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Month: January 2017
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Audiobooks!: January 26, 2017
This week’s Audiobooks! Newsletter is sponsored by Mother Nile, a dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The War of the Roses.
Mother Nile is the story of Si, the American-born son of an Irish father and Egyptian mother, who goes on a journey through the City of the Dead to solve a half-century-old mystery. When his mother makes an urgent plea on her deathbed, Si knows that he must go to Egypt to uncover the truth about his long-lost half-sister, conceived during his mother’s affair with King Farouk. This book goes on a journey into a world of sex, power, politics, drugs, and Egypt.
Hi audiobook friends! I’m having the most fun listening to Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. A team of scientists is studying a giant metal hand that was found in South Dakota. Weirder yet, the hand appears to be just one piece of an enormous alien object hidden all over Earth. The researchers are on the brink of a huge discovery, but they don’t know if their work will be used for peace or mass destruction. Cue the juicy ethical dilemmas!
This book works so beautifully on audio. It’s performed by a full cast through a series of case files and interviews, and it feels just like binge watching Westworld or Battlestar Galactica. If you listen to Sleeping Giants now, watch for the sequel this April <3
Get (Audio-) Booked
I recently got to hang out with Book Riot Editor Amanda Nelson on Get Booked, our weekly book recommendation podcast, for an episode all about audiobooks (!). Readers wrote in asking about how to get into fiction on audio, recs for long commutes, what to give family who are just getting into audiobooks, and more. If you love podcasts as much as you love audiobooks, this episode was pretty much made just for you.
Hidden Figures Narrator Robin Miles on Vulnerability and When to Go Big
Muppet arms for Hidden Figures on its three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture! If you’ve already seen the movie, next you’ll definitely want to queue up the audiobook read by Robin Miles and take a deep dive into the lives of five African-American women who were NASA mathematicians during the space race.
Book Riot contributor Erin Burba recently caught up with Robin Miles about what it’s like to perform books by Roxane Gay, Jacqueline Woodson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, i.e. allll the rad authors. The result is one of the most moving conversations about audiobooks I’ve ever encountered. Go check that out, then listen to an excerpt of Hidden Figures here.
The Most Bananas Audiobook Cast Ever, With Carrie Brownstein, Bill Hader, Julianne Moore, Nick Offerman, and 160+ (Wut?!) Others
Book Riot already loves George Saunders with our whole hearts, and his first full-length novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, is hands down one of our most anticipated books of the year. So when we found out the audio is read by a record-breaking 166 actors, we flailed around in stunned excitement for a full minute before we were able to collect ourselves enough to start sharing our joy.
Lincoln in the Bardo takes place over a single night when President Lincoln visits the graveyard where his son’s body has been laid to rest. Catch the extended cast list and more in this run-down by Book Riot Contributor Emma Nichols.
The Handmaid’s Tale Podcast You Didn’t Know You Needed
There’s never been a better time to brush up on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, can I get an amen? We’re all SUPER EXCITED about The Handmaid’s Tale adaptation coming to Hulu in April starring Elisabeth Moss. But there’s another adaptation you can enjoy right now! Book Riot Contributor Patricia Thang has been loving a podcast adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale on Secrets, Crimes & Audiotape that started January 3 and runs for six weeks. Get the full scoop here.
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Thriller & Espionage Book Club Giveaway
Subscription boxes are all the rage these days, but book-of-the-month clubs have been around for decades. There is just something implicitly great about getting surprise books in the mail.
For our latest giveaway, I was looking around for a cool subscription to giveaway, and I thought this Thriller & Espionage Club from The Mysterious Bookshop looked great. So that’s what we have on offer: a three-month subscription that will provide you some curated picks from a bookstore dedicated to these genres. Not bad right?
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the exceedingly generic “espionage” image below:
Happy end-of-January, YA Lovers!
This week’s “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter is sponsored by Wires & Nerve by Marissa Meyer.
In her first graphic novel, bestselling author Marissa Meyer extends the world of the Lunar Chronicles with a brand-new,action-packed story about Iko, the android with a heart of (mechanized) gold.When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers’ leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder, Cress, Scarlet, Winter, and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the bestselling series.
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Let’s take the opportunity to get caught up on a whole lot of YA news and pieces of interest from the last few weeks. Ready? Ready!
- Some of the biggest news in YA happened last week, when the winners of this year’s Youth Media Awards (YMAs) were announced at the American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting in Atlanta. Check out the winners here and get your to-read list ready because it’s going to grow.
- John Lewis’s March: Book 3 took home *four* prestigious honors from the YMAs. This piece at School Library Journal talks a bit more about the historic wins, as well as talks with the winners of some of the other awards this year.
- Keeping on with the awards talk, here are this year’s winners of the Sidney Taylor Award, which are the national awards for Jewish children’s literature.
- And here are the best feminist books from 2016 for young readers, courtesy of the Amelia Bloomer Project. Keep an eye on their site for the full list of great feminist reads (it might be posted by the time this newsletter hits your inbox).
- This year’s Edgar nominees — which go to the best mysteries — in YA span a nice range of topics. I’m a little embarrassed I’ve not read any of them….yet!
- A round-up of Disney Channel movies that were based on YA books (“YA” loosely defined here, but interesting anyway!).
- E. Lockhart, who wrote The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks and We Were Liars, among other titles, has a new book coming out this fall.
- Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief is being made into a play. How frequently do middle grade books get made into stage productions? This one’s got some wide appeal, especially for YA readers.
- Speaking of adaptations, Brandon Sanderson’s YA series “The Reckoners” is going to hit the big screen.
- Casting alert for the adaptation of Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda.
- And some casting news for the adaptation of Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds.
- Amy Poehler’s production company has scooped up rights to Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu, a YA book slated to hit shelves in the fall. I’m…so curious about this book, if for no reason than hoping that these teens who are moved by the zines of a parent have heard of a thing called Tumblr.
- Over on Bustle, a nice piece about YA books that challenge outdated stereotypes about virginity. I could add a bunch more, but this is a great starter list.
- Have you read Juliet Takes A Breath? It’s an adult book with mega YA crossover appeal (and many would argue it is YA). Here’s a nice list of what to read next if you’re eager for more Latinx feminist books.
- SELF-PROMOTION ALERT: the book I edited, Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World came out last Tuesday and got some really nice coverage on Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, and on Barnes & Noble’s Teen Blog (written by one of the contributors!). I feel okay sharing this not because it’s *my* book but because this is a YA book that belongs squarely to YA readers. Also, Book Riot has a giveaway going for US residents on that ends tomorrow, Tuesday, January 31.
Now to take a peek at some of the YA posts that hit Book Riot in the last few weeks:
- We’ve taken a peek at teen spy stories, stand alone fantasy reads, and misfit teens in the “3 On A YA Theme” series.
- On The Outsiders, Ponyboy, and SE Hinton’s reluctance to accept queer interpretations of her classic.
- Eric talked about Under Rose-Tainted Skies and other great kid lit representations of mental illness.
- Some British YA to smuggle overseas (legally, of course!).
- And finally, some YA books to help keep you motivated and goal-driven this year.
Keep on keepin’ on, YA friends. Pick up a good book and settle in. We’ll be back next week with a really exciting interview with a debut YA author whose book is going to knock your socks off.
A month into 2017 and I’ve already read so many good books (including amazing debuts–one I’ll be shouting about next month), that I can’t help but think this is going to be a fantastic year for books!
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Serial Box.
Serial Box, today’s hottest publisher of serialized fiction brings everything that’s awesome about TV (easily digestible episodes, team written, new content every week) to what was already cool about books (well-crafted stories, talented authors, enjoyable anywhere). From Urban Fantasy to Science Fiction – they have something for every taste, and reading (or listening!) on the go has never been easier than with their iOS app. Readers who prefer their spy tales with a twist are invited to The Witch Who Came In From The Cold and the streets of Prague, 1970 where spies practice sorcery in their games of intrigue.
Give me ALL the “unlikable” women, please!
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
: Eileen Dunlop tells the story of how at age twenty-four, in the ’60s, she came to finally disappear from the small town where she worked in a boy’s prison and lived with her abusive, alcoholic father. This takes you 100% into the life of a desperate, miserable, intensely self-loathing woman while slowly building up to an ending of crime/suspense. If you like character driven novels and not knowing where things are leading this was a great read as Moshfegh places you so deeply into Eileen’s life that you can smell her life. (Not a mystery but you can read her An Honest Woman story at The New Yorker.)
New Megan Abbott in 2018 has me all muppet arms! Give Me Your Hand will be a psychological thriller about two scientists and the secret they share–is it too early to already love it?!
Watch now: Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, inspired by Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, is now available on DVD/Digital HD. Watch trailer here.
Want an ending to talk about?
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
: Single mom Louise has a bit of a bar hookup with a man she’s just met only to later discover he’s her new boss and–wait for it… married! I haven’t even gotten to the awkward part yet: Louise’s boss’ wife befriends her. Everything is just weird and chaotic after that because clearly there isn’t a single person who is behaving normally or doesn’t appear to be seriously hiding something. This is a mindfck, psychological thriller, with a sprinkling of magic realism, that will keep you asking wtf and turning the page. You might want a reading partner for this one so you can share your guesses and discuss the ending.
Great mystery audiobook!
A Beautiful Place To Die
(Detective Emmanuel Cooper #1) by Malla Nunn, Saul Reichlin (Narrator): Englishman Detective Emmanuel Cooper is tasked with solving the mysterious murder of Captain Pretorius, a white officer, in South Africa during the 1950s. Complicating the investigation that already has too many chefs in the kitchen–and an unidentified Peeping Tom–is the recently placed apartheid system that applied racial segregation and becomes as important to the novel as the mystery. I can’t speak for accuracy but I loved Reichlin’s narration and how he changed accents and tone between the many characters. It’s a good mystery with great characters that left me wanting to read the rest of the series and made me immediately listen to Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime which was excellent and a perfect pairing.
Another great audiobook!
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, Megan McDowell (Translator), Hillary Huber (Narrator): You get a mix of genres including Literary, Horror, Psychological Thriller and my favorite genre WTF/Bananas! The novel starts with a woman dying in a hospital in Argentina as a young boy questions her on the events that led up to her illness. Instead she tells him the story she heard about him from his mother: poison, a healer, souls being split between bodies!… If you’re looking for a fantastic, quick-ish, unsettling read you need this novel!
Over on Book Riot: 5 Paperback Mysteries You Need to Check Out by Swapna Krishna and A Female Sleuth Reading List in Response to Sherlock’s Season 4 by Deepali Agarwal (S4 SPOILERS).
Adaptation news: John le Carré will have another spy novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, adapted into a limited-series by AMC and the BBC.
Yes, please:
Colombian writer Santiago Gamboa will have his crime novel, Return to the Dark Valley, translated to English.
Kensington bought audio and world rights to Joseph Souza’s Bring Me Closer which sounds like a thriller I need to read.
Recently released in the UK Fiona Cummins’ debut novel Rattle will be adapted to television. “A psychopath more frightening than Hannibal Lecter” has me wanting to read it now so I’m probably going to order this online from a bookstore that ships worldwide rather than waiting for a U.S. release.
And I’ll leave you with: Mystery Writers of America announced the 2017 Edgar Nominations.
Until next time, keep investigating! And in the meantime feel free to come talk books with me on Litsy, you can find me under Jamie Canaves.
How’s your romance life going this January, readers? Have you read anything swoonworthy yet? I’ve started four—four—football romances in the past week and a half, and haven’t finished any of them. Maybe I need to change sports?
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Serial Box.
Serial Box, today’s hottest publisher of serialized fiction brings everything that’s awesome about TV (easily digestible episodes, team written, new content every week) to what was already cool about books (well-crafted stories, talented authors, enjoyable anywhere). From Urban Fantasy to Science Fiction – they have something for every taste, and reading (or listening!) on the go has never been easier than with their iOS app. Readers who prefer their spy tales with a twist are invited to The Witch Who Came In From The Cold and the streets of Prague, 1970 where spies practice sorcery in their games of intrigue.
There hasn’t been a lot of huge news in romance, but there’s some interesting stuff happening in the world.
First, it’s been announced that E.L. James has been in talks to adapt Fifty Shades of Grey as a musical. This is not to be confused with 50 Shades! The Musical, which is a parody musical that legit actually exists. It’s an Off-Broadway wonder that existed for quite some time near the Great White Way. No word whether this would be a stage musical or something that would go straight to Netflix. But it’s probably going to happen.
In the meantime, here’s some fun from Rioter Patricia.
RT Book Reviews announced their annual RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards nominations, which includes a super broad number of categories and a relatively diverse group of nominees (though some categories are better than others in that regard). It’s an interesting compilation; who are you rooting for?
Also, this past weekend was pretty exciting for library people, with lots of celebrated awards and lists being announced at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting. The Reference and User Services Association, or RUSA, put out The Reading List, which is a curated list of the best genre fiction published in the previous year. It was no surprise that Forbidden was the favorite.
The biggest news in the world is, of course, about the women marching on ALL SEVEN CONTINENTS on Saturday. Did you march? I was in Atlanta for the aforementioned library conference, and the combined local+library+football traffic led to a heck of a turnout! And my hotel was an interesting combination of librarians and some particularly football-looking gentlemen, which led me to have all kinds of meet-cute romance novel ideas.
And with the idea of women doing awesome things and making their voices heard, here are a few romances featuring some kickass women taking a stand for what is right:
Daughters of a Nation: A Black Suffragette Historical Romance Anthology collects three stories about women living during the fight for American suffrage.
Alyssa Cole, who contributed to that anthology, also contributed to The Brightest Day: A Juneteenth Historical Romance with the story Let it Shine, a wonderful Civil Rights Era story about a young black woman and a Jewish boxer who get involved with SNCC and live through sit-ins and all of the other horrors of the 1960s Civil Rights efforts.
Molly O’Keefe’s Wild Child includes a more personal stand, but finding your own voice is always the first step.
Courtney Milan’s Brothers Sinister series is all kinds of awesome, particularly The Suffragette Scandal, the fourth in the series featuring Free Marshall, the younger Marshall sister we first meet in The Heiress Effect when her first hints of suffrage support break out.
Beverly Jenkins’ Destiny’s Captive is also not the first in a series, but if you’re up to a little spoiling of the first two, you get to meet Pilar, an awesome Cuban revolutionary. One of Jenkins’ standalone novels, Midnight, is about an informant and spy in the American Revolution.
And speaking of revolutionaries: In Pema Donyo’s Revolutionary Hearts, Parineeta becomes a spy to help her revolutionary brother in 1920s India, only to encounter trouble when the man she’s spying on turns out to also be a spy, from America.
On Book Riot:
Do you love fake relationship stories? Check out these five that Kay Taylor Rea really enjoyed.
Ready to make your already-full TBR explode? Amanda Diehl just put out her quarterly upcoming Diverse Romances list, and while some are probably already on your list, there are a lot more that you’re gonna want to add. February, in particular, is pretty exciting.
Also, did you see? There’s a new Mailbag Giveaway celebrating Kissing Books featuring some of our favorites and a few we’re excited for you to read! There is some good stuff so feel free to enter the giveaway!
Here are a few new releases and books coming out before we talk again:
Seasons of Love: Whiteout
, Elyse Springer
Breathless, Beverly Jenkins (January 31)
Seven Minutes in Heaven, Eloisa James (January 31)
Falling for the Highlander, Lynsay Sands (January 31)
The Lawrence Browne Affair, Cat Sebastian (January 7)
Many swoons and sizzles until next time, my dears!
–Jess
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012417-HMH-MrSplitfoot-RiotRundown
Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt.
Ruth and Nat are seventeen. They are orphans. And they may be able to talk to the dead. Enter Mr. Bell, a con man with his own mystical interests. Together they embark on an unexpected journey that connects meteor sites, utopian communities, lost mothers, and a scar that maps its way across Ruth’s face.
Decades later and after years of absence, Ruth visits her niece, Cora. But while Ruth used to speak to the dead, she now won’t speak at all. She leads Cora on a mysterious mission that involves crossing the entire state of New York on foot. Where is she taking them? And who—or what—is hidden in the woods at the end of the road?
From a former New Yorker “20 Under 40” author comes a subversive ghost story that is as haunting in its examination of family, motherhood, and love as it is in its conjuring of the otherworldly. Mr. Splitfoot will set your heart racing and your imagination aflame.
Greetings from the Isle of Bibliomania! How is everyone doing this fine Tuesday? Reading anything good? There are a LOT of great books out today, including The Fifth Petal, Brunonia Barry’s sequel to The Lace Reader, and Who Killed Piet Barol?, Richard Mason’s sequel to History of a Pleasure Seeker. They are both on my list to buy! I have a few more great books to tell you about today, and you can hear about more wonderful books on this week’s episode of the All the Books! Rebecca and I talked about a few awesome books we loved, such as City of Saints & Thieves, Here We Are, and Tears We Cannot Stop. (Note: The podcast will be going up a little late this week due to unforeseen circumstances.)
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt.
Ruth and Nat are seventeen. They are orphans. And they may be able to talk to the dead. Enter Mr. Bell, a con man with his own mystical interests. Together they embark on an unexpected journey that connects meteor sites, utopian communities, lost mothers, and a scar that maps its way across Ruth’s face.
Decades later and after years of absence, Ruth visits her niece, Cora. But while Ruth used to speak to the dead, she now won’t speak at all. She leads Cora on a mysterious mission that involves crossing the entire state of New York on foot. Where is she taking them? And who—or what—is hidden in the woods at the end of the road?
From a former New Yorker “20 Under 40” author comes a subversive ghost story that is as haunting in its examination of family, motherhood, and love as it is in its conjuring of the otherworldly. Mr. Splitfoot will set your heart racing and your imagination aflame.
The Patriots by Sana Krasikov
Sweeping multigenerational sagas are my jam, and this debut novel rings all my bells. It starts in NYC during the Great Depression, when Florence Fein leaves for a promising job in Moscow. But things are a lot more complicated than they seemed, and Florence ends up staying. Years later, her son Jacob travels to the US, but continues to work in Moscow while investigating his mother’s recently opened KGB file to learn more about her. What he discovers is part of a greater story of distrust and secrecy between the two countries. This poignant story of family, love, and secrets is a stunner.
Backlist bump: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
A horrible crime. An allegedly guilty young perpetrator. Who is the victim? Everyone thinks Mary Addison killed a baby. She was convicted and sent to jail, then a group home, her childhood over at an early age. Now Mary is pregnant, and the state wants to take her baby away. Mary must confront the hard truths of her past to protect her future, which include relying on her mother, the one person she distrusts above all others. This book is a hell of an outstanding gut punch, a complex look at the failures of the justice system and a child’s relationship with her mother.
Backlist bump: Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan by Ruth Gilligan
Three intertwining stories revolving around the little-known history of the Jewish community in Ireland in the twentieth century. A young girl and her family leave Lithuania for America, but wind up in Ireland instead; a young boy in an institution befriends a man still mourning the loss of his true love two decades later; and an Irish journalist must confront her past when her Jewish boyfriend asks her to take a leap of faith. These heartbreaking, moving tales combine to make a rich novel that examines what it means to belong.
Backlist bump: The History of Love by Nicola Krauss
The You I’ve Never Known by Ellen Hopkins
Using both verse and prose, Hopkins yells the story of Ariel, a seventeen-year-old ready to start a life on her own, and Maya, a pregnant teen running from an abusive mother. Ariel and Maya’s lives collide when Ariel’s estranged mother shows up, claiming Ariel was kidnapped by her father when she was a toddler. Hopkins delivers an intense story of two girls in search of truth and redemption while seeking to create their own lives.
Backlist bump: Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann
YAY, BOOKS! That’s it for me today – time to get back to reading! I am still REALLY into reading about historical murder these days (but don’t be scared). Especially books set around the mid-19th century to early 20th century, so if you have any book recommendations, fiction or nonfiction, please send them my way! You can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or Litsy under ‘Liberty’!
Stay rad,
Liberty
We have 10 copies of Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler to give away to 10 Riot readers.
Here’s what it’s about:
A stunningly beautiful, heartrending literary memoir about the tragic death of the author’s beloved older sister and a tribute to their bond. When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew in, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with the lingering effects of their unusual childhood. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death.
Interested now? Ok, go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the cover image below. Good luck!
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30% Sitewide (OOP Anniversary)
The sale so nice, we’re running it twice! Go ahead and get 30% off sitewide in the Book Riot Store with code HAPPY30 at checkout through Sunday, January 29th.
