Sponsored by Forge Books.
An urgent message from her long-estranged best friend Daniela brings a reluctant Cadie Kessler back to her childhood home. There, Cadie and Daniela are forced to face a dark secret that ended both their idyllic childhood bond and the magical summer that takes up more space in Cadie’s memory than all her other years combined. This startling and timely debut is a love song to the natural beauty around us, a call to fight for what we believe in, and a reminder that the truth will always rise.
It’s Thursday—that means it’s time for another Book Radar! I am so delighted to “spend” this time with you this week. Related: What is Thursday known for? I mean, everyone hates Mondays; Tuesdays are when all the new stuff comes out; Wednesday is hump day; and on Friday, everybody’s working for the weekend, i.e. Saturday and Sunday. But what is Thursday’s deal? It is the most innocuous day of the week. We should give it a name, like Silent Reading Day or Put Pajamas on Animals Day. (Why, yes, I have spent a lot of time alone in quarantine this week, why do you ask?)
In other news, the number of people who have emailed/messaged/tagged me to let me know they read The Orchard on my recommendation and loved it is now up to 46! This makes me ridiculously happy. Will you be number 47?
Moving on, today I have exciting adaptation news, cover reveals, and book talk for you. Plus a kitten throwback picture! And probably some Psych references, because I’m in the middle of the fifth season now.🍍 Whatever you are doing or watching or reading this week, I am sending you love and hugs. – xoxo, Liberty, Your Friendly Neighborhood Velocireader™
Trivia question time! How many volumes are there in Marcel Proust’s novel À la Recherche Du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time)? (Scroll to the bottom for the answer.)
Deals, Reals, and Squeals!
Lashana Lynch will play Miss Honey in Netflix’s Matilda remake.
Keegan-Michael Key will star in the show August Snow, based on the series by Stephen Mack Jones.
Here is the cover reveal for A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee.
And here’s a peek at On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, the upcoming book from Maggie Nelson.
Netflix’s The Kissing Booth and To All the Boys franchises will end in 2021.
And speaking of To All the Boys, here’s the trailer for the final film.
The Duchess of York has written a romance novel.
Sarah McKnight has started a No F*cks Given podcast to go along with her guides.
Netflix is making a series based on Michael Connelly’s legal thriller The Lincoln Lawyer.
Netflix has also announced that its adaptation of Moxie with Amy Poehler will start streaming on March 3.
MTV is relaunching its book imprint.
FSG announced a new Sally Rooney novel.
Ben Hardy, Dexter Fletcher, Rob Delaney, Sally Phillips and Jameela Jamil have joined Haley Lu Richardson in The Statistical Probability of Love.
And here is more casting news for the Dexter revival.
Here’s a new teaser trailer for the second season of Snowpiercer.
Book Riot Recommends
At Book Riot, I work on the New Books! email, the All the Books! podcast about new releases, and the Book Riot Insiders New Release Index. I am very fortunate to get to read a lot of upcoming titles, and learn about a lot of upcoming titles, and I’m delighted to share a couple with you each week so you can add them to your TBR! (It will now be books I loved on Mondays and books I’m excited to read on Thursdays. YAY, BOOKS!)
Excited to read:
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow (Feiwel & Friends, September 7)
It is always so interesting to me how people come to books. Some of us were assigned certain classics in school, or were gifted a great book, or were just curious on our own and picked it up. But as much as we read, there are gaps in our book education. (Which is why we need to figure out how to stop time!)
I myself read a lot of what were considered classics during my days hanging around the library while my mother worked. But somehow, I never read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and I am not even sure why. So I was very excited to hear that the amazing Bethany C. Morrow has a remix of the book coming in the fall, because I think it might be fun to learn the story from a newer perspective. I already know the basics of the original book (I saw the Friends episode), and I am looking forward to reading it with fresh eyes. (There’s also a Treasure Island remix coming from C.B. Lee! You can see the cover reveal above in the news section.)
What I’m reading this week.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu
Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by Cheryl Diamond
A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins
Intimacies: A Novel by Katie Kitamura
Song stuck in my head:
Within Your Reach by The Replacements. I’ve had it stuck in my head since I watched the last episode of S3 of Psych. (Also, I’m still really into listening to songs I loved when I was young. You can listen to a lot of them in this playlist I made!)
And this is funny:
He needs a lot of recipes to make second breakfast.
Happy things:
Here are a few things I enjoy that I thought you might like as well:
- Psych: I am now on season five and I must say, I am less invested in the characters and more chuffed by all the references and actors from classic 1980s movies. Ally Sheedy, Jonathan Silverman, Thomas F. Wilson, Cybill Shepherd, Corbin Bernsen—the list goes on and on. I also love the weird pineapple appearance in every episode.
- Jigsaw puzzles! Still on a HUGE puzzle kick. Several of you have asked how I do puzzles with destructive felines in the house, and the answer is: very carefully. I only do 500-piece puzzles, because I cannot leave them unattended or the cats will destroy them. So once I start a puzzle, I am committed to finishing it.
- Numberzilla.
- Purrli: This website makes the relaxing sounds of a cat purring.
And here’s a cat picture!
This week was the second anniversary of Farrokh and Zevon’s arrival at our house. Here they are, about an hour after they moved in, and about an hour before they unleashed a never-ending swath of destruction. To celebrate their anniversary, they smashed a ceramic statue, chewed through a cord on the blinds, and chased their sister around. So…it was a regular day.
Trivia answer: Seven. (Related: Some of my trivia questions lately have been coming from The Great Literature Trivia Quiz Book: 500 Quiz Questions and Answers about Books by Book Riot contributor Sarah S. Davis!)
You made it to the bottom! High five. Thanks for reading! – xo, L