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Big Books of the Week

Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger (Atria) leads holds this week. 

Other titles in demand include:

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine)

This Is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter (Morrow)

City of Secrets by P.J. Tracy (Minotaur)

Betrayal Road by Christine Feehan (Berkley)

These books and others publishing the week of August 5, 2024, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Two LibraryReads and six Indie Next picks publish this week:

Hall of Fame pick By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine) is also an Indie Next pick:

“A fascinating story of a woman who may have written many of the works attributed to Shakespeare. While this book is fiction, Picoult digs deep into the research that’s been done to present an interesting and intriguing tale of what might have been.”—Camille Kovach, Completely Booked, Murrysville, PA

Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks (Putnam) *Debut

“Irish mortician Callum has to find a wife, or he can’t inherit. Lark is a widow vacationing next door who doesn’t want to find love again for herself but agrees to help Callum find a wife. Of course, love is right in front of them! Readers will enjoy this slow-burn grumpy/sunshine romance.”—Kista Black, Cabell Co. Public Library, WV

Five additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (S. & S.)

“Inspired by a true story, The Instrumentalist immediately pulled me into 18th-century Venice. Anna Maria’s journey to find love, meaning, and purpose in life kept me turning pages. It’s so satisfying watching her learn to use her gift for good.”—Michelle Ratto, A Thousand Stories, Herndon, VA

Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger (Atria)

“A work of fiction can hold an abundance of truth. In this story, it’s not until the body of a missing white girl from a prominent family is found that a missing Indigenous woman gets attention from law enforcement. Lives are at stake on the path to the truth.”—Casey Luke, The Book Shoppe, Boone, IA

Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home by Chris La Tray (Milkweed)

“With Becoming Little Shell, Chris La Tray takes a very personal journey of introspection and familiar heritage and connects it to the larger social issues of the Métis and other Indigenous peoples. This book is an accomplishment.”—Mara Panich-Crouch, Fact & Fiction Downtown, Missoula, MT

Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith (Graywolf; LJ starred review)

“Danez Smith is an artist grappling with the role of art at the end of the world. These poems shine a soft light into the darkest tunnels of our history, into the precise cuts they made into your soul, and leave you with something better than hope.”—Michelle Carroll, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Knopf; LJ starred review)

“Water: the omnipresent witness to the reverberation of the underdog and the valorized, to the drenched disorderedness of security throughout civilization. Elif Shafak tackles the toxicity of human greed, cruelty, and survival through water.”—Kayleen Rohrer, InkLink Books, East Troy, WI

In the Media

People’s book of the week is We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft (Berkley). Also getting attention are Talking to Strangers by Fiona Barton (Berkley; LJ starred review) and Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home by Chris La Tray (Milkweed). Titles by “New Latin American Voices” include Freedom Is a Feast by Alejandro Puyana (Little, Brown), The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera (Pantheon; LJ starred review), and There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner). People talks with Jodi Picoult about her new book, By Any Other Name (Ballantine), and highlights the screen adaptations of My Sister’s Keeper and Between the Lines. People online has more.

The “Picks” section spotlights Apple TV+’s Bad Monkey, based on the novel by Carl Hiassen. Plus, recipes from John Kanell, Preppy Kitchen Super Easy: 100 Simple and Versatile Recipes (Simon Element), and Nisha Vora, Big Vegan Flavor: Techniques and 150 Recipes to Master Vegan Cooking (Avery).

Reviews

NYT reviews The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera (Pantheon; LJ starred review): “Mainly, what emerges triumphantly from Balibrera’s pages is a gifted new storyteller with a nose for history and a prodigious imagination”; There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Knopf; LJ starred review): “When the puzzle pieces fit into place, and the fates of the present-day characters collide, the final twist is both contrived and genuinely moving”; Prisoner of Lies: Jack Downey’s Cold War by Barry Werth (S. & S.): “Werth’s book, which draws heavily on Downey’s own posthumously published memoir, shares something of the appeal of Laura Hillenbrand’s World War II survival story Unbroken—a tale of resilience in the face of almost unthinkable misfortune”; The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (S. & S.): “Harriet Constable offers her own answers to this question through a complex and vivid portrait of Anna Maria della Pietà, an 18th-century Venetian violinist and conductor, and a favorite pupil of the composer Antonio Vivaldi”; Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris (Knopf): “This is a dark novel, but one that wrests beauty and hope out of suffering. It is a work of literature that transforms horror and violence into a life force”; Swallow the Ghost by Eugenie Montague (Mulholland): “Montague’s debut is bold and ingenious but ultimately confounding”; The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country by Rosie Schaap (Mulholland): “The Slow Road North is a patient book, exceptional when Schaap shows us what brings joy to her life after so many years of grief. You’ll find a fortifying dose of grace in these pages”; and Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist by Jane Rosenberg (Hanover Square: Harlequin; LJ starred review): “In precise, often lyrical prose, Rosenberg reflects on a career at the intersection of art and law, fact and impression, reason and emotion.” Plus, more reviews from the weekend.

Washington Post reviews Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Farrar): “Godfrey-Smith is sober, precise and impressively scientifically informed, but even such a no-nonsense thinker cannot resist metaphors of personification when confronted with the riches of the natural world”; and Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Farrar): “Survival Is a Promise admirably demonstrates the breadth and depth of Lorde’s journey from Harlem to the stars.” Plus, a review of Queen Camilla’s summer book club pick Mapp & Lucia by E.F. Benson (Hesperus Classics): “This 1931 novel is just one of the literary gems produced by the prolific author E.F. Benson, whose works deserve a new look.”

Briefly Noted

Talk show host and author Phil Donahue has died at the age of 88. People has a remembrance.

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week.

Entertainment Weekly recommends seven summer romance novels. 

Washington Post shares five feel-good books.

NYT profiles Virginia Nicholson and her new book, All the Rage: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty; A History of Pain, Pleasure, and Power, 1860–1960 (Pegasus). 

Carley Fortune, Jasmine Guillory, Elle Kennedy, and more recommend summer reads at People.

Authors on Air

Carl Hiassen talks with CBS Sunday Morning about his book Bad Monkey becoming an Apple TV+ series. Also on CBS Sunday Morning, H.R. McMaster discusses his new book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House (Harper), which publishes next week. 

Luis Elizondo, author of Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs (Morrow), visits CBS Mornings. 

NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour considers “the physical media we still treasure.”

Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders (Morrow) will be adapted for film, Deadline reports. 

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