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LIT HUB'S HOME FOR BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK MARKS BULLETIN 10/15

In literary land this week: Uzo Aduba is leading a new book club for all of Netflix’s literary adaptations, the McDowell artist residency has announced that it will no longer require reference letters for applicants, Phoebe Robinson will host the 2021 National Book Awards, a literary time capsule is being shot into space, Hatchet author Gary Paulson has died at the age of 82, and here’s everything you need to know about the Sally Rooney/Israel controversy.

The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

FICTION

1. Silverview by John le Carré

 7 RAVE • 11 POSITIVE •  1 MIXED

“Endings, for le Carré, were reckonings ... if Silverview feels less than fully executed, its sense of moral ambivalence remains exquisitely calibrated.”  –Joseph Finder (The New York Times Book Review)  

2. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

5 RAVE • 2 POSITIVE • 1 MIXED

“A perfectly pitched period piece, with an intriguing mystery driving it and a deeply affecting love story at its heart, it’s also a novel about the messy truths of women’s lives and their courage in making the best of that mess.”  –Kathleen MacMahon (The Irish Times)  

3. This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

4 RAVE • 2 POSITIVE

“Moreno has melded a thought-provoking novel about mourning with unapologetic horror, much like the very best of twenty-first-century cosmic horror.”  –Becky Spratford (Booklist)  

4. State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton

2 RAVE • 4 POSITIVE • 1 MIXED

“State of Terror is a big, turbocharged, breathtaking exception: It’s one of the best political thrillers I’ve ever read.”  –Colette Bancroft (The Tampa Bay Times)  

5. When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky by Margaret Verble

3 RAVE • 2 POSITIVE • 1 MIXED

“...it’s a compelling novel from an author who writes with sensitivity and compassion. For readers with an interest in 20th-century American history, it’s certainly a ride worth taking.”  –Michael Schaub (NPR)  

NONFICTION

1. On Animals by Susan Orlean

8 RAVE • 3 POSITIVE • 1 MIXED

“...whether Orlean is writing about one couple’s quest to find their lost dog, the lives of working donkeys of the Fez medina in Morocco, or a man who rescues lions (and happily allows even full grown males to gently chew his head), her pages are crammed with quirky characters, telling details, and flabbergasting facts.”  –Sy Montgomery (The Boston Globe)  

=2. One Friday in April by Donald Antrim

6 RAVE • 1 POSITIVE

“Antrim’s inventive, circular prose style reflects his sense of warped time: Hours bend, fragment, compress, extend. The narrative catapults forward, then backward—a kind of chronological whiplash that dislocates us in time and place.”  –Heather Clark (The New York Times)  

=2. Concepcion by Albert Samaha

6 RAVE • 1 POSITIVE

“Samaha, an investigative journalist, unearths a wealth of documentation that runs counter to the kinder, gentler version of American history we’re taught in school … especially timely, reminding us of the promises America fails to keep.”  –Leland Cheuk (The San Francisco Chronicle)  

4. Oscar Wilde: A Life by Matthew Sturgis

4 RAVE • 5 POSITIVE • 2 MIXED • 1 PAN

“Sturgis’ clear-eyed understanding of Wilde is acute, his narrative assured.”  –Mary Ann Gwinn (The Star Tribune)  

5. Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds by Mondiant Dogon

4 RAVE • 1 POSITIVE

“Notwithstanding the brutality he describes, Dogon’s tale possesses a beguiling delicacy. We never lose sight of his humanity, even if he often doubts it himself.”  –Michela Wrong (The New York Times Book Review)  

Books Making the News This Week

Biggest New Books: John le Carré’s Silverview, Hillary Clinton & Louise Penny’s State of Terror, Alice Hoffman’s The Book of Magic, and Susan Orlean’s On Animals are some of the biggest new titles hitting shelves this week.

Book Deals: World Fantasy Award winner Emma Torzs's Ink Blood Mirror Magic, a novel about two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family's collection of rare and dangerous magical books, has been sold to William Morrow; author of Sadness is a White Bird Moriel Rothman-Zecher's Before All the World, a novel in which two Jewish immigrants leave the traumas of a pogrom for Philadelphia, finding kinship and recognition with a young, Black writer and communist, to FSG; Brinda Charry's The East Indian, a novel following the young man believed to be the first person from the Indian subcontinent to set foot in North America on his journey from India to Shakespeare's London to Jamestown, to Scribner; and Pulitzer Prize–winning Los Angeles Times journalist Molly O'Toole's The Route, a narrative of the new migrant underground, a deadly gauntlet for refugees from around the world, to Crown.

Adaptation Announcements: The first trailer for the George Clooney-directed adaptation of J. R. Moehringer’s 2005 memoir The Tender Bar has been released, yet another Don DeLillo adaptation is in the works, and the upcoming “Cat Person” movie has rounded out its cast.

Awards Circuit: The shortlist for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize has been announced.

The Most Viewed Books of the Week

According to traffic data from Book Mark's widget and website

1. ↓ 35.78% The Lincoln Highway  AMOR TOWLES

2. ↓ 32.84% Cloud Cuckoo Land  ANTHONY DOERR

3. ↓ 25.92% Bewilderment  RICHARD POWERS

4. ↑ 1,512.90% We Are Not Like Them  JO PIAZZA & CHRISTINE PRIDE

5. ↑ 56.68% Braiding Sweetgrass  ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

6. ↑ 171.76% The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music  DAVE GROHL

7. ↑ 22,050.00% Walking: One Step at a Time  ERLING KAGGE, TR. BECKY L. CROOK

8. ↑ 203.88% There Is Nothing for You Here  FIONA HILL

9. ↑ 136.42% Silverview  JOHN LE CARRÉ

10. ↑ 40.16% The Cold Millions  JESS WALTER

(*Percentages based on week-to-week change in total views.)

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