Washington Post Survey: Pandemic Readers Seek Social Justice, Comfort | Book Pulse

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New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Thick as Thieves by Sandra Brown (Grand Central: Hachette) debuts at No. 2 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Emerald Blaze: A Hidden Legacy Novel by Ilona Andrews (Avon: Harper; LJ starred review) holds No. 4 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf) takes No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 6 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline (Custom House: Harper; LJ starred review) claims No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Someone to Romance by Mary Balogh (Berkley: Penguin) charms at No. 14 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Truth and Justice by Fern Michaels (Zebra: Kensington) closes the USA Today Best-Selling Books list out at No. 15.

Nonfiction

His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham (Random House; LJ starred review) debuts at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth by Brian Stelter (Atria/One Signal Publishers: S. & S.) opens at No. 5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and No. 6 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald (Grove) soars at No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Related, the NYT marks the 100^th week Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau: Random House; LJ starred review) has remained on the bestseller list.

Antiracist Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list | USA Today Best-Selling Books

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon): No. 1 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (Seal: Hachette; LJ starred review): No. 2 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House; LJ starred review): No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and and No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (One World: Random House): No. 3 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House): No. 4 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau: Random House; LJ starred review): No. 5 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (Liveright: W. W. Norton; LJ starred review): No. 6 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (One World: Random House; LJ starred review): No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (New Press): No. 7 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau: Random House; LJ starred review): No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Nation): No. 8 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum (Basic Books: Hachette): No. 12 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Reviews

The NYT reviews Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones (Basic Books: Hachette): “an elegant and expansive history … [that] allows the history to unfurl with all of its twists and complexity.”

NPR reviews Daddy: Stories by Emma Cline (Random House): “Cline's stories show what happens if the eye is scratched — desire is replaced with its consequences, which are both mundane and insurmountable all at once.” Also, Having and Being Had by Eula Biss (Riverhead: Penguin): “illuminates capitalism for what it is, and records discomfort with it – is a start.” Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House by Sarah Huckabee Sanders (St. Martin’s Press: Macmillan): “an unabashed homage to President Trump and a feathering of her nest for a probable run for governor in Arkansas.”

The Washington Post reviews The Living Dead by George A. Romero, Daniel Kraus (Tor.com: Macmillan; LJ starred review): “expands, clarifies and concludes a tale more than 50 years in the telling, and does so with wit, style and a deep sense of commitment to this frequently unsettling material.”

The L.A. Times reviews Payback by Mary Gordon (Pantheon: Random House): “[her] most topical propulsive novel, to date.” Also, The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi by Richard Grant (S. & S.): “Though filled with wild and woolly tales, Grant’s travelogue also posits Natchez as a stand-in for the nation and a guidepost pointing the way forward.”

Book Marks picks “5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Popsugar picks “The 25 New Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in September.”

Entertainment Weekly picks twenty new books for September.

People offers ten to “Cozy Up with This Fall.”

The NYT suggests “10 New Comic Books for the Fall.”

The New York Post has picks for fall as well.

Tor.com gathers “All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in September.”

Bitch Media picks “13 YA Books Feminists Should Read in September.” Also, “Novels Fight the Myth of the Mean Girl.”

BuzzFeed suggest “16 Great Books That Are Out In Paperback This Month.”

Barbara Hoffert has new “PrePub Alert” columns in LJ, taking librarians to March 2021 titles.

The Guardian has “Top 10 books about space travel” as selected by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

LJ has a guide to cookbooks for meatless meals.

The Washington Post reports on their survey of what readers are turning to during the pandemic. Their results include the top five most-read authors in May and in August, showing that Hilary Mantel has staying power and there was a strong shift to books about race and social justice. In terms of themes, readers sought “tough, frightening stories … but also to books that provide sheer comfort.” The full report has much more detail.

Lars Horn wins the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Lit Hub has a report.

CrimeReads writes “5 Ways To Think About Social Injustice Through Crime Fiction.”

Parade features Alyssa Cole, When No One Is Watching (William Morrow: Harper; LJ starred review), writing that her new thriller “Proves Anti-Racist Reading Should Include Genre Fiction.” Refinery29 also weighs in.

Elle features Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs (Europa Editions), and Kali Fajardo Anstine, Sabrina & Corina: Stories (One World: Random House), “on the blurry lines between truth, fiction, and trauma.”

The Cut considers Having and Being Had by Eula Biss (Riverhead: Penguin), writing that “Biss may be exhaustively self-aware, but she writes like her writing is work worth doing.”

Vanity Fair features Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker, Chris Chase (Cooper Square Press).

Entertainment Weekly features the best books of Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through (Random; LJ starred review).

Vox showcases Venus in the Blind Spot by Junji Ito (VIZ Media).

The NYT has six takeaways from Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House by Sarah Huckabee Sanders (St. Martin’s Press: Macmillan). People also has a report as does Fox News.

Vogue celebrates Jennifer Weiner.

Electric Lit interviews Sarah Gerard, True Love (Harper).

Vox interviews Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half (Riverhead: Penguin).

Shondaland interviews Firmin DeBrabander Life after Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society (Cambridge UP).

Tor.com has original fiction by Stephen Graham Jones, “Wait for Night.”

Electric Lit excerpts The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (West Virginia UP).

Book Page excerpts Love Is a Revolution by Renée Watson (Bloomsbury YA: Macmillan).

Tor.com excerpts Skyhunter by Marie Lu (Roaring Brook Press: Macmillan).

Chronicle Books has a new edition of Pride and Prejudice with the letters of the novel as physical objects.

Publishers Weekly reports that both Harper and Bertelsmann (the parent company of PRH) are interested in buying Simon & Schuster.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews Michael S. Schmidt, Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President (Random House).

NPR’s All Things Considered interviews Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) (Levine Querido; SLJ starred review).

Mandalorian season 2 will debut on Disney+ on October 30th. Tor.com has some details.

Deadline reports that Jess Ryder’s The Ex-Wife is headed to TV as a series. In the UK, comfort TV wins as All Creatures Great and Small breaks a years long viewer record. It comes to PBS in 2021. Sesame Workshop and Audible partner on a podcast.

Mulan will eventually not cost $30 extra for Disney+ subscribers. It will air on the streamer starting on Dec. 4 as part of the regular package. Pretty Little Liars, based on the books by Sara Shepard, is getting a reboot at Warner Bros. TV. Variety reports.

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