Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Big Books of the Week

The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Holt; LJ starred review) leads holds this week. It is also the August Read with Jenna book club pick.

Other titles in demand include:

What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman: Viking; LJ starred review)

Hard to Kill by James Patterson & Mike Lupica (Little, Brown)

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell (Morrow)

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight (Knopf)

These books and others publishing the week of July 29, 2024, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Three LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week:

Hall of Fame pick Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell (Morrow), is also an Indie Next Pick: 

“Shiloh and Cary quickly became two of my favorite characters ever. Rowell uses dual POV and a nonlinear timeline to explore a stunning relationship between two utterly flawed, brilliantly eccentric best friends.”—Ebani Filbert, The Bookworm of Omaha, Omaha, NE

Other Hall of Fame picks include Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight (Knopf) and What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman: Viking; LJ starred review)

Three additional Indie Next picks publish this week, including the #1 pick:

The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Holt; LJ starred review)

“The Wedding People hits the absolute sweet spot of compulsively fun to read while asking serious questions about life, love, and a lavish destination wedding. Alison Espach’s mix of light and dark makes for deeply authentic characters.”—Nina Barrett, Bookends & Beginnings, Evanston, IL

The Horse by Willy Vlautin (Harper)

“Al Ward is flawed—alcoholism, a never quite good enough country guitarist and song writer. When a blind horse shows up at his isolated shack on a snowy, freezing night, the best of Al comes out. Yes, Al is flawed, but you'll root for him.”—Karen Emmerling, Beach Books, Seaside, OR

Pearl by Siân Hughes (Knopf)

“A shatteringly beautiful story of a woman’s search for answers about her mother’s disappearance. Through shifting memories, the reader moves through Marianne’s trauma and changing understanding of her mother. This aches and amazes in equal measure.”—Allyson Howard, Invitation Bookshop, Gig Harbor, WA

In the Media

People’s book of the week is The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Holt; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness (Ballantine; LJ starred review) and Liars by Sarah Manguso (Hogarth). “Summer Page Turners” include The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (Viking; LJ starred review), Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu (Knopf), and The Lucky Ones: A Memoir by Zara Chowdhary (Crown).

The “Picks” section spotlights Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake, based on the book by Laura Lippman. There is a feature on collaborators Keanu Reeves and China Miéville and their new book, The Book of Elsewhere (Del Rey). Plus, there are recipes from Dan Churchill, Eat Like a Legend: Delicious, Super Easy Recipes to Perform at Your Peak (HarperOne), and Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Table, Volume 3: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering (Morrow).

Reviews

NYT reviews We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston (Random): “Ultimately, what keeps us reading a novel is the promise of revelation, and it’s in the smallest and most seemingly off-handed of its surprises that We Burn Daylight is most alluring”; and Off the Books by Soma Mei Sheng Frazier (Holt): “Frazier captures the relatable toggle between the private and the collective, between sinking into the anxieties of your life and grieving for the cruelties of the world.”

Washington Post reviews Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain by Ed Simon (Melville House): “Devil’s Contract reminds us of how often we deludedly exchange something of inestimable value—our souls, our freedom, our honor, our beautiful Earth—for what is ultimately glittery trash”; and Hot Dog Money: Inside the Biggest Scandal in the History of College Sports by Guy Lawson (Little A): “The best scenes feel tailor-made for a frisky eight-episode streamer. And indeed, the book’s film rights have already been snatched up by George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures and Amazon Studios.”

Briefly Noted

Sam Helmick is elected as ALA’s 2024–25 president. Infodocket has details.

The Glass Bell Award shortlist is announced.

NYT previews 15 books for August. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week. 

The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing” has an olympic book list.

Washington Post prescribes a summer reading refill of 14 books to “brighten the rest of the season.”

NYT reflects on James Baldwin’s milestone play, Blues for Mister Charlie, 60 years after its Broadway debut.

German publisher Ullstein has dropped its German translation of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (Harper). Newsweek has details. 

LA Times talks with Bret Anthony Johnston about his new novel, We Burn Daylight (Random), inspired by the 1993 events at Waco.

Vulture profiles author Casey McQuiston, whose latest book, The Pairing (St. Martin’s Griffin; LJ starred review), arrives August 6. 

At Elle, author Katie Kitamura previews her forthcoming novel, Audition (Riverhead), due out in April 2025.

People shares details from forthcoming royal biography, Catherine, the Princess of Wales by Robert Jobson (Pegasus), due out August 6.

Irish novelist Edna O’Brien has died at the age of 93. Irish Times has an obituary. NYT also has an obituary, as does The Guardian. There are also tributes at Washington Post, BBC, and PBS.

“Gail Lumet Buckley, Chronicler of Black Family History, Dies at 86.” NYT has an obituary. 

Memoirist Jill Schary Robinson dies at 88. NYT remembers her legacy. 

Social scientist and author James C. Scott dies at 87. NYT has an obituary. 

Authors on Air

James Patterson and Mike Lupica, Hard To Kill (Little, Brown), visit GMA today.

Sue Varma, Practical Optimism: The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being (Avery), also visits GMA.

Gretchen Whitmer, True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between (S. & S.), will appear on CBS Mornings.

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.