'Rage' by Bob Woodward Leads Library Holds| Book Pulse

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Big Books of the Week

Rage by Bob Woodward (S. & S.) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland Books: Hachette)

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett (Viking: Penguin)

Total Power by Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills (Atria/Emily Bestler Books: S. & S.)

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini (Tor Books: Macmillan)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury USA: Macmillan; LJ starred review)

These books and others publishing the week of Sept. 14, 2020, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

There are three LibraryReads picks out this week:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury USA: Macmillan; LJ starred review)

“Piranesi is the sole inhabitant of a mysterious “house” with endless rooms full of statues and a surging ocean below. With lyrical and hypnotic writing in his journal, he guides readers through his beloved labyrinthine home and introduces “The Other,” a sporadic visitor and the only other living human being...or so he thought. For fans of The Starless Sea and The Bedlam Stacks.” —Catherine Tarver, Indian Prairie Public Library, Darien, IL

It is also an Indie Next selection:  

“It was more than 15 years ago that Susanna Clarke built a wing on the edifice of fantasy fiction unlike any seen before in the form of a debut novel called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. After so long, I’d be grateful for any new work from her, but I’m unspeakably glad that she’s again constructed something entirely new. Piranesi has a smaller footprint than her previous novel, but makes more efficient use of space, cramming an entire unsettling universe into a book far bigger on the inside than it is out.” —James Crossley, Madison Books, Seattle, WA

The Roommate by Rosie Danan (Berkley: Penguin)

"When Clara decides to move from New York to LA to live with her forever crush/childhood best friend Everett, he tells her he is going on the road with his band all summer, but not to worry, he has a roommate lined up for her. This roommate, it turns out, works in the adult entertainment industry. For readers who enjoyed My Favorite Half-Night Stand (Lauren)." —Afton Finley, Waseca Library, Waseca, MN

Don't Look for Me by Wendy Walker (St. Martin’s: Macmillan)

“Years after Molly accidentally kills her young daughter in a car accident, her family remains torn apart by grief. When she vanishes one stormy night, the authorities determine she ran away. But when her elder daughter investigates, she realizes the truth may be more sinister.” —Vanessa Phillips, Pelion Branch Library, Pelion, SC

Two additional Indie Next picks also publish this week:

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (Little, Brown: Hachette; LJ starred review)

“A masterful blend of memoir and fiction, this is an unforgettable journey through the lives of a Muslim family finding their place in a post-9/11 America. A searing navigation of the loves we try to reconcile — familial, religious, societal — and the definition of home. Written with wisdom, wit, and unsparing honesty, this an important book that you will continue to contemplate for a very long time. Both intimate and epic, this is a must-read.” —Pam Stirling, East Bay Booksellers, Oakland, CA

Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream by Mychal Denzel Smith (Bold Type Books: Hachette)

“Here it is: The book we’ve been waiting for that we didn’t even know we were waiting for. This book is here to fan the flames of our righteous indignation and our demands for better sooner. This book will make your blood boil over just in time to bring it to the polls in November. Like a mother lion, it picks you up by the scruff of your neck — mewling and new to the world of antiracism — and demands that you walk on your own. Thank goodness this book exists.” —Charlotte Colaluca, Mystery to Me, Madison, WII (on the October list).

In the Media

People’s "Book of the Week" is Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: S. & S.; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie (Algonquin: Workman), The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline (Custom House: Harper; LJ starred review), and Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss by Jenna Bush Hager (William Morrow: Harper). Mulan and Enola Holmes make the “Picks” list. Also getting mention is Back to the Future: The Official Hill Valley Cookbook : Over Sixty-Five Classic Hill Valley Recipes From the Past, Present, and Future! by Allison Robicelli (Insight Editions: S. & S.).

Reviews

NPR reviews The Contradictions by Sophie Yanow (Drawn and Quarterly): "isn't just an engaging read, it's a warming and affirming one.” Also, Arrow by Sumita Chakraborty (Alice James Books): “As an epic collection of fables, songs, and dreams … a book that creates magic out of what hurts us most.”

USA Today reviews Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (Little, Brown: Hachette; LJ starred review), giving it 3.5 stars and calling it “bracing and revealing.” Also, The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin (Penguin), giving it a perfect four stars and writing “provides an engaging survey course on the lifeblood of modern civilization — where the world has been and where it is likely headed. By the final page, the reader will feel like an energy expert herself.”

The NYT reviews World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, illustrated by Fumi Nakamura (Milkweed Editions): “Within two pages, nature writing feels different and fresh and new. Nezhukumatathil has written a timely story about love, identity and belonging (more accurately often about not belonging, because of racism and her family’s immigrant experience) … It is a very fine book indeed, truly full of wonder.” Also, Payback by Mary Gordon (Pantheon: Random House): “morally complex ... Mary Gordon isn’t, strictly speaking, a naturalistic or realistic novelist, but rather a moralist … she’s concerned herself with questions of ethics, belief, responsibility, devotion, obligation.” The WEIRDest People in the World : How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich (FSG: Macmillan): “engagingly written, excellently organized and meticulously argued.” The Crime column is out.

Briefly Noted

USA Today picks five books for the week.

CrimeReads has ten books for the week.

Essence has “Back To School: 6 Must-Read Books About Race For Your Children And Teens.”

Popsugar picks 35 titles for the fall.      

In LJ, Barbara Hoffert picks poetry collections for the fall.

The CBC suggests “17 works of Canadian YA fiction coming out in fall 2020.”

Popsugar offers “21 Sports Romance Books For Anyone Who Has a Thing For Athletes.”

BookPage has book club title suggestions.

Margaret Atwood wins the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. USA Today reports.

The Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships are announced.

The shortlist for the BBC National Short Story Award has been released.

The Tony Ryan finalists are out.

The L.A. Times writes about Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump by Michael Cohen (Skyhorse: S. & S.): “In a crowded field of Trump exposés, only Michael Cohen’s shows how he corrupts souls.”

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria (W.W. Norton) and One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History by Ted Cruz (Regnery: S. & S.) see strong sales bumps.

Elle features Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans (Berkley: Penguin).

Entertainment Weekly interviews Arvin Ahmadi, How It All Blew Up (Viking: Penguin; SLJ starred review).

Electric Lit interviews Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf; LJ starred review).

Salon interviews Joshua Bennett, Owed (Penguin: LJ starred review). Also, a talk with Nathan Kalmoe, With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War (Cambridge).

The Guardian interviews Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante’s works in English.

The NYT interviews Richard Kreitner, Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union (Little, Brown: Hachette). Also, an interview with Karl Pillemer, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them (Avery: Penguin).

Shondaland interviews Cole Brown, Greyboy: Finding Blackness in a White World (Arcade: S. &  S.).

O: The Oprah Magazine excerpts the forthcoming The Souvenir Museum: Stories by Elizabeth McCracken (Ecco: Harper).

The Atlantic runs the poem “Other Ways to Say Black Face” by Caroline Randall Williams.

Attica Locke has an essay in The Guardian, which is from her lecture and Q&A at the 2020 Norwich crime writing festival. Also, a piece on Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami by David Karashima (Soft Skull) and one on Jack by Marilynne Robinson (FSG: Macmillan; LJ starred review).

The NYT asks Margaret Atwood, Héctor Tobar, Thomas Mallon, and Brenda Wineapple to suggest political novels of the past.

Maggie Smith writes about saying yes to her Covid year for The Guardian.

The StarTribune has an ode to mail-order book clubs.

The NYT’s Style Magazine focuses on the work of Walt Whitman.

Tor.com considers secret history books and writes about the 1950s Space Cat series by Ruthven Todd, illustrated by Paul Galdone (Dover).

Florence Howe has died. The NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Ayad Akhtar, Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown: Hachette; LJ starred review). All Things Considered interviews Joy Harjo, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (W.W. Norton; LJ starred review). Also, an interview with Kim Darroch, Collateral Damage: Britain, America, and Europe in the Age of Trump (PublicAffairs: Hachette). Weekend Edition Sunday interviews by Maria Hinojosa, Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America  (Atria: S. & S.). Also, a feature on Hanging Tree Guitars by Freeman Vines (The Bitter Southerner).

PBS NewsHour has discussion questions for Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse (Knopf).

BuzzFeed selects some of the virtual book events of the week.

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony will be televised and air on Oct. 1. Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. will host.

Deadline has reports on the second day of DC FanDome. Also, Candyman gets moved to 2021 and Wonder Woman 1985 moves to the week after Dune opens (Dec.18 for Dune, and Christmas Day for Wonder Woman). Rick Riordan is adapting his The Kane Chronicles series for Netflix. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau options It Will Be Just Us by Jo Kaplan.

A trailer is out for Yohance, it is the creative project of Paul Louise-Julie and based on his comic of the same name. It is expected sometime in 2022. Tor.com has a report.

Bob Woodward, Rage (S. & S.), will be on with Stephen Colbert tonight. He was on 60 Minutes last night. Deadline has details. NPR also has more coverage of Woodward and the book.

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