Hello, librarians!
You voted, they counted, and the winners have finally been announced!
We are thrilled to share that Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect and Mariana Zapata's All Rhodes Lead Here have been selected for the January LibraryReads list! Congratulations to both of our authors!
Want to hear how our authors reacted to the big news? Listen to our latest episode of The Library Love Fest Podcast to hear from them:
Check out this very special conversation Virginia had with debut novelist Bill Gaythwaite whose book, Underburn, was just published.
From Virginia:
I loved this book. Hooked me from page one. A story about generations, struggles, strength, love, falling down and getting back up.
After devastating wildfires force Frank and his young boyfriend, Logan, from their rental home in the California hills. Frank’s mother, Iris, a former B-list actress, offers them temporary shelter.
The relationship between Frank and his mother was always tense. Frank is beleaguered with sadness. Iris is sharp-tongued (she can also be wickedly funny). Logan is a handsome extra on a teen soap opera who tries to match wits with Iris. They’re all trying to play nice in the sandbox. When Iris gets a letter from her estranged sister in Maine, Iris is compelled to return to the family farm she left 50 years ago—and she convinces Frank and Logan to go with her. The story takes a whole new turn with another terrific cast of characters. It’s a funny and poignant family saga about secrets and forgiveness.
I love the backstory each character gets in these pages. It never feels forced. It’s all worked seamlessly into the storyline. The reader understands each person a little more as layers are peeled back.
There’s humor and heartache amongst the suits of armor these characters have had to wear to make it through each day.
I love them all—once I understood them.
It’s a busy time of year. Stop, grab a chair, and escape into this gem of a book!
Praise for Underburn:
“A wonderfully engaging tale of both family and the underside of fame, Bill Gaythwaite’s debut novel Underburn mirrors the deceptive richness of the very generational ties it so charmingly explores: the long memories, conflicts big and small, surprisingly pivotal moments, and rediscovered bonds. One rarely encounters characters drawn with such candor, warmth, and humanity: you will gladly cheer and care for everyone as they seek to make peace with the past, while risking it all for a brand-new future.”
—Natalie Jenner, author of the international bestseller The Jane Austen Society
"A quirky family story told with wit and wisdom, with shades of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Strout…. a fine debut."
—Kirkus Reviews
Are you all bundled up?? Hope everyone is staying warm for this holiday season. Best wishes from the LLF team to you and yours.
We have plenty of recommendations to get you through the cold days. Here you will find a list of titles eligible for the February LibraryReads list. Don't forget to get your votes for the February LibraryReads list in by January 1st!
Happy reading,
-The LLF Team (Virginia, Lainey, and Grace)
On December 8th, 2023, Netflix will begin streaming the film adaptation of Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam! The film will star Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Myha'la. You can watch the official trailer for the film here.
Excited about the film? Read (or reread) the novel in anticipation!
Leave the World Behind is a magnetic, suspenseful, and provocative novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. It's keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.
We aren't the only fans of this novel, since its release in 2020, Leave the World Behind has received endless praise. Check out some of the love below:
“A slippery and duplicitous marvel of a novel…Leave the World Behind is atmospheric and prescient: its rhythms of comedy alternating with shock and despair mimic so much of the rhythms of life right now. That's more than enough to make it a signature novel for this blasted year.”
—Fresh Air (NPR)
“'Leave the World Behind' is the perfect title for a book that opens with the promise of utopia and travels as far from that dream as our worst fears might take us. It is the rarest of books: a genuine thriller, a brilliant distillation of our anxious age, and a work of high literary merit that deserves a place among the classics of dystopian literature.”
—Washington Post
“The best book you can read right now…A perfectly-engineered thrill ride that is also a novel of ideas, Leave the World Behind combines deft prose, a pitiless view of consumer culture and a few truly shocking moments…An exceptional read that will stay with you long after you’ve sped through its final pages.”
—USA Today
“Leave the World Behind is so many things—funny, sharp, insightful about modernity and race and parenthood and home—but at its core it’s a story of our shared apocalypse; a steady look at humanity in the moment it tumbles from a great height. I have not been this profoundly unnerved by a science fiction novel since Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.”
—Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties
“Leave The World Behind is that rarest of things, a beautifully written, emotionally resonant page-turner. Alam explores complex ideas about privilege and fate with miraculous wit and grace.”
—Jenny Offill, author of Weather
In addition to the wonderful acclaim, Leave the World Behind was also A Read with Jenna Pick, a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award (fiction), and was featured on Barack Obama's Summer Favorites list.
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In October of 2020, the Library Love Fest team hosted Rumaan Alam on Door to Door, where he talked in depth about Leave The World Behind. Check it out here:
If you can't get enough of Leave the World Behind, listen to our interview with Rumaan on The Library Love Fest Podcast:
We know that you'll love Leave the World Behind as much as we did, so get your hands on a copy now. If you need us on Friday, we'll be busy watching the new film adaptation on Netflix!
—The Library Love Fest team
This gem of a book has set my heart aflutter. This is a wonderful debut about a gay man who flees (with his much younger lover) to his mother’s home after his own home has been destroyed by the fires that ravaged so much of Malibu. He, his mother (a former actress), and his boyfriend have to figure out a way to navigate the waters of this new life together. Humor, tension, tenderness, acceptance, family. It’s all here and it’s written with such authenticity. It’s relatable and real, and I hope you give yourself the gift of reading this book.
Check out this post from the author, Bill Gaythwaite. And check out his talk on Five Minutes with…here. Enjoy!
— Virginia
Hello Librarians,
I am so pleased that my debut novel Underburn has been recently published. I’m not sure if I ever expected it would happen. My short stories have been appearing in little magazines for many years, but friends would often ask, “When you are you going to write that novel?” as if it was an errand I had simply forgotten.
However, I honestly didn’t set out to write a novel. Underburn started as a text. I have close friends in California who lost their home to a wildfire in 2018. They had moved in with family temporarily. It was a terribly sad time, but rather heroically they were trying to find some humor in their living situation ― landing with elderly parents who were somewhat challenging and set in their ways. They told me a couple of funny stories, so I turned one of them into a micro fiction piece and sent it to them as a text. I think they were amused. Around this same time, I stumbled upon Nancy Sinatra from 1966, singing her hit, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ on YouTube with some backup dancers. I started wondering about those dancers and the lives they have led since that performance and how one of them just might have been impacted by the recent wildfire. That gave me Iris Flynn, my first character, and got the plot moving. I was drawn to the idea of the past intruding on everyone in the novel as they deal with unforeseen circumstances. My favorite authors, writers like Joan Silber, Sue Miller, and Elizabeth Strout do a wonderful job of depicting poignant characters who muse about the path not taken or what brought them to their present circumstances. This was something I tried to do with Underburn, hopefully with some humor and compassion.
I do need to mention the influence of libraries in my life. My mother started the library in my elementary school and worked as its chief volunteer. I would see her almost every day in that context, very happy in her work. She continued there, even after I’d moved on to middle school and high school. The library was a big deal to my family. I remember quite clearly that it was cause for celebration in our home when we got our first library card, like getting a driver’s license. My father was a great reader, but we didn’t have much extra cash to purchase books, so he treated our trips to the library as if they were outings, as if we were going to the zoo or a ball game. I still remember the pleasure he took in choosing his books and in caring for them ― which was a wonderful example for me. My parents have passed, but I imagine how happy they would be to know that I would have my own book in a library one day.
— Bill Gaythwaite
Sad news to report. Author Tim Dorsey has passed away. He was beloved by librarians, patrons, and fellow writers. He was funny and engaging and he loved speaking at libraries. He’d draw a huge crowd, entertain them, make them laugh, and at the end of his presentations, he’d stand on a chair, take a selfie with attendees and post the pictures on his social media! He will be greatly missed but he leaves this world a happier place with his words, written and spoken.
—Virginia
Here is his full obituary:
Tim Dorsey passed away on Sunday, November 26th, 2023. Dorsey wrote the New York Times bestselling Serge A. Storms series hailed as “wickedly funny” (Entertainment Weekly), “rollicking” (NYT), and “laugh-out-loud” (Newsweek). He is survived by his daughters, mother, sister, and brother.
Tim Dorsey was born in Indiana, moved to Florida at the age of 1, and grew up in a small town about an hour north of Miami called Riviera Beach. He graduated from Auburn University in 1983. While at Auburn, he was editor of the student newspaper, The Plainsman.
From 1983 to 1987, he was a police and courts reporter for The Alabama Journal, the now-defunct evening newspaper in Montgomery. He joined The Tampa Tribune in 1987, as a general assignment reporter. He also worked as a political reporter in The Tribune’s Tallahassee bureau and a copy desk editor. From 1994 to 1999, he was The Tribune’s night metro editor. Tim left the paper in August 1999, to write full time about a deranged serial killer named Serge A. Storms who traveled across his beloved home state.
Over the course of his career, Tim published twenty-six novels: Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, Cadillac Beach, Torpedo Juice, The Big Bamboo, Hurricane Punch, Atomic Lobster, Nuclear Jellyfish, Gator A-Go-Go, Electric Barracuda, When Elves Attack, Pineapple Grenade, The Riptide Ultra-Glide, Tiger Shrimp Tango, Shark Skin Suite, Coconut Cowboy, Clownfish Blues, The Pope of Palm Beach, No Sunscreen for the Dead, Naked Came the Florida Man, The Tropic of Stupid, Mermaid Confidential, and The Maltese Iguana..
“It was a privilege and honor to work with Tim Dorsey. His easy wit and deep knowledge of Florida-lore made his satirical crime capers as entertaining as they were timely. But his greatest gift was the boundless joy and escape that Serge A. Storms brought to readers on every page. Tim was smart, kind, and loved his family and his fans. He will be missed.” said Emily Krump, Tim’s editor at William Morrow.
At this time, the Dorsey family has requested privacy.
Hello, librarians!
You voted, they counted, and the winners have finally been announced!
We are thrilled to share that Christine Platt and Catherine Wigginton Greene’s Rebecca, Not Becky has been selected for the December LibraryReads list! Additionally, Darby Kane has made the Hall of Fame with The Engagement Party. Congratulations to all!
Download egalleys and watch our Writers to Watch program with the authors of Rebecca, Not Becky here.
Want to hear how our authors reacted to the big news? Listen to our latest episode of The Library Love Fest Podcast to hear from them:
Happy Fall y'all!
We have a ton of reads coming your way in January. Get your e-reader powered up!
Here you will find a list of titles eligible for the January LibraryReads list. Don't forget to get your votes for the January LibraryReads list in by December 1st!
Happy reading,
-The LLF Team (Virginia, Lainey, and Grace)
We can hardly contain our excitement! Wednesday, November 8th, at 5 PM ET, we are having four fantastic authors on our monthly Writers to Watch program. For those who may not be familiar with Writers to Watch, we host authors for a night of literary delight. Each author talks about their book and then takes questions from librarians!
This month, we are thrilled to host Anthony Horowitz, author of Close to Death; Tamron Hall, author of Watch Where They Hide; Sara Paretsky, author of Pay Dirt and Andrey Kurkov, author of The Silver Bone.
REGISTER ON CROWDCAST
RSVP ON FACEBOOK
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Watch the full episode on : https://youtu.be/fFnTcUhHt7M?si=qYc0WUGBLpHweUSn
Watch the full episode on : https://youtu.be/q7iHMk88DuA?si=nKz4XCqt7Rn15—
Hello, librarians!
You voted, they counted, and the winners have finally been announced!
We are thrilled to share that Gilly Macmillan’s The Manor House has been selected for the November LibraryReads list! Congratulations, Gilly!
Find out more about this book and download an egalley here.
Want to hear how our author reacted to the big news? Listen to our latest episode of The Library Love Fest Podcast to hear from Gilly:
Happy book birthday to The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok! Jean is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown, and we are so excited for her latest novel. You can purchase your copy here, and trust us, you'll want to run to get your hands on this one!
The Leftover Woman is an evocative family drama and a riveting mystery about the ferocious pull of motherhood for two very different women.Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it's a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city—separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.
For months, the love has been pouring in for The Leftover Woman. Check it out:
“Kwok brings her signature lyrical prose to the novel, while suspense simmers in the background…Highly recommended.”
—Booklist ⭐️ review
Congrats to Jean on another phenomenal novel!
-Grace
