Month: October 2017

100317-Rescued-Riot-Rundown

Post author By Devin Service
Post date October 3, 2017

Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by TarcherPerigee, publisher of Rescue Road by Peter Zheutlin.

In the follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Rescue Road, acclaimed journalist Peter Zheutlin offers a heartwarming and often humorous new look into the world of rescue dogs. Sharing lessons from his own experiences adopting Labs with large personalities as well as stories and advice from dozens of families and rescue advocates, Zheutlin reveals the surprising and inspiring life lessons rescue dogs can teach us. For anyone who loves, lives with, or has ever wanted a dog, this charming book shows how the dogs whose lives we save can change ours for the better too.

The Stack

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Post author By Devin Service
Post date October 3, 2017

Today’s The Stack is sponsored by KOBANE CALLING, written and illustrated by Zerocalcare. In stores October 24.

Resistance is a force to be reckoned with …

The autobiographical memoir of a young Italian humor cartoonist who volunteers to support and observe the Kurdish resistance in Syria as a journalist and aid worker. He winds up in Ayn al-Arab, a majority-Kurd town in the Rojava region of Syria, on the front lines against the encroaching Islamic State, and there he receives a heartbreaking education into the Syrian Civil War.

Kobane Calling: Greetings from Northern Syria, is a detailed contemporary eye-witness account of the ongoing Syrian Civil War and the Kurdish struggle for independence from Syria and their other neighbors, and a travelogue through modern Turkey, Syria, and Kurdistan.

An Original Graphic Novel Memoir in Black and White

In Stores October 24 wherever great books are sold!

Today In Books

The Bestseller Algorithm: Today in Books

Post author By Sharifah Williams
Post date October 2, 2017

Inkitt’s (Not-So-) Secret Trick For Identifying Bestsellers

Berlin-based publishing company Inkitt recently raised $3.9 million to expand, and the internet is abuzz about the company’s ability to identify bestsellers. Forbes reported that Inkitt has so far published 24 Amazon Bestsellers (out of 37 total published books). The company’s CEO and founder Ali Albazaz said he studied the statistics of successful authors, including J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, who had been rejected multiple times by publishers, and decided to create a publishing house that made decisions based on reader engagement instead of connections or a track record. Basically, Inkitt collects and analyzes reader engagement data from their community-driven platform to identify successful manuscripts, and then puts marketing power behind those books. Next up, the company plans to focus its attention on audiobooks, print books in brick and mortar stores, and selling film rights.

The Literary Community Hosts An Auction For Puerto Rico

#PubforPR created an auction to benefit Puerto Rico’s relief efforts after Hurricane Maria, with authors, editors, illustrators, and literary agents contributing their time and talent to help raise funds. Marie Lu, Roxane Gay, and Rainbow Rowell are a few of the authors contributing to the fundraiser. Participants have the opportunity to bid on signed book bundles, personalized artwork, one-on-one conversations with editors or agents, and more. All of the funds will go to vetted local charity organizations, Unidos por Puerto Rico and ConPRmetidos.

Maybe We Won’t Be Getting That MY IMMORTAL Memoir

Earlier in September, Vox detailed the strange story of Rose Christo, the until-recently-anonymous alleged author of the infamous fanfic My Immortal. We also learned that Christo would publish her memoir Under the Same Stars: The Search for My Brother and the True Story of My Immortal in 2018. Well, according to Christo’s Twitter and Tumblr, that book isn’t happening after all. The Tumblr post states that the memoir will not be published because Christo altered documentation during the publication process to protect the identities of her family members. The details so far are vague. Between the theory that Lani Sarem of the Handbook for Mortals NYT Bestseller scandal wrote My Immortal, the troubling and unusual details of Christo’s past, and this recent update, I’d say this story can’t get any stranger. But that would be naive.

Thanks to Scout Press, publisher of The Visitors by Catherine Burns, for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

Catherine Burns’s debut novel explores the complex truths we are able to keep hidden from ourselves and the twisted realities that can lurk beneath even the most serene of surfaces.

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother John in a crumbling mansion on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties, Marion does her best to live by John’s rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door…and turning a blind eye to the women’s laundry in the hamper that isn’t hers….

The Goods

Anniversary Sale + Books Are In My Wheelhouse + Lit Chat

Post author By Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Post date October 2, 2017

Book Riot’s birthday week is coming to a close. There’s just one day left to enjoy 25% off sitewide and get a free Book Riot logo tee when you spend $75 or more.

Keep scrolling for rad bookish gifts to put in your cart. And yes – all these deals can be combined!

Rock out in one of the Riot’s signature phrases with a limited-edition Books Are In My Wheelhouse tee.

And get $5 off any tote when you buy Lit Chat, our new card game for book lovers.

In The Club

In the Club Oct 4

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date October 2, 2017

Welcome back to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met and well-read. Let’s dive in.

This newsletter is sponsored by A Place in the Wind by Suzanne Gates.

On a frigid night, a school girl walks out of an English class she tutors for immigrants—and vanishes. Suspicion quickly falls on the men she was teaching, many of whom are undocumented. As disturbing evidence trickles in, news of the incident spreads beyond the scenic town of Lake Holly, New York, unearthing deep-seated fears and enflaming cultural tensions. For county police detective Jimmy Vega, the situation is personal. His girlfriend, Harvard-educated attorney Adele Figueroa, heads the immigrant center where the teen volunteer disappeared. Someone wants to destroy far more than Vega’s career. And no matter which way he turns, every step will put him and his family in the killer’s cross-hairs.

The 9 to 5 slog can be weird, but here are five books with surreal workplaces that might put things into perspective, from academia to temping.

It’s October, which means it’s time for witchy reads! (Well, it’s always time for witchy reads in my life, but I know others prefer seasonal.) Here are 16 books on the Salem Witch trials, both fiction and nonfiction, that will give your book group a lot to talk about.

Today’s fun pairing: K-Pop (a.k.a. Korean pop music) for your ears and matching book recs for your brain!

I’m not sure anyone really wants to read/talk about money, but a lot of us could use a nudge to get better at it, and what is book group for if not to nudge us? Here’s a list of personal finance books that might be worth adding to your club’s TBR.

Been watching HBO’s The Deuce and/or trying to get your club members on board? Here are some crime novels about NYC that might help that along.

To further that mystery fix: here’s a round-up of this fall’s mystery/thrillers with an inclusive bent!

Bi Visibility Day was September 23, and in case you missed it here are 100 must-read books about bisexuality.

And finally, some food for discussion and thought: This conversation, courtesy of PEN America, with Jamaica Kincaid, Marlon James, Valeria Luiselli, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Colum McCann, is great reading. They start out talking about the word “expatriate” and touch on immigration, diversity and racism in publishing and in America, the writing life, and so much more. It made me want to start a book group, to read one of their books each and then talk about this conversation. Maybe you’ll want to, too.

And that’s a wrap: Happy discussing! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations (including the occasional book club question!) you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page

Giveaways

Win a Copy of PROVENANCE by Ann Leckie!

Post author By Jeff O'Neal
Post date October 2, 2017

We have copies of Provenance by Ann Leckie to give away!

Here’s what it’s all about:

Following her record-breaking debut, award winner Ann Leckie returns with a new novel of power, theft, privilege and birthright.

A power-driven young woman has one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artifacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned.

Ingray and her charge return to her home and find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. They must make a new plan to salvage her future, her family, and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the cover image below. Good luck!

New Books

First Tuesday in October New Books Megalist!

Post author By Liberty Hardy
Post date October 1, 2017

Happy Giant New Release Day! It’s a good one, because it’s the first Tuesday of the month, which means there are a bunch of new titles out today. I’ve got a big list for you below, and you can hear about a few of these books on this week’s episode of the All the Books! Rebecca and I talked about amazing books we loved, such as Manhattan Beach, Origin, and An Unkindness of Ghosts.

Sponsored by The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is deeply unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. And not just any classmate, but Rosalind Ryan, whose beauty and inscrutability exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School.

Rosalind’s enigmas frustrate and obsess Gemma, who has her own dangerous secrets—an affair with her colleague and past tragedies that may not stay in the past. Brilliantly rendered, THE DARK LAKE has characters as compelling and mysteries as layered as the best thrillers from Gillian Flynn and Sophie Hannah.

(And like last time, I’m putting a next to the books that I have read and loved. There are soooo many more on this list that I can’t wait to read!)

27 Hours by Tristina Wright

Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig

Winter Storms (Winter Street) by Elin Hilderbrand

Joni: The Anthology by Barney Hoskyns

Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners) by Libba Bray

The Orphan of Florence: A Novel by Jeanne Kalogridis

Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

From a Certain Point of View: 40 Stories Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars

Without Merit by Colleen Hoover

Satellite by Nick Lake

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding (editors)

Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin

The Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson

Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind by Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur

Baking with Kafka by Tom Gauld

The Relive Box and Other Stories by T.C. Boyle

The Adventurers Guild by Zack Loran Clark, Nick Eliopulos

Origin by Dan Brown

Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani

Seven Suspects (The Bobbi Logan Series) by Renee James

Odd Child Out by Gilly Macmillan

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me by Carrie DiRisio, Linnea Gear (Illustrator)

Ahimsa by Supriya Kelkar

Where the Sun Shines Out by Kevin Catalano

This Is How It Begins: A Novel by Joan Dempsey

Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams

Reservoir 13: A Novel by Jon McGregor

Mixed Up: Cocktail Recipes (and Flash Fiction) for the Discerning Drinker (and Reader) by Nick Mamatas (Compiler), Molly Tanzer (Compiler)

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Dunbar (Hogarth Shakespeare) by Edward St. Aubyn

The Witches’ Tree: An Agatha Raisin Mystery (Agatha Raisin Mysteries) by M. C. Beaton

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Illustrated Edition by J.K. Rowling, Jim Kay (Illustrator)

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 3 The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan

Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin

Things I’m Seeing Without You by Peter Bognanni

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Fresh Complaint: Stories by Jeffrey Eugenides

Old Scores: A Barker & Llewelyn Novel by Will Thomas

Earth Hates Me: True Confessions from a Teenage Girl by Ruby Karp

Among the Red Stars by Gwen C. Katz

The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen

Far From the Tree by Robin Benway

If You Knew My Sister by Michelle Adams

The Glass Eye: A Memoir by Jeannie Vanasco

To the Back of Beyond by Peter Stamm, Michael Hofmann (Translator)

the tiger's daughter The Tiger’s Daughter (Their Bright Ascendency) by K Arsenault Rivera

Advice from the Lights: Poems by Stephen Burt

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore

Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York by Roz Chast

Shai & Emmie Star in Break an Egg! (A Shai & Emmie Story) by Quvenzhané Wallis

Blackwing by Ed McDonald

There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights by Laura van den Berg

William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh (William Shakespeare’s Star Wars) by Ian Doescher

Sparked by Helena Echlin and Malena Watrous

Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit

The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash

Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions by Russell Brand

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng

Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather

That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror (John Dies at the End) by David Wong

London and the South-East by David Szalay

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

The Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook

Everyone is Watching by Megan Bradbury

Malagash by Joey Comeau

Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits by Tiya Miles

The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli

Beyond the Rice Fields by Naivo, Allison M. Charette (Translator)

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel by Raymond Benson

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

The Trials of Solomon Parker by Eric Scott Fischl

The Bloodprint (The Khorasan Archives) by Ausma Zehanat Khan

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Glaser

The Devils You Know by M.C. Atwood

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

All That Man Is by David Szalay (paperback)

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey

That’s it for me today – time to get back to reading! If you want to learn more about books new and old (and see lots of pictures of my cats, Millay and Steinbeck), or tell me about books you’re reading, or books you think I should read (I HEART RECOMMENDATIONS!), you can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or L itsy under ‘Liberty’!

Stay rad,

Liberty

Riot Rundown

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Post author By Devin Service
Post date October 1, 2017

Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by The Wonderling by Mira Bartok.

Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. Part animal and part human, the groundlings toil in classroom and factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing and music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name — a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck — it is the only home he has ever known.

Richly imagined, with shimmering language, steampunk motifs, and gripping, magical plot twists, this high adventure fantasy is the debut novel of award-winning memoirist Mira Bartók and has already been put into development for a major motion picture.