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Big Books of the Week

Lethal Prey by John Sandford (Putnam) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben (Grand Central)

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (Tor)

This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (Sourcebooks Landmark; LJ starred review)

Summer in the City (Deluxe Limited Edition) by Alex Aster (Morrow)

Tilt by Emma Pattee (S. & S.: Marysue Rucci)

These books and others publishing the week of March 24, 2025, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Four LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week.

Just Our Luck by Denise Williams (Berkley) is a Hall of Fame pick.

Hall of Fame pick This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (Sourcebooks Landmark; LJ starred review) is also an Indie Next pick:

“Jane is depressed and suffering from the loss of her father. She ends up in true crime forums where she quickly becomes immersed. What seems like an easy way to pass the time is anything but safe. This is one of the best suspense books I’ve read this year.”—Jackie Willey, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

Hall of Fame pick When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (Tor) is also an Indie Next pick:

“Ah, the Moon: inspiration for poets, light for lovers, our waxing and waning companion. Well, now it’s made of cheese, and humanity has to cope. A sprawling cast come to terms with this new reality in Scalzi’s thoroughly entertaining new novel.”—Stephen Allen, Forever Books, St. Joseph, MI

Saltwater by Katy Hays (Ballantine)

“A normal family might have stopped visiting Capri after one of them ‘accidentally’ fell off a cliff, but the Lingates are far from normal. Wealthy enough to shrug off the scandal, they've only become more insular in the decades since. Sarah and Lorna scheme to finally learn the truth, but then Lorna vanishes. This narrative unveils the family's toxicity as it alternates between three POVs.”—Sarah Walker, Indianapolis Public Library, IN

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie (Putnam; LJ starred review)

“Currie gives us an antiheroine for the ages—a sort of Mainer Grandma Tony Soprano—and the saga of her matriarchal crime family which mixes blood, levity, and heart like a perfect martini.”—Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, KY

Tilt by Emma Pattee (S. & S.: Marysue Rucci)

“Pattee takes us inside the mind of soon-to-be mother Annie in her attempt to reunite with her husband after a huge earthquake. Tilt poses imperative questions about our nature as individuals and collectively in the face of societal collapse.”—Aubrey Winkler, Powell's Books, Portland, OR

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Firstborn: A Memoir by Lauren Christensen (Penguin Pr.). Also getting attention are Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky (Knopf) and The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue (S. & S.: Summit). There is a Q&A with Savannah Guthrie about her picture book Mostly What God Does Is Love You, illus. by Morgan Huff (Zonderkidz).

The “Picks” section spotlights PBS’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, based on the novel by Hillary Mantel. Also highlighted are The Electric State, based on the book by Simon Stålenhag, and The Residence, inspired by The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower, both on Netflix.

There is a feature on Amanda Knox and her new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning (Grand Central). Plus, a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, Super-Italian: More Than 110 Indulgent Recipes Using Italy’s Healthiest Foods (Rodale).

Reviews

NYT reviews Yoko: A Biography by David Sheff (S. & S.): “I am not an Ono-phile who wants to wallow overmuch in this kind of art, but applaud Sheff’s book as an important corrective to years of bad P.R. He’s done the opposite of a hatchet job, putting his subject back together branch by branch, like a forester”; Twist by Colum McCann (Random; LJ starred review): “It’s a literary conundrum of sorts, how on the surface Colum McCann’s novel Twist feels narratively disheveled, with subplots warmed up and abandoned, and loose threads dangling as they do everywhere in life. But the parts are not the sum”; Counting Backwards by Binnie Kirshenbaum (Soho; LJ starred review): “Counting Backwards is to illness narratives what yellow is to the rainbow. It mixes well with others, but it’s going to do its own thing—brighten up a room, get on your nerves, define the beginning of a new day or the end of an old one”; The Colony by Annika Norlin, tr. by Alice E. Olsson (Europa): “Too often novels packed with this many ideas sacrifice emotion in favor of mounting a ponderous argument; Norlin instead writes visceral episodes that speak for themselves”; and Tilt by Emma Pattee (S. & S.: Marysue Rucci): “Emma Pattee’s debut novel, Tilt, is a moving adrenaline rush that also manages to be very funny.” Washington Post also reviews the latter: “Pattee’s ambivalence about human goodness is a powerful thing; it calls into question the assumptions we make about ourselves.” Plus, more NYT reviews from the weekend.

Washington Post reviews Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock & Tom Beaujour (St. Martin’s): “Bienstock and Beaujour paint a detailed and sympathetic picture of the challenges facing organizers who had to put together a bill that pleased both hipsters and their accountants, and road crews who had to figure out the daily logistical challenges of erecting a village in the middle of nowhere and then tearing it down”; The Maverick’s Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream by Blake Gopnik (Ecco): “Gopnik boasts advantages over previous Barnes biographers, including his critical acumen and the Barnes Foundation’s willingness to permit what the book’s publicity materials tout as “unprecedented access” to its archives”; and There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown) and Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass by Sarah Jones (Avid Reader/S. & S.), both of which “reckon with how American society has drawn lines that assume certain people are undeserving of security.”

LA Times reviews When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter, with James Fox (Penguin Pr.): “When the Going Was Good is catnip for those of us still addicted to magazines, who still harbor the delusion that we’ll get to that pile on the table as soon as we can. Carter seems to know how fortunate he was to ride the wave and thrive as a shot-caller back when that meant something more than it does today.”

Briefly Noted

The West Passage by Jared Pechacek (Tor; LJ starred review) wins the Crawford Award, Locus reports.

The Canadian Independent Booksellers Association and Indigo have asked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to exempt books from 25% counter-tariffs with the U.S., set to take effect April 2. Shelf Awareness has the story.

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week.

NYT writes about a trending subset of memoirs about authors’ connections to wild animals.

Kristin Hannah talks about her mother’s influence on her writing, at People.

USA Today talks with actors who have pivoted to writing novels.

USA Today previews Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution (Sentinel), due out September 9th. NYT also has coverage.

People shares an excerpt from Yoko: A Biography by David Sheff (S. & S.), in which Ono learns of John Lennon’s death.

Author Thomas Hoobler has died at the age of 82; NYT has an obituary.

Authors On Air

On CBS Sunday Morning, Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter discusses his new memoir, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, written with James Fox (Penguin Pr.).

Harlan Coben, Nobody’s Fool (Grand Central), visits GMA today.

Krysten Ritter, author of Retreat (Harper), appears on CBS Mornings.

Roxane Gay, The Portable Feminist Reader (Penguin Classics; LJ starred review), will be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

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