Happy Monday, readers! San Diego Comic Con was this past week, which means there’s always some great book-adjacent news, which I have included below. I hope your summer is going swimmingly and you have tons of fabulous stuff to read. Enjoy your upcoming week, and be excellent to each other. – xoxo, Liberty
Sponsored by Alfred A. Knopf, publisher of Cherry by Nico Walker.
Hammered out on a typewriter, Cherry is a breakneck-paced debut novel about love, war, bank robberies, and heroin.
Cleveland, 2003. A young man falls hard in love and gets married—just before flunking out of school and joining the Army. But he’s unprepared for the grisly reality that awaits him as an Army medic. When he returns from Iraq, his PTSD is profound, and the drugs on the street have changed. Hooked on heroin, desperate for a normal life, and running low on cash, he turns to the one thing he thinks he could be really good at—robbing banks.
PS – Don’t forget we’re giving away $500 of the year’s best YA fiction and nonfiction so far! Enter here by July 31st!
Here’s this week’s trivia question: In 1950, the first drive-through windows were established for book returns in what city? (Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.)
Deals, Reals, and Squeals!
MOAR MURDERBOT! Martha Wells is writing a novel.
N.K. Jemisin has a short story collection coming in the fall!
Amber Tamblyn joins the cast of Y: The Last Man.
Lin-Manuel Miranda announced Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You, a joint project with Jonny Sun.
In news surprising to no one, Andy Weir’s Artemis will be a film.
There’s going to be a podcast based on Sadie by Courtney Summers.
They Called Us Enemy, a graphic novel memoir of George Takei’s childhood in American internment camps, is coming this summer.
Nnedi Okorafor is writing a comic about Black Panther’s Sister Shuri.
Typecasting: Frances McDormand will play God in Good Omens.
Seanan McGuire is writing Spider Gwen.
Shonda Rimes is doing a series for Netflix based on books by Julia Quinn. (And seven other series!)
Becky Chambers is writing a pair of novellas.
Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles in the works at Hulu.
Netflix is planning a bunch of stuff with Mark Millar.
Batwoman series in development at CW.
Cover Reveals
Here’s the first look at A Deadly Divide, the fifth book in the Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak series by Ausma Zehanat Khan. (Minotaur Books, February 12, 2019)
And the cover for Justina Ireland’s Lando book was revealed at the SDCC. (Disney Lucasfilm Press, October 2)
Here’s the cover of Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken. (I AM SO EXCITED.) (Ecco, February 5, 2019)
Megan Whalen Turner revealed the cover for Return of the Thief, the final installment in the Queen’s Thief series. (Greenwillow Books, March 19, 2019)
Dutton revealed Phoebe Robinson’s new memoir, Everything’s Trash But It’s Okay.
Sneak Peeks
Here’s the first trailer for Boy, Erased, based on the memoir by Garrard Conley.
The trailer for Titans was released at the SDCC.
And so was the trailer for Aquaman.
And also the first peek at Wonder Woman 1984.
Annnnnd also the new trailer for Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald.
Here’s a peek behind the scenes as they make Good Omens.
And the first full trailer for George R. R. Martin’s Nightflyers.
And here’s a (partial) first look at the cast of Umbrella Academy, coming to Netflix in 2019.
Book Riot Recommends
At Book Riot, I work on the New Books! email, the All the Books! podcast about new releases, and the Book Riot Insiders New Release Index. I am very fortunate to get to read a lot of upcoming titles, and learn about a lot of upcoming titles, and I’m delighted to share a couple with you each week!
Loved, loved, loved:
Wild Milk by Sabrina Orah Mark (Dorothy a Publishing Project, October 1)
I read this over the weekend during the 24-in-48 readathon, and loved it. It’s a tiny book of unusual short stories. (I loved a weird book – go figure!) It’s perfect for fans of George Saunders. And I love everything Dorothy a Publishing Project releases.
Excited to read:
The True Queen (A Sorcerer to the Crown Novel) by Zen Cho (Ace, March 12, 2019)
There isn’t a cover image yet for this one, but I was THRILLED to hear that the second book has been announced! (And curious that it’s paperback when the first one was in hardcover first.) To celebrate, go read Sorcerer to the Crown right now, even if you’ve already read it.
What I’m reading this week.
Mirage: A Novel by Somaiya Daud
The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival by Jabari Asim
Dream Country by Shannon Gibney
JELL-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom
And this is funny.
I laugh every. single. time. (NSFW for curse word in the accompanying comment.)
Trivia answer: Cincinnati, Ohio.