North America

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, April 30, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by NPD BookScan © 2022 NPD Group. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2022, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "Dream Town" by David Baldacci (Grand Central) Last week: 1 2. "Run, ...

"The Homewreckers" by Mary Kay Andrews; St. Martin’s Press (448 pages, $28.99) ——— What could be a better setting for romance than a house renovation? Ah, I hear the bitter laughter of all of you who’ve been through a reno with a significant other (or ex-significant other). But in Mary Kay Andrews’ new beach book, "The Homewreckers," rehabber Hattie Kavanaugh’s affection for reviving crumbling ...

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t know the famous line Patrick Swayze’s character Johnny Castle utters in the 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing?” But the reality was nobody could put Swayze in a corner. The star died in 2009 at the age of 57 from pancreatic cancer and to this day, it’s rare that one can turn on the television and not see one of his films airing ...

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — Melissa Talmadge Cox knew Grandpa Buster had made a bunch of silent movies long before she was born, but it wasn’t until after Buster Keaton died and Cox was in college that she saw one. “I was absolutely speechless when it ended,” Talmadge says of the movie, “Steamboat Bill Jr.,” that she watched at a silent film fest in the late ’60s. “Here was this person I had never ...

NONFICTION: Three books on the craft of writing teach, inspire and sometimes amuse. "Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts," by Matt Bell. (Soho Press, 168 pages, $15.99.) Though his handy, authoritative book is structured as a how-to guide with specific steps, novelist and teacher Matt Bell ("Appleseed") lays down few absolute rules. He admonishes readers to use ...

FICTION: In his engrossing second novel, Hernan Diaz gives us four versions of the life of an early capitalist. "Trust" by Hernan Diaz; Riverhead Books (416 pages, $28) ——— Those unfamiliar with Hernan Diaz's remarkable debut have that novel, "In the Distance," to look forward to. Published in 2017 by Minneapolis' Coffee House Press, his western adventure slyly critiques cherished myths about ...

In her first novel for adults, Kelly Barnhill reimagines a world where women face 1950s-style constraints, and find a path out. "When Women Were Dragons" by Kelly Barnhill; Doubleday (352 pages, $28) ——— What can't be named can't be questioned in this new novel by Minneapolis writer Kelly Barnhill, which immerses readers in a post-World War II period of conformity and repression with a ...

FICTION: A murdered Australian pickpocket pines for his pregnant wife in this satire of mortality and the afterlife. "Here Goes Nothing" by Steve Toltz; Melville House (320 pages. $26.99) ——— Angus Mooney, the philosophical pickpocket/wedding photographer at the heart of Australian writer Steve Toltz's latest novel, has some bad news about the afterlife. Forget the harps and halos. Death is a ...

NONFICTION: An informative biography of Alexis De Tocqueville, whose analysis of liberty, equality and democracy has remained influential for almost 200 years. "The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis De Tocqueville" by Olivier Zunz; Princeton University Press (456 pages, $35) ——— Commissioned by the French government to study prisons in the United States, Alexis De Tocqueville, a ...

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, April 23, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by NPD BookScan © 2022 NPD Group. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2022, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "Dream Town" by David Baldacci (Grand Central) Last week: — 2. ...

DALLAS — Karen Baum Gordon knows how to tell a story, and most of all, how to begin one. From the moment you open her memoir, "The Last Letter," you’re hooked. “My father tried to kill himself when he was 86 years old” are the words that launch this remarkable journey, which is best summed up in the subtitle: "A Father’s Struggle, a Daughter’s Quest, and the Long Shadow of the Holocaust." Now ...

FICTION: The deceptively quiet and devastating story of a lonely young woman within a sexist and shifting South Korean society. "Violets" by Kyung-sook Shin, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur; Feminist Press (218 pages, $15.95) ——— In 2012 with her novel "Please Look After Mom," Kyung-sook Shin became the first South Korean and the first woman ever to win the Man Asian Literary Prize. ...

"A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention" by: Rebecca Schiller; The Experiment (304 pages, $25.95) ——— In the U.K., journalist and maternal rights advocate Rebecca Schiller's memoir is known as "Earthed," much less self-help-y than the U.S. title, "A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention," and one that gets closer to the heart of her account of dealing with severe ADHD and life on a smallholding in the ...

FICTION: Wonderfully entertaining novel about lessons in life, love and business centered around one family's suburban Chicago restaurant. "Marrying the Ketchups" by Jennifer Close; Knopf (320 pages, $28) ——— One of worst parts of waiting tables comes at the end of the shift. You're tired, you're hungry, but you still have side work to do, like making all the pawed-over, schmutz-smeared ...

FICTION: A group of idealistic Unitarians search for a new minister and find that they agree on very little. "Search" by Michelle Huneven; Penguin Press (400 pages, $26) ——— The elevator pitch of Michelle Huneven's new novel would not do this fine book justice. What's it about, in one sentence? Um, "Search" is a deep dive into the workings of a Unitarian-Universalist committee that is ...

In the mid-’90s, Don Winslow had already published a handful of novels when he decided to fill the gaps in his literary education by reading through a list of the great books of world literature. His intent was to broaden his reading beyond the African and military history he’d studied in college and graduate school and the crime fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, whose works ...