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Big Books of the Week

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (Entangled: Red Tower) leads holds this week. Entertainment Weekly offers a readers guide to Yarros’s books. USA Today reports on the title’s midnight release. Shelf Awareness also has coverage.

Other titles in demand include:

Better Than Friends by Jill Shalvis (Avon)

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, tr. by e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris (Hogarth; LJ starred review)

Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti (St. Martin’s Griffin)

These books and others publishing the week of January 20, 2025, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

There are no LibraryReads or Indie Next picks publishing this week.

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown). Also getting attention are Homeseeking by Karissa Chen (Putnam) and The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight (Viking: Pamela Dorman). Plus, there is a sneak preview of Suzanne Collins’s forthcoming “Hunger Games” novel, Sunrise on the Reaping (Scholastic), due out March 18.

The “Picks” section spotlights The Room Next Door, based on the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez (Random; LJ starred review). Plus, a recipe from Eleanor Wilkinson, One Pot One Portion: 100 Simple Recipes Just for You (Clarkson Potter). 

Reviews

NYT reviews Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe (Doubleday): “Aiming to center Black and Indigenous history and ecology, Dark Laboratory is a pointed response to the dominance of scientific rationalism as the language best suited to the climate crisis”; Mona Acts Out by Mischa Berlinski (Liveright: Norton): “Mona Acts Out is a comedy, too, but its affinity for Shakespeare gravitates at least as much toward the tragedies, and there remains a swirl of stubborn trauma at the novel’s center”; Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation by Bennett Parten (S. & S.; LJ starred review): “Parten’s signature contribution to the vast literature on Sherman’s march is to consider it from the vantage of the 20,000 or more refugees who trailed in the wake of his soldiers”; and Bowling with Corpses and Other Strange Tales from Lands Unknown, written & illus. by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse): “These are the little uncertainties that make Bowling With Corpses so odd and so pleasant. The book is a good reminder that the history of imaginative literature is also the history of illustrated literature, and not just for children.” Plus, more reviews from the weekend. 

Briefly Noted

The Novel Prize shortlist is announced. 

LitHub highlights 22 new books for the week. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week. 

The Guardian rounds up the best crime and thrillers of the month. 

Publishers Weekly considers what book publishing can expect under a new Trump administration.

LA Times talks with actor Naomi Watts about her new book, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause (Crown). 

Jenna Bush Hager talks with People about one of the inspirations behind her new imprint, Thousand Voices Books.

Elizabeth Gilbert announces a new memoir, All the Way to the River (Riverhead), due out September 9. People has a the story.

On GMA, Rebecca Ross previewed her forthcoming novel, Wild Reverence (Saturday Bks.), due out September 2.

Authors On Air

Steve Guttenberg, author of Time To Thank: Caregiving for My Hero (Post Hill), talks with CBS Sunday Morning about assisting during the Pacific Palisades wildfire and his caregiving for his father.

CBS Sunday Morning chats with Meryl Gordon about The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington’s Most Famous Hostess (Grand Central), and shares excerpts from her book and Sally Quinn’s 1997 book The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining.

Authors discuss a new AI licensing site with NPR’s Morning Edition. 

PBS Newshour talks with poet and Los Angeles native Amanda Gorman about her new poem “Smoldering Dawn,” dedicated to first responders. 

Naomi Watts, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause (Crown) visits Today. She will also appear on Live with Kelly and Mark.

Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, You Deserve To Be Rich: Master the Inner Game of Wealth and Claim Your Future (Crown Currency), will visit the Sherri Shepherd Show.

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