41 new eBooks and audiobooks coming out November 22 – 28, 2022

By Kobo • November 22, 2022New eBooks and Audiobooks

More essential new books for late Fall 2022

James Patterson is known as a juggernaut of bestsellers and a prolific collaborator whose many series feature a co-author with bonafides of genre specialization. NYPD Red is Patterson’s series about detectives Zach Jordan and Kylie MacDonald of the New York Police Department, which he started with co-author Marshall Karp, author of the Lomax & Biggs Mysteries, ten years ago. (The two previously partnered on the standalone thriller Kill Me if You Can.) NYPD Red 7 is the first book of the series to be authored solely by Karp and marks a torch-passing precedent among Patterson’s many series. Naturally this new installment features a generous endorsement from Patterson and is already being hailed as a high point in the decade-old series, suggesting that Karp can pull his weight on this project just fine. Does this signal a slowing-down for the most prolific novelist working today, and can we expect more series to be handed over to their co-authors? And what does Patterson’s long-time publisher Little, Brown make of these moves, with ambitious smaller players like Blackstone stepping in to carry on the series they’ve been so successful in launching? There might just be enough intrigue here for a new James Patterson thriller…

Because we exist now, we can assert with a high degree of confidence that people have been having sex for a long time. In The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages, historian Katherine Harvey focuses on what sex—including coupling, con(tra)ception, sex work, and more—was like a few centuries ago. The book covers sexual issues ranging from how the clergy handled oaths of celibacy (spoiler: they didn’t) and how societies defined and punished sexual deviance, such as a man prosecuted for bestiality but excused from the death penalty for proving he was unable to engage in intercourse with human women (or himself, allegedly) due to an injury. As surprising as so much of the book is, where Harvey discusses things like the existence of same-sex attraction and non-binary gender identities, as well as the popularity of pornography and sexual humour, the book serves as a reminder that we aren’t so different after all from our distant forebears.

Amber Ruffin is a gifted comedy writer and comic actor whose work on Late Night with Seth Meyers brought about her solo spinoff The Amber Ruffin Show. Ruffin’s humour focuses on social and political satire, casting a particularly sharp eye on the subtle (and overt) ways racism rears its head in headlines and in day-to-day interactions. Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar partnered to write about some particularly amusing anecdotes in the 2021 book You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism, and they’re back now with a follow up, The World Record Book of Racist Stories. In it, the sisters share more stories of first-hand experiences and the experiences of other Ruffin family members. Since racism as a societal force doesn’t seem to be relenting, even as it changes shape and tone, perhaps the best approach for now, at least for the Ruffins, is if you can’t beat ‘em, award ‘em.

More books coming out November 22 - 28, 2022