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The 22 Best New Book Releases This Week: August 20-26, 2024
By Michael Giltz,
6 hours ago
Here are the 22 best new book release recommendations for the week of August 20-26, 2024. It’s almost fall but I am not done with summer yet. I’d like to go on another road trip . I’d like to head to the beach again. I want to see more popcorn flicks, preferably at a movie drive-in . And I have so many books to read. My To Be Read pile (the TBR) is tall and precarious, a safety hazard even. So give me some bonus summer, even if it means more summer heat. So let’s get reading! At the head of the Parade are…
The 22 Best New Book Releases This Week: August 20-26, 2024
Courtesy of Ballantine Books&comma Knopf&comma Harper Muse&comma Beacon Press
Here are four big works of fiction you don’t want to miss. Bestseller Jodi Picoult talked about some of her favorite books with Parade. Maybe her new novel By Any Other Name will become one of yours. It has two parallel storylines: one about a woman in a doomed romance who uses William Shakespeare as a front for her brilliant plays; the other about a female playwright today who is taken seriously only when she submits a play under a man’s name. How far we haven’t come! There Are Rivers In The Sky isn’t a work of meteorology (though apparently there really are rivers in the sky). It’s a poetic title for a poetic novel that spans thousands of years, from the writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh around 2000 BCE right up to today. Think Cloud Atlas, but with a single drop of water connecting all the stories.
Australian writer Tea Cooper should become bigger and bigger in the U.S. Her latest work of historical fiction offers another example of storylines in different eras wrapping around each other. One is set in 1808 when the title character rushes to London to share the breakthrough work of her scientist father, only to be fatally blocked at gaining him the credit. The other is set 100 years later (in 1908!) as another woman works to solve the mystery behind a moldy old sketchbook, evidence that could vindicate the past and rewrite the future.
Acclaimed author Gayl Jones breaks the mini-trend we had of novels combining stories from different eras. But like the others, it’s a work of historical fiction, this time set in the 1950s where the Black men who bravely fought for their country return to the Jim Crow South and realize nothing has changed. Also like the others, it’s enjoying major critical acclaim. A good pairing with Percival Everett’s novel James.
Three very different books centering around crime. Best-selling author Karin Slaughter spoke with Parade about her latest Will Trent novel and some of her favorite books of all time. This Is Why We Lied should bring the writer her biggest audience yet. Sara Desai combines romance with jewel thieves in the playful ‘Til Heist Do Us Part. Does a master criminal really need to be taught she maybe can’t entirely trust a rogue named Jack Danger? Apparently so! And in the true crime book The Devil At His Elbow, Valerie Bauerlein tells the explosive story of Alex Murdaugh, a power broker in South Carolina who made national headlines when his wife and son were murdered on the 1700 family estate…and then more headlines when it turned out he was the murderer.
Calm down. This isn’t a book about throuples or polyamory or whatever you’re thinking. It’s about the much sexier topic of mathematics. At least it’s sexier to Matt Parker, who details the fascinating ways trigonometry plays a wildly important role in our world and promises to do so in a way that will not befuddle those like me who struggled with math.
Three playful romances just in time to get you through the final heatwaves of summer. Morbidly Yours centers an Irish mortician who must marry by his 35th birthday or lose the family business. But the most interesting thing about him is that he’s a demisexual, someone who needs to form an emotional bond before they will feel a sexual attraction. Enter a Texan widow….
Meghan Quinn is back with another in her Bridesmaid for Hire series. This time a handsome billionaire needs a date to a wedding and he wants to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. Any chance the bridesmaid/date for hire and said billionaire might just hit it off? Hmmm.
In Love and Other Conspiracies, an online content producer takes a Bigfoot true believer, gives him his own (hit) show, pairs it with her skepticism (because there is no Bigfoot, people!) and sparks fly. It’s as if Mulder and Scully got it on in The X-Files, which everyone wanted, right?
Aaron Rodgers is a nut. Or a genius. Or one of the greatest football quarterbacks in history. Well, the last part is definitely true. And sportswriter Ian O’Connor talked to everyone before delivering this biography about one of the most complicated figures in the most popular sport in America.
Fantasy. Like every genre, it contains multitudes.
Author Raymond E. Feist offers epic fantasy of the classic sort. Here he launches a new series called The Dragonwar Saga. If you’re a fan, then you’ll be excited to know this series promises to tie in all of his previous works a la Isaac Asimov. If you’re not a fan, just start reading. Start here or with 2018’s King of Ashes or 1982’s Magician. You’re welcome.
Author Nnedi Okorafor knows her fantasy history. But she also embraces science fiction and the mythology and folklore of West Africa to deliver works that are fresh and new. The novella She Who Knows begins a new story about a young woman who receives The Call, when only young men are supposed to receive The Call. Everything will change….
From Japan, here is a gentle fantasy perfect for lovers of whimsy or cats but especially those who appreciate whimsy and cats. The Full Moon Coffee Shop is an establishment run by cats. Yes, cats. Its location and hours of operation and menu change often. But the customers lucky enough to stumble into it receive delightful coffee and treats, along with astrological readings courtesy of the cat proprietors who steer lost souls back on course. Either that baffles you or you immediately start looking for The Full Moon Coffee Shop when you’re wandering the streets late at night feeling a little peckish and a little lost, in the existential sense. Customers include a hapless screenwriter, a hairstylist, a web designer who is all thumbs when it comes to technology and–hopefully–a bookologist from Parade.
Author Ian Frazier offers an entirely unconventional biography of the Bronx, the only borough of New York City that is connected to the mainland. The peripatetic Frazier wandered its streets for the last 15 years, soaking up the atmosphere of the Bronx of today while simultaneously diving into its rich history. Part flaneur, part history, part memoir, part biography and a few other parts beside.
Three graphic novels you don’t want to miss. Einstein In Kafkaland takes the true, paths-crossing story of Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein in Prague at a key moment in their lives and turns it into a delightful tale. The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer is the latest adventure from the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. For me, the big draw is Faith Hicks, one of the team behind this tale. She’s one of the best talents in graphic novels today and I’ll read anything she works on. (The others are illustrators Peter Wartman and Adele Matera, while Hicks consulted with the original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.) Pearl tells the remarkably complicated story of a 13 year old Japanese-American girl from Hawaii who visits Japan…in 1941, right before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She is forced to translate English radio transmissions and if that isn’t confusing enough for her, she also hears about innocent Japanese-Americans being herded into internment camps. Anyone who thinks comic books are just for kids can start right here.
Two middle grade books would prove delightful enough for anyone of any age wise enough to read them. The Swifts are a family perfect for anyone pining for the Baudelaire children and their exploits documented by Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Swifts also love language, complicated puzzles, adventures and in this story, Paris. The Zebra’s Great Escape is a fanciful tale of the sort the UK specializes in. Not a picture book, not a graphic novel, not just a novel (for there are plenty of illustrations), it’s definitely fun as a rule-breaking little girl named Mink helps a zebra escape the clutches of the evil Mr. Spit.
If you were a mouse living in a house with a model ship in the window, wouldn’t you wonder if perhaps that ship might actually be seaworthy? Given a chance, wouldn’t you want to take it out onto the open waters? And if you were the human who crafted that model ship, would you be worried the ship might sink or delighted to see it actually do what it was made to do? In this charming, old fashioned picture book, the persuasive, low-key text of Travis Jonker pairs beautifully with the winning illustrations of Matthew Cordell, which is precisely what a picture book should do.
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