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Review: Another Victorian detective beats Sherlock Holmes at his own game

Entertainment / Books News /

If you’re looking for a brand-new mystery with a Sherlock Holmes vibe, you are — as the British heroes of two new books might say — spoiled for choices.

“Sherlock Holmes and the Real Thing” is the latest from Nicholas Meyer, who has been writing his series of (supposedly) newly unearthed mysteries featuring the great detective since ...Read more

John Monk/jmonk@thestate.com/The State/TNS

SC Rep. Clyburn's new book: history, a cautionary tale and a peaceful call to arms

Entertainment / Books News /

Most books have a story of how they came to be, and so it is with Rep. Jim Clyburn’s latest book: “The First Eight.”

Some years ago Clyburn, 85, was in his office at the U.S. Capitol when visitors pointed to portraits on his conference room wall of eight African Americans dressed on 19th century garb. Clyburn explained they were the first...Read more

Little, Brown and Company/Little, Brown and Company/TNS

'American Reich' explores rising hate crimes and the Blaze Bernstein murder

Entertainment / Books News /

As Eric Lichtblau began research for a non-fiction book on the rise of hate crimes in the United States, he found that there was a seemingly unending array of horrific examples.

In 2022, a white supremacist shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket. That same year, a Colorado Springs man, inspired by other hate-inspired mass ...Read more

Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/TNS

At 89, he's heard six decades of LA's secrets and is ready to talk about what he's learned

Entertainment / Books News /

LOS ANGELES -- Dr. Arnold Gilberg's sunny consultation room sits just off Wilshire Boulevard. Natural light spills onto a wooden floor, his houndstooth-upholstered armchair, the low-slung couch draped with a colorful Guatemalan blanket.

The Beverly Hills psychiatrist has been seeing patients for more than 60 years, both in rooms like this and ...Read more

John Lamparski/Getty Images North America/TNS

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reveals death of 1-year-old son

Entertainment / Books News /

Acclaimed author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, known for the bestselling novels “Half of a Yellow Sun” and “Americanah,” as well as a feature on Beyoncé’s “Flawless,” is mourning the loss of her 1-year-old son.

Reps for the award-winning Nigerian writer confirmed in a statement to the media on Thursday that Nkanu Nnamdi died on ...Read more

This week's bestsellers from Publishers Weekly

Entertainment / Books News /

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Jan. 3, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The ...Read more

TNS

This week's bestsellers from Publishers Weekly

Entertainment / Books News /

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Jan. 3, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2026 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2026, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The ...Read more

Handout/Doubleday/TNS

Will Louise Erdrich and Ann Patchett knock it out of the park in 2026?

Entertainment / Books News /

A cover blurb written by Stephen King had already proclaimed one upcoming book a contender for the best mystery of 2026, and I kept thinking, “Steve, it’s 2025. Settle down.”

But Mr. “Misery” is right that the book biz is plowing ahead, and that there is a lot to look forward to. I already have my eye on jam-packed April 5, when two ...Read more

Handout/Doubleday/TNS

Will Louise Erdrich and Ann Patchett knock it out of the park in 2026?

Entertainment / Books News /

A cover blurb written by Stephen King had already proclaimed one upcoming book a contender for the best mystery of 2026, and I kept thinking, “Steve, it’s 2025. Settle down.”

But Mr. “Misery” is right that the book biz is plowing ahead, and that there is a lot to look forward to. I already have my eye on jam-packed April 5, when two ...Read more

Penguin Random House/Penguin Random House/TNS

Commentary: Books we read in 2025 that prepared us for tech's future

Entertainment / Books News /

Trillions of dollars hang in the balance of two questions that dominated this year and loom perilously large over the next. “Will the artificial intelligence bubble burst?” and “Will China beat the US?”

Searching for answers is the theme of this year’s book recommendations from Bloomberg Opinion’s technology columnists. We’ve ...Read more

Kogan family photo/TNS/TNS

Column: How little books, millions of them, helped in Word War II

Entertainment / Books News /

CHICAGO -- I have a photo of my father, sitting on a log on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific during World War II. Herman Kogan was a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant, a combat correspondent who fought in and reported from battles at Guadalcanal, Okinawa and elsewhere and, of course, made it home safely to Chicago.

He wrote stories for the ...Read more

BLACKSTONE/TNS

(Almost) everyone in this family is a novelist. What gives?

Entertainment / Books News /

Death is hot right now, so Hastings, Minnesota, writer MaryJanice Davidson is very on trend.

The latest from the wildly prolific (more than six dozen books in 25 years) novelist is “The Reluctant Reaper,” a comic romance about Amara, a Minnesotan whose father is the Grim Reaper and who, because dad is sick, may get stuck inheriting his ...Read more

William Morrow/TNS

How Ace Atkins mined his '80s youth for spy thriller 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World'

Entertainment / Books News /

For more than a decade, novelist Ace Atkins kept a rigorous schedule and a prolific pace in his small writing office in Oxford, Mississippi.

A cup of coffee, and then to work, writing 21 books – 11 in his Quinn Colson series, another 10 in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series – from 2011 to 2022.

“That was kind of my life for about a ...Read more

SIMON & SCHUSTER/TNS

Review: You love their music, now find out who these musicians are

Entertainment / Books News /

If you’re a music fan who hasn’t thought much about drumming (I’m guilty on both counts), “Backbeats” will be a revelation.

Amateur drummer John Lingan divides his book into 15 chapters about 15 drummers. They’re not his favorites, he says, but they’re the ones he thinks have had the most impact on rock music. To get this weakness...Read more

Carlos Gonzalez/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Does your book club have problems? Facilitators tackle 'behavioral issues'

Entertainment / Books News /

MINNEAPOLIS — On occasion, what a book club needs most is for one person to tell another person to shut up.

That’s when a book club facilitator could help.

“When a club wants a facilitator, it’s usually because of behavioral issues,” said Cindy Kalland, who lives in Eden Prairie and is a retired teacher. “It may just be that they�...Read more

DK/DK/TNS

Charles Beaumont was a spy. Now he's writing spy novels

Entertainment / Books News /

Charles Beaumont is not this author’s real name; it’s the nom de plume of a former MI6 operative who now writes novels. And “A Spy Alone” and “A Spy at War,” which are part of his Oxford Spy Ring series, are terrific, very contemporary tales that are best-sellers in the U.K.

Here, he dead-dropped his responses to the Book Pages Q&A...Read more

Handout/Harper/TNS

Review: And 'The Award' goes to ... a truly terrible person

Entertainment / Books News /

“Be Careful What You Wish For” would be a more descriptive title for “The Award.”

An aspiring novelist named David Trent is the antihero of Matthew Pearl’s newest book. (Pearl is the author of “The Dante Club” and its droll sequels, in which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and other three-named legends solve ...Read more

Bonnier Books UK/Bonnier Books UK/TNS

Q&A: Why Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde says the group is more popular than ever

Entertainment / Books News /

Simon Raymonde had for years refused to write a memoir about his life in Cocteau Twins, the dreamy British post-punk group he’d been in with Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie from 1983 to 1997.

He’d never cared much for rock musician memoirs, finding most shallow and uninspired. And since Cocteau Twins ended, he’d been focused on his day...Read more

TNS

Column: Shea Serrano's 'Expensive Basketball' headlines remarkable year for Latino sports books

Entertainment / Books News /

When Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy this month with another Latino finalist looking on from the crowd, the Cuban-American quarterback did more than just become the first Indiana Hoosier to win college football's top prize, and only the third Latino to do so. He also subtly offered a radical statement: Latinos don't just belong in this ...Read more

Mariner Books/TNS

46 best books of 2025: Our top fiction and nonfiction book recommendations

Entertainment / Books News /

It was the best-of times (you know, that period in December when we do the best-of lists).

But it could feel like the worst of times: There’s so much to read before the year finishes!

Well, there’s good news. You can read these books whenever you want — this year, next year, Leap Day, anytime. This best-of thing isn’t really a ...Read more

 

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