Hello friends, and welcome to August, the month where the moon tries to give us the slip, the skies get dingy, and all sorts of fall books start sneaking onto the shelves. Let’s pad quietly down the aisle and see who we can surprise.
Oh! Here’s a new book from P. Djèlí Clark. This one is The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, which—as the marketing copy tells us—is about assassins who are neither cats nor do they have tails. They are, however, dead, because, you know, that’s part of the initiation ritual into the club. This club has only three rules: the contract must be just, the contract must be completed, and you can’t kill anyone other than the contract. In return, the Matron of Assassins will resurrect you, wipe you of your memories, and make you super deadly.
Which is all great for Eveen the Eviscerator, the most skilled of all the skilled, until her latest contract puts her face-to-face with a past she doesn’t remember. Naturally, things get complicated from there. Highly recommended.
Oh, hey, remember when we warned you all those months ago that the Tolkien estate was going to come for your wallet? Well, this is the week where it starts.
Here’s the super pretty edition of The Hobbit.
And of The Silmarillion.
The other three books drop next month. Start saving your pocket change.
[Ed note: Do we tell them about The Hobbit Deluxe Illustrated by the Author Special Edition?]
[No, that’s not until October. Let’s surprise them.]
And speaking of epics, Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad is out in paperback this week. This is good stuff. The price is right. We’re fans.
And speaking of epic stories with significant fan bases, James S. A. Corey is back this week with The Mercy of Gods. It’s the beginning of a new series, one that drops us in the middle of a grand conflict between the Carryx, a vast empire that has dominated the galaxy for centuries, and an enemy that makes them lose sleep at night. The Carryx, for some reason, see a bunch of scrappy humans as key to winning this war, and so they scoop up a bunch and dump them in the sh*t to see if they can step up and save the world. Sorta? We’re glossing heavily, but think of it as Corey doing Intergalactic Battle Royale and you might have a better sense of what is about to unfold. Either way, we’re on-board!
And Silvia Moreno-Garcia is back this week too with The Seventh Veil of Salome. Set in 1950s Hollywood, The Seventh Veil of Salome follows two actresses, both determined to make it in the Golden Age of Hollywood, as they compete for the salacious role of Salome. Naturally, things get catty, things get scandalous, and things get murderously out of control. Moreno-Garcia is a brilliant writer who deftly skips across genre lines, and we anticipate this one will charm the historical fiction crowd as well as the literary / fabulist crowd. Recommended.
And speaking of fabulist storytellers, T. Kingfisher is back this week with A Sorceress Comes to Call, which is a dark reimagining of the classic Brother Grimm story “The Goose Girl,” which is an ATU type 533 folktale. (Don’t fret. We went down the rabbit hole for you.) Kingfisher’s reimaginings are delightful, whether she’s tackling Grimm or Poe, and we expect to be thoroughly enchanted by A Sorceress Come to Call.
And speaking of fractured families and the fingernail-biting decisions one must make about family, Freida McFadden is back this week with The Perfect Son, which is a psychological thriller about the disappearance of a local girl, the prime suspect, and the dread that slowly twists his mother. Like Kingfisher, McFadden has been on fire these past few years. Plan accordingly.
And here is Casey McQuiston’s latest rom-com, The Pairing. A pair of ex-lovers accidently book the same food and wine tour, and in order to make the trip extra spicy, they challenge each other to ably demonstrate that they’ve put to rest their feelings for each other. Except, of course, this is a lie, and all sorts of romantic shenanigans ensue.
This first edition has, of course, fancy painted edges that complicate shelving this book spine out, but no one wants to hear about the headaches of modern bookselling.
Well, that’s not entirely true. The good folks at Scholastic have got our backs. They don’t fuss around with all the frills and fancy edges and what-not. They just put an extra adjective in the title. Witness the Pokémon Super Duper Extra Deluxe Essential Handbook that was released this week.
Details on over one thousand Pokémon! We can’t even do that thing where we tell the kids that we had to go uphill both directions, in the snow, to catch our Pikachus. They just roll their eyes and say, “Four digits, Grandpa. I gotta catch four digits worth of critters in order to become a Pokémon Master.”
And speaking of gathering the young’uns around the fire to tell them stories of the olden days, here is Evan Friss’s The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore. It begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and rambles through a whole slew of fantastic shops that have impacted numerous communities over the last three hundred years. Naturally, there’s an aspect of Friss’s book that speaks to the modern era—with its indie-store gobbling monoliths and the persistent pitchforking about the free expression of ideas—but Friss is here to celebrate an important cultural institution that plays an incredibly important role in keeping communities healthy and vibrant.
Go bookstores!
Which brings us to A Calendar for Book Lovers, 2025 edition.
Plus the ocassional cat.
That’s the list for this week. Be sure to take a stash of books if you’re squeaking in one last vacation before school begins. You never know when you might need something to while away the time for an hour or two, and a book is a much better companion than scrolling through social media. Weave some kindness ribbons in your hair, and make sure to look both ways before crossing the street.
