting it.” Plus, I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston (Wednesday: Macmillan), and Book Lovers by Emily Henry (Berkley; LJ starred review), get four-star reviews along with May’s top rom-com reads.

NPR reviews three books on writing by female authors: Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi (Dey St.); In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante, trans. by Ann Goldstein (Europa); and Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen (Random; LJ starred review): “Nafisi, Ferrante, and Quindlen vigorously assert that reading and writing can pull us out of our mess. They show us ways the written word can help us turn our present adversity into something beautiful. In their hands, reading and writing are our panacea, worth celebrating.”

Briefly Noted

Marc Lamont Hill, Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice written with Todd Brewster (Atria), talks to Salon about “George Floyd’s martyrdom changed America, and why cops and prisons can’t deliver justice.”

The Millions has an interview with Devi S. Laskar, Circa (Mariner), about re-imagining her novel from a laptop that was lost during a police raid.

Authors Christina Baker Kline and Eva Stachniak, The School of Mirrors (Morrow Paperbacks), discuss the “power and purpose” of historical fiction at LitHub.

At FoxNews, Brian Morgenstern and Teresa Davis share a citrus sangria recipe from their forthcoming book, Vignettes & Vino: Dinner Table Stories from the Trump White House with Recipes & Cocktail Pairings (Post Hill Pr.), due out October 25.

USA Today highlights Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn’s new book, How To Be a Boss B*tch (Abrams Image).  

Datebook examines “why our literary prizes have lost their luster.”

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads suggests 10 books out this week.

The Washington Post recommends thrillers for now and later.

Tor shares “five fantasies with prophesied chosen ones.”

Katsumoto Saotome, Who Preserved Stories of Tokyo Firebombing, Dies at 90. NYT has an obituary.

Larry Woiwode, Who Wrote of Family, Faith and Rural Life, Dies at 80. NYT has an obituary.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Selma Blair about her new memoir, Mean Baby (Knopf).

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday chats with Matt Kirkland, creator of The Dracula Daily email newsletter. Plus, an interview with Anne Heltzel about her new horror novel, Just Like Mother (Tor Nightmare).

Garrison Keillor talks about “#MeToo and returning to Lake Wobegon,” on CBS Sunday Morning.

Poet Ada Limón talks with Mitzi Rapkin about her latest book, The Hurting Kind (Milkweed Editions), on the First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing podcast.

Vanity Fair has an exclusive interview with Stephen King about his take on the new Firestarter film, based on his book.

T&C breaks down the differences between book, TV show, and movie of The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Judd Apatow, Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy (Random), will be on with Stephen Colbert tonight. Ali Wentworth, Ali’s Well That Ends Well: Tales of Desperation and a Little Inspiration (Harper), will guest-host The Talk. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There (Dey St.), visit with Seth Meyers tonight and Live with Kelly and Ryan tomorrow.

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