Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!
Happy new book day to all who celebrate! It’s approximately eleventy million degrees in Maine right now, and my brains feel like soup in my brain pan. Thank goodness I don’t need them, lol. The scorching weather hasn’t stopped the critters from visiting. This past weekend I saw my first red-bellied woodpecker, which was so beautiful! And also poorly named, IMO. Its head was the most astounding shade of red I’ve ever seen in nature, while its belly only had a weak bit of faint orange. It should be called the Play-Doh redheaded woodpecker. Alas, I was not consulted. This is in keeping with my opinion that, historically, people were bad at naming things. (Says the redhead, whose hair should be called orange or copper, or even rust, but certainly not red.)
Now, let’s talk about books! Today, I have a wild crime novel about a rock band that literally kicks ass, a YA graphic novel about demon fighters, and a speculative novel being compared to Cloud Atlas! As for this week’s other new releases, at the top of my list of today’s books that I want to get my hands on are The Spice Gate by Prashanth Srivatsa, The Lucky Ones: A Memoir by Zara Chowdhary, and The West Passage by Jared Pechaček. You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Vanessa and I talked about books we are excited about, including I Was A Teenage Slasher, The Astrology House, and Sharks Don’t Sink!
The Bang-Bang Sisters by Rio Youers
Brea, Jessie, and Flo are Bang-Bang Sisters, a trio of badass rock musicians who tour the country in a crappy van and play loud gigs, like how rock music was meant to be shared. But they also have a secret — they are also a trio of badass vigilantes who hunt down criminals who have evaded justice. But after a hot tip turns into a trap planned by a mobster with a score to settle, the sisters find themselves facing the only people they never thought they’d have to beat: each other. This is a high-octane crime adventure that takes you on a rocking ride, and it definitely should be a movie.
Backlist bump: The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen
Youth Group by Jordan Morris and Bowen McCurdy
For fans of demonic possession stories comes this fun YA graphic novel about a church youth group with some scary extracurricular activities. Since her parents split up, Kay’s dad is off leaning hard into his midlife crisis, while her mom is depressed and working all the time to support them. So when her Christian mom asks Kay to attend her church’s youth group, Kay reluctantly agrees, to make her mom feel better. And it’s just as corny as Kay expected. But she didn’t expect to accidentally discover the group leaders also exorcise demons. Suddenly, church just got a whole lot more interesting for Kay — and dangerous. Because, it turns out, Kay is a Blight, a person who can’t be possessed, which makes her great at fighting demons. And they’re going to need her when the demons grow in number and size. This fast-paced story includes hilarious takes on popular songs from the 1990s, which is when this story is set. (Of course people were possessed by demons in the 1990s, how else could you explain Furbies, Snow, and people wearing their clothes backward?)
Backlist bump: Specter Inspectors by Bowen McCurdy, Kaitlyn Musto
The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang
This last one is actually one I haven’t read yet but I am so excited about, because it’s being compared to Cloud Atlas, which I loved. It’s four interconnected stories inspired by East Asian mythology, set across three centuries. There’s a storyteller who speaks worlds into being (cough — like an author — cough), four disputatious mountain gods, a grieving history professor, and his young protégé. The professor and his protégé’s search for a path forward leads them to the tales of the storyteller and the gods, who may or may not have the best interest of the Earth in mind. It sounds fascinating, epic, and mind-bendy, and I can’t wait to get my hot little hands on it. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Backlist bump: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (and happy ten-year anniversary to the time some Rioters braved a Mitchell signing line at BEA.)
This week, I am reading Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor and Huda F Wants to Know? by Huda Fahmy. Outside of books, I am rewatching Amazing Stories. (Er, the original run.) You’re probably thinking, “Liberty, it seems like most of what you watch are things you’ve already seen.” That’s because while I work on the New Release Index and search the book catalogs for upcoming titles, I like to put on things in the background I have already seen so I don’t have to pay close attention to them. Plus, nostalgia has been scientifically proven to be good for your brain. The song stuck in my head this week is “Circadian Rhythm” by Son Volt. And here is your weekly cat picture: I can’t decide if Zevon doesn’t know how to sleep properly, or if he’s an alien species posing as a cat who thinks this is how they sleep. He looks like a turtle with its shell on upside down.
“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”—P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves
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