A Hollywood Heavyweight's First Novel Is One of the Books We Can't Put Down Right Now
A Hollywood Heavyweight's First Novel Is One of the Books We Can't Put Down Right Now
This month, dive into a smart novel about royal romance; witness a writer recalling a family torn apart; uncover the secrets of one of America's most prestigious private schools; devour of-the-moment essays from one of our brightest minds; try a debut novel from one of Hollywood's most revered screenwriters; go behind the scenes of the world's most watched marriage; tear through a story about the intersection of ambition and reality; or revisit a modern classic celebrating its 50th birthday.
1) The Heir Affair (The Royal We (2))
Grand Central Publishing
amazon.com
Can't get enough real-life royal scandal? Pick up this breezy sequel to the 2015 bestseller The Royal We. After their fairy-tale wedding implodes, Rebecca "Bex" Porter and her husband Prince Nicholas retreat into self-imposed exile, before being called back to London to face a new family crisis.
2) Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir
Ecco
amazon.com
Natasha Trethewey (who would go on to become a U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner) was 19 years old when her mother, Gwendolyn, was murdered by her ex-husband, Trethewey's former stepfather. This heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant memoir explores the long-buried past Trethewey fought to forget and the cruel, powerful forces of domestic abuse and racism.
3) Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir
Little, Brown and Company
amazon.com
Novelist Lacy Crawford plums her own life in this story of her time at the St. Paul's boarding school, where she was the survivor of a long-ignored sexual assault. When news of other, similar incidents starts to come out, Crawford is compelled to revisit her own experience and frankly grapple with the way violence, truth, and guilt are handled in our country's most exclusive institutions.
4) Intimations: Six Essays
amazon.com
There will be innumerable books to come about life in the pandemic, but Zadie Smith is who we want to read right now. Her new essay collection, written in the early months of the Covid-19 lockdown, explores the ideas brought about by our new world: how we relate to other people in our isolation, how we should compare our suffering (and compassion) to others, the relationship between work and leisure, and what time means now. This will be essential reading for us now, and when we look back in the years to come.
5) Thank You for Voting: The Maddening, Enlightening, Inspiring Truth About Voting in America
amazon.com
Reading this book counts as a patriotic act this holiday weekend. Journalist (and lawyer) Erin Geiger Smith takes a lively, enlightening look at why voting in the United States—that prize of democracy—is in peril and what we can do about it. What did 40% of Americans pass up the opportunity to vote in the last presidential election? Geiger Smith maps out how we got here and offers simple (but not simplistic) tools that might help our republic get back on track to full enfranchisement—and an energized electorate.
6) Antkind: A Novel
amazon.com
Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, comes out strong with his fiction debut. Antkind centers on a failed film critic named B. Rosenberg who discovers a three-month-long film that took its reclusive creator 90 years to make. Rosenberg wants to show the film, but there's one problem: only one frame remains, and he must imagine what came before it. What follows is a deranged, comical nightmare.
7) Meghan and Harry: The Real Story
Pegasus Books
amazon.com
$18.57
This January, the world was shocked when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their intention to step back as senior royals. What became known as "Megxit" consumed the media, and even though Harry and Meghan have now quietly settled into their new life in Los Angeles, they'll never be fully out of the spotlight. This insider look from royal biographer Lady Colin Campbell (bestselling author of books about Princess Diana) goes behind the scenes, revealing why the royal system refused to change for them, and why they created their own way forward.
8) Want: A Novel
Henry Holt and Co.
amazon.com
This second novel from the author of Hold Still follows Elizabeth, a New York woman with big aspirations, as her carefully planned life begins to unravel. A reunion with a childhood friend offers a look at what else could have been, but the novel ultimately asks Elizabeth (and all of us) to face the decisions we've made and the person they've made us.
9) The Bluest Eye
Alfred A Knopf
amazon.com
Toni Morrison's first novel turns 50 this year, so what better time to revisit the enduring masterpiece? Pecola, an 11-year-old Black foster child growing up in Ohio in the years after the Depression, has experienced unbearable violence at the hands of her own family, and prays every day for blue eyes like the other children around her, longing to be thought of as beautiful. The novel was (and still is) remarkable for focusing on the world of a young Black girl and its shifting points of view—not to mention Morrison's unmatched use of language.
Eight standout new releases of the month—and one old favorite to revisit.