28 new eBooks and audiobooks we’re looking forward to this week
Welcome back to New & Hot Reads, where we talk about some of the most anticipated books coming out now
Remember Bird Box? A quick refresher: blindfolds; a rowboat; the 2018 Christmas season when the Netflix adaptation of Josh Malerman’s novel about a contagion of violent insanity was its own viral pop culture phenomenon. With Malorie, Malerman picks up the story twelve years after Bird Box ended: the disease is still rampant, there’s no cure at hand, and only a blindfold can prevent infection. Malorie continues to raise her children, and discovers, after suffering years of immeasurable losses, that she may have a reason to hope. One big question looming over this book is whether the world it describes is any less scary to readers now that we all live with the daily reality of covering our faces when we leave the house.
In Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, the story of a young woman and the boy she raises while confined to a single room by a sadistic man, readers were transported into a confined space that was forced to be an entire world. Her new novel promises something similar: in The Pull of the Stars we spend three days inside of a maternity ward in 1918 at the apex of the Spanish Flu. Like Lawrence Wright, whose The End of October was conceived and largely written long before the start of the current pandemic, Donoghue didn’t set out to write a novel nearly as timely as The Pull of the Stars has turned out to be.
Speaking of coincidences, July 21st marks the simultaneous release of two books on the topic of Alex Trebek. Let’s meet the contestants! From biographer Lisa Rogak we have Who Is Alex Trebek?, and from the host of Jeopardy! himself, we have Alex Trebek’s The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life. We have to wonder though how many more Daily Doubles are left on the board for 2020.
More books coming out July 21 - 27
💭 Big Ideas
- Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum
- The New Corner Office: The New Corner Office by Laura Vanderkam
- How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps by Ben Shapiro
- Decoding Your Cat: The Ultimate Experts Explain Common Cat Behaviors and Reveal How to Prevent or Change Unwanted Ones by American College of Veterinary Behaviorists
✍️ True Stories
- The Answer Is . . .: Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek
- The Perfect Father: The True Story of Chris Watts, His All-American Family, and a Shocking Murder by John Glatt
- I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad by Brandon Soderberg
- Who Is Alex Trebek? A Biography by Lisa Rogak
💘 Romance
- Winning my Best Friend's Girl: Baileys #8 by Piper Rayne
- Deadly Touch by Heather Graham
- A Fool's Gold Wedding by Susan Mallery
- The Cowgirl's Chosen Love by Vivian Arend
- How to Date a Younger Man by Kendall Ryan
🗡️ Crime Fiction and Thrillers
- Near Dark: The Scot Harvath Series by Brad Thor
- Fearless Pursuit: Off the Grid #8 by Barbara Freethy
- Half Moon Bay: Clay Edison #3 by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
- Blind Vigilance: Sydney Rye #13 by Emily Kimelman
🖊️ Contemporary Fiction
- The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
- The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
- Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O'Farrell
- How Lulu Lost Her Mind by Rachel Gibson
- Malorie: A Bird Box Novel by Josh Malerman
✨ Tales of Other Worlds and Other Times
- Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis
- The Crescent and the Cross: Knights Templar #5 by S.J.A. Turney
- A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
- The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
- Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Shadow of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels Book 2) by F. C. Yee
- Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Check out even more new eBooks & audiobooks here