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A couple weeks into the year and, yeah, we're all starting to feel a bit of that burning sensation in our hamstrings and quads, aren't we? Lots of books to be moving around the house as we settle into our resolution to be better! Brighter! More well-read! No? How about two out of three? 

Well, there's something going on, because you all look marvelous, and it can't be just because you're getting more sleep. Good for you. You should reward yourself with a treat, like . . . more books. 

That might have been a little too ham-fisted, but whatever. Let's go look at the shelves.
 


Well, there's no way to sugarcoat this one, but here is Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark, a mosaic novel about how humanity comes to terms with a harrowing climate plague. Supposedly ten years in the making, Nagamatsu's debut novel will appeal to those who dug David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, which is to say: Hey kids, it's about people coming to terms with lots and lots and lots of the world dying around them. Keen, huh? 
 


Or, if you prefer something a little less . . . hmmm . . . terrifyingly prescient, here's Ace Atkins connecting the dots on a new Spenser novel. Atkins is continuing the series character created by Robert B. Parker, and in Bye Bye Baby, Spenser is hired to protect a local politician in a story that sounds a lot like a day in the life of a well-known Democratic Senator. Thugs and death threats and cries of "Fake News!" abound. Spenser punches a few people. Hawk and Sixkill show up. They probably punch people too. But at least no one dies of a six-thousand year old virus that some scientist dug up from an ice floe. 
 


Or, perhaps what you'd like this week is a new Colleen Hoover novel. Given the pace at which her other titles have been flying out the door, we suspect you'll be delighted. This one is more teal with a slurry of orange and pink sort of contemporary romance, unlike the pink-and-white one, or the weird-green-moss colored one, or the blue-and-white one, or the brown-and-yellow one. As you can expect, Hoover delivers snappy dialogue, compelling characters, and some blush-worthy steamy scenes in Reminders of Him. There will be an ever-shrinking stack of them on the table. 
 


Meanwhile, Nick Petrie has a new book out. The Runaway is the seventh book to feature Peter Ash, Petrie's everyman hero, and this time around, Ash finds himself on the wrong end of a Good Samaritan moment. Of course, the gang discovers they may have cornered a wildcat with Ash, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse game across the Great Plains is propulsive late-night reading at its finest. 
 


And speaking of fine reading, Katee Robert is back this week with Electric Idol, the smoldering sequel to Neon Gods, which smoked its way off the shelves last year. This time around, it's social media influencer Psyche and hot gun-hand Eros against Eros's scheming and power-mad mother, Aphrodite. Eros has a clever plan to put Psyche out of his mother's reach ("Hey girl, how about we get all tied-up, legally-speaking?"), which, of course, leads to all sorts of complications. Feral mothers, explosive chemistry, and lots of steamy action make this one a winner. 
 


And speaking of what's bubbling on the stove over there, here is Anita Kelly's Love & Other Disasters, which is a meet-cute rom-com set on a competitive cooking show. Snark! Banter! Sexual chemistry! Romantic eye-rolling! This one is a well-measured recipe that bakes out to precisely what you expect it to be. Chef kiss! 
 


If you're looking for something a little more courtroom drama than kitchen shenanigans, here is Evan Hughes's The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup. Hughes's book covers the rise and fall of Insys Therapeutics, whose drug, Subsys, was heavily over-prescribed during the early 2000s. Like "hey, you should take this fentanyl spray for those nose hairs" sort of over-prescribed. It's a story of corruption and greed, of course, and probably won't surprise you in the slightest (and yes, we're sorry this is where we are all at in 2022), but Hughes makes it all very compelling reading. 
 

Or how about a gigantic tome of deep-in-the-weeds geekery about Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones? Phillippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon have cobbled together an extensively comprehensive catalog of behind-the-scenes nerdery about every song Dylan and the Stones have recorded.


We've read both their Pink Floyd and Beatles books. Trust us. These lads do their homework. Either one of these will fill enumerable long winter nights. 

And finally, here is Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Woman, the story of a young woman who undertakes a magical object quest and the adventures she has along the way. Of course, that's a dramatic oversimplification of a book that has marvelous world-building and fantastic characters. Oforafor's Afrofuturist fantasy is filled with leopard people, magical covens, and trickster characters. Highly recommended. 



Overheard At The Store »»

NADIA: So the otters were saying something about how they broke you . . . ?

COLBY: . . . 

NADIA: Oh, so we're doing this, are we?

COLBY: . . .

NADIA: Really?

COLBY: . . .

NADIA: Well, okay. Maybe I'll just put a price tag on you then and—

COLBY: <whoosh!> <pant> <pant>

NADIA: Um-hum. Is this going to be a thing with you now?

COLBY: <pant> <pant> <wheeze> I was re-acclimating. Adjusting my internal atmospheric pressure.  

NADIA: Whatever, marmot. It sounds like a fairly transparent attempt to get out of a conversation. 

COLBY: It works for Mimé. 

NADIA: Yes, but he's a professional mime. He went to school for that. Probably still has student loans to prove it. 

COLBY: Ouch. That's gotta sting. 

NADIA: Yeah, well. It's what you do for your life's passion.

COLBY: Really?

NADIA: What do I know. I'm just working this job until my candle business takes off. 

COLBY: Candle business? 

NADIA: Well, technically, it's an astrologically complex Númenórean aromatherapy program, but you know? It's not important. 

COLBY: No, no. It is. It sounds like it means a lot to you. 

NADIA: I'm not talking about my feelings with you, marmot. Not this early in the year. 

COLBY: Okay, okay. 

NADIA: . . . 

COLBY: . . . 

NADIA: . . .

COLBY: So . . . around Labor Day, maybe? 

NADIA: Yeah, we're done here, marmot. Go play nice with your friends. 


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