Book List

This post originally appeared on Book Riot.

If you were following Book Riot on Instagram two weeks ago, you know that many of the contributors were in New York for Book Expo America, the publishing industries big shindig for the year. I didn’t get to go this year, but one of the things that interested me last year was thinking about books from the business side and learning about what those business decisions are.

To ease my BEA envy and get me ready for next year, I found five books (existing and out soon) on the business of books that I am looking forward to reading.

When I saw that one of the genre-focused topics for Armchair BEA was nonfiction, I got really excited. Reading and recommending nonfiction is what I’m known for around the blogosphere (to the extent that I’m really “known” by that many people), so it’s a perfect prompt for me. The problem I discovered as I sat down [...]

One of my very favorite things in the world is sitting by the lake at my parents’ cabin in Wisconsin with a good book (I’ve posted about this SEVERAL times before). I regularly make a pilgrimage there for a long weekend in the spring and an even longer weekend over the 4th of the July. Given our horrible, un-Spring-like weather this month, I’ve spent more time than normal yearning for a quiet summer weekend with the lake breeze in my hair and a margarita by my side.

What It’s About: Mindy Kaling is an Emmy-nominated author and actress on one of my favorite shows, The Office. She’s also a comedian, playwright, and astute observer of what it’s like to be a female in comedy in Hollywood.

Why I Want to Read It: I love The Office, and I love Kaling’s Twitter feed, which makes me think the book will be right up my alley. I’ve been disappointed by some books by young, female essayists (Sloan Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake let me down), but I get sense this will be more astute.

What It’s About: Following in the wake of Joan Didion’s first memoir of grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights is about the loss of her daughter, Quintana Roo, and Didion’s “thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.”

Why I Want to Read It: The Year of Magical Thinking is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book, and I think it’s impossible to think about Blue Nights without being reminded of that piece. I mean, even the covers are designed the same way.

What It’s About: In Other Worlds is an exploration of Margaret Atwood’s relationship with science fiction – from her first reading and writing attempts as a child through her studies at Harvard and culminating in her work as a writer and reviewer. The book collects Atwood’s lectures, reviews, and other writing on the topic together in one book.

Why I Want to Read It: MARGARET ATWOOD! SQUEE!

A Thousand Lives follows five members of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple – “a middle-class English teacher from Colorado, an elderly African American woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, a troubled young black man from Oakland, and a working-class father and his teenage son “ – who came to the community for different reasons but ended up fighting for their lives as Jones slowly drew the community into chaos.

“The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin” debuted on American television in 1954. However, the real-life story of Rin Tin Tin was not as glamorous as the perfect pup he played on the small screen. The real dog’s story begins on a World War I battlefield and leads to Hollywood and, eventually, the history books.

What It’s About: Journalist Brooke Hauser relates the stories of several students at International High School in Prospect Heights, a high school designed to teach English and other skills to recently-immigrated high school students and help them integrate into the U.S. Over the course of a year, Hauser follows the students as the face the competing pressures of learning to survive in America, learning to thrive in high school, and balancing the expectations from their families.