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December 20, 2024

Wow, where did this year go? As this is our last Weekly Update newsletter of 2024, it’s time for this year’s version of our Bookreporter family card.

We hosted 14 “Bookaccino Live” book preview events and eight “Bookaccino Live” Book Group programs, and I conducted 27 “Bookreporter Talks To” interviews. We have more than 743,000 video views and podcast listens and 5,480 subscribers to our YouTube channel. We reviewed 657 books, and I have 40 Bookreporter.com Bets On selections, which you can watch or hear me talk about.

Editorial Content for Private Rites

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

In a world where rain has completely changed the landscape, the people respond with a series of rituals and religious practices that evoke beliefs formerly tossed to the wayside. Read More

Teaser

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

Promo

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

About the Book

From the award-winning author of OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, centering on three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a drowning world.

It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will.

More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams, Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling, and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

Audiobook available, read by Hannah van der Westhuysen

Editorial Content for The Rest Is Memory

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

There have been countless histories, novels and films relating the horrors of the Holocaust. However, when done well, these narratives can still shock readers or viewers out of contemporary complacency and compel us to contend with this all-too-recent atrocity in new and important ways. That's the experience many will have when they pick up Lily Tuck's new book, THE REST IS MEMORY. Read More

Teaser

First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle, 14-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead. How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in THE REST IS MEMORY, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation.

Promo

First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle, 14-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead. How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in THE REST IS MEMORY, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation.

About the Book

The heartbreaking story of a young Catholic girl transported to Auschwitz becomes a Rashomon-like rondo in the hands of one of our greatest novelists.

First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle, 14-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead.

How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in this haunting novel, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation.

A decade prior to writing THE REST IS MEMORY, Tuck read an obituary of the photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who took more than 40,000 pictures of the Auschwitz prisoners. Included were three of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic girl from rural southeastern Poland. Tuck cut out the photos and kept them, determined to learn more about Czeslawa, but she was only able to glean the barest facts: the village she came from, the transport she was on, that she was accompanied by her mother and her neighbors, her tattoo number and the date of her death. From this scant evidence, Tuck’s novel becomes a remarkable kaleidoscopic feat of imagination, something only our greatest novelists can do.

Audiobook available, read by Elisabeth Rodgers

Editorial Content for Bellevue

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

In 1977, a novel released that shook the world. It was called COMA, and it was written by physician Robin Cook. Little did anyone know that this moment was the probable start of what we now commonly refer to as the “medical thriller.” In fact, outside of maybe the late Michael Palmer, there is no other author more worthy of this moniker than Cook. Read More

Teaser

Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. To his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control. Visions begin to plague Mitt --- visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount, he finds himself drawn to the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building and discovers that he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.

Promo

Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. To his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control. Visions begin to plague Mitt --- visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount, he finds himself drawn to the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building and discovers that he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.

About the Book

From the bestselling author and "master of the medical thriller" (The New York Times), Robin Cook, comes a new tale of suspense-horror about a first-year resident whose life-shattering visions reveal the truth behind some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine.

Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly 300-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control.

Visions begin to plague Mitt --- visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the monumental, abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment has somehow defied the wrecking-ball and still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.

Audiobook available, read by John Pirhalla

Editorial Content for The Last Kilo: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire That Seduced America

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Philip Zozzaro

Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta were considered just another pair of “Cocaine Cowboys” in an area of rampant lawlessness. The longtime friends lived in South Florida and oversaw a narcotics enterprise that imported cocaine from Colombia and Mexico and lavished the addictive powder across parts of the East and West Coasts of the United States. The exact amount that their organization, Los Muchachos, imported has been speculated on over time, but the weight may have been as much as 7.5 tons. Read More

Teaser

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon. Los Muchachos, the syndicate founded by Falcon, thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the US from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a hundred million dollars a year. T. J. English has been granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of Los Muchachos, sitting down with Willy Falcon and his associates for many lengthy interviews, and revealing never-before-understood details about drug trafficking.

Promo

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon. Los Muchachos, the syndicate founded by Falcon, thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the US from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a hundred million dollars a year. T. J. English has been granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of Los Muchachos, sitting down with Willy Falcon and his associates for many lengthy interviews, and revealing never-before-understood details about drug trafficking.

About the Book

From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, behind-the-scenes saga of Los Muchachos, one of the most successful cocaine trafficking organizations in American history --- a story of glitz, glamour and organized crime set against 1980s Miami.

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon.

A Cuban exile whose family escaped Fidel Castro’s Cuba when he was 11 years old, Falcon, as a teenager, became active in the anti-Castro movement. He began smuggling cocaine into the US as a way to raise money to buy arms for the Contras in Central America. This counter-revolutionary activity led directly to Willy’s genesis as a narco. He and his partners built an extraordinary international organization from the ground up. Los Muchachos, the syndicate founded by Falcon, thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the U.S. from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a hundred million dollars a year. At the same time, Willy, his brother Tavy Falcon, and partner Sal Magluta became famous as championship powerboat racers.

Cocaine, used by everyone from A-list celebrities to lawyers and people in law enforcement, came to define an era, and for a time, Willy Falcon and those like him --- major suppliers, of whom there were only a few --- became stars in their own right. They were the deliverers of good times, at least until the downside of persistent cocaine use became apparent: delusions of grandeur, psychological addiction, financial ruin. Thus, the War on Drugs was born, and federal authorities came after Falcon and his crew with a vengeance. Willy found himself on the run, his marriage and family life in shambles, the halcyon days of boat races and lavish trips to Vegas and parties at the Mutiny night club seemingly a distant memory.

T. J. English has been granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of Los Muchachos, sitting down with Willy Falcon and his associates for many lengthy interviews, and revealing never-before-understood details about drug trafficking. A classic of true-crime writing from a master of the genre, THE LAST KILO traces the rise and fall of a true cocaine empire --- and the lives left in its wake.

Audiobook available, read by Christian Barillas

Editorial Content for Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Stuart Shiffman

I do not know how familiar many readers are with Edna Ferber. I recognized her name because of the movie Giant, which is based on Ferber’s novel of the same name. It remains a classic due to its incredible cast, including Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Dennis Hopper and James Dean, who died in a car accident shortly before the film was completed. Read More

Teaser

The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber's GIANT in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel's portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores, with oil-rich Texans threatening to shoot, lynch or ban Ferber from ever entering the state again. In GIANT LOVE, Julie Gilbert writes of the internationally bestselling Ferber, one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th century --- her evolution from mid-west maverick girl-reporter to Pulitzer Prize-winning, beloved American novelist, from her want-to-be actress days to becoming Broadway's acclaimed prize-winning playwright whose collaborators were, along with Ferber herself, the most successful playwrights of their time. Here is the making of an American classic novel and the film that followed in its wake.

Promo

The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber's GIANT in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel's portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores, with oil-rich Texans threatening to shoot, lynch or ban Ferber from ever entering the state again. In GIANT LOVE, Julie Gilbert writes of the internationally bestselling Ferber, one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th century --- her evolution from mid-west maverick girl-reporter to Pulitzer Prize-winning, beloved American novelist, from her want-to-be actress days to becoming Broadway's acclaimed prize-winning playwright whose collaborators were, along with Ferber herself, the most successful playwrights of their time. Here is the making of an American classic novel and the film that followed in its wake.

About the Book

A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international bestselling novel about Texas, and the making of George Stevens’ Academy Award-winning epic film of the same name, Giant.

The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber's GIANT in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel's portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores with oil-rich Texans threatening to shoot, lynch or ban Ferber from ever entering the state again.

In GIANT LOVE, Julie Gilbert writes of the internationally bestselling Ferber, one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th century --- her evolution from mid-west maverick girl-reporter to Pulitzer Prize winning, beloved American novelist, from her want-to-be actress days to becoming Broadway's acclaimed prize-winning playwright whose collaborators (George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart, among them) were, along with Ferber, herself, the most successful playwrights of their time.

Here is the making of an American classic novel and the film that followed in its wake. We see how George Stevens, Academy-Award winning director, wooed the prickly, stubborn Ferber, ultimately getting her to agree to everything including writing, for the first time ever, a draft of a screenplay, to her okaying James Dean for the part of the ranch hand, Jett Rink, something she was dead set against.

Here is the casting of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean and their backstory triangle of sex and seduction --- each becoming a huge star because of the film; the frustrated Stevens trying to direct the instinctive but undisciplined Dean and the months-long landmark filming in the sleepy town of Marfa, Texas, suddenly invaded by a battalion of a film crew and some of the biggest stars in the rising celebrity culture.

Audiobook available, read by Maggi-Meg Reed

Editorial Content for What It's Like in Words

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Lorraine W. Shanley

Eliza Moss’ debut novel, WHAT IT’S LIKE IN WORDS, offers an intense and intimate portrait of a toxic relationship through the eyes of Enola, a twenty-something struggling writer. This intricate story follows Enola as she comes to terms with her family trauma, provoked by her involvement with a somewhat older man, B.

"Is the ending a cop-out, a neat resolution or a cleverly anticipated denouement? That’s for the book club discussion."

Teaser

Enola is approaching 30 and feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won’t speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one-half of a couple that DIYs together during the weekends. Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future, but the reality is far from perfect. He is distant, hangs out with his ex and has dark moods. Her best friend begs her to end it, but she can’t. Enola might feel like she’s going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him. Over the next 24 hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel.

Promo

Enola is approaching 30 and feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won’t speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one-half of a couple that DIYs together during the weekends. Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future, but the reality is far from perfect. He is distant, hangs out with his ex and has dark moods. Her best friend begs her to end it, but she can’t. Enola might feel like she’s going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him. Over the next 24 hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel.

About the Book

Eliza Moss' intoxicating debut novel is a dark, intense and compelling account of what happens when a young woman falls in love with the wrong kind of man.

Enola is approaching 30 and everything feels like a lot. The boxes aren’t ticked, and she feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won’t speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one half of a couple that DIYs together during the weekends.

Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future: the wedding, the publishing deals, the house in Stoke Newington. But the reality is far from perfect. He’s distant. But she’s a Cool Girl, she doesn’t need to hear from him every day. He hangs out with his ex. But she's a Cool Girl, she’s not insecure. Is she? He has dark moods. But he’s a creative, that’s part of his "process." Her best friend begs her to end it, but Enola can’t. She's a Cool Girl.

She might feel like she’s going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him...that's what love is, isn’t it? Over the next 24 hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel, and she has to think again about how she sees love, family and friendship and --- most importantly --- herself.

With notes of "Fleabag" and "I May Destroy You" but with the sparseness and emotional accuracy of writers like Ali Smith and Lily King, WHAT IT'S LIKE IN WORDS is a close examination of what it means to experience the intense emotional uncertainty of first love.

Audiobook available, read by Victoria Blunt

          On Wednesday, December 11th, we hosted a very special “Bookaccino Live” event where seven Bookreporter reviewers talked about two of their favorite books of 2024. Our guests were Kate Ayers, Harvey Freedenberg, Pamela Kramer, Bronwyn Miller, Rebecca Munro, Ray Palen and Stuart Shiffman. Four reviewers --- Sarah Rachel Egelman, Megan Elliott, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol and Norah Piehl --- were not able to join us, so we presented their top picks and their comments about them in a slideshow. Their selections cover a wide variety of genres, and there may be a few titles here that you didn’t have on your radar that you will want to check out.