Here come the best of the year lists (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Did you know that William Faulkner and Graham Greene wrote children’s books? I certainly did not! The New York Times surveyed some lesser-known children’s books by writers more famous for their adult works.

It has come to my attention that the year 2021 is nearly over (um when did that happens), which means it’s time for best of the year lists for books. Here are best-ofs from Publishers Weekly and Barnes & Noble.

Famed director Hayao Miyazaki is coming out of retirement to direct an adaptation of a classic 1937 Japanese coming-of-age novel, and Antonia Saxon has an interesting look at what went into a new English translation.

Author and agent Kate McKean gives advice for one of the thornier requests out there: asking for blurbs and beta reads. And agents Jessica Faust, Kim Lionetti, and James McGowan discuss how to know when an agent isn’t right for you.

Over at the We Need Diverse Books blog, Asha Sridhar interviews Alice Wong about the new YA adaptation of her anthology Disability Visibility and the state of publishing for disabled writers.

And Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra discuss capturing the interiority of characters and weaving real world issues into fiction.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. The Judge’s List by John Grisham
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. The Wish by Nicholas Sparks
4. State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny
5. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Not All Diamonds and Rosé by Dave Quinn
2. To Rescue the Republic by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney
3. The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
4. Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
5. Midnight in Washington by Adam Schiff

Young adult hardcover:

1. One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
2. Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz
3. Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco
4. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
5. Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

Middle grade hardcover:

1. The Christmas Pig by J.K. Rowling. Illustrated by Jim Field
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. Pony by R.J. Palacio
4. Refugee by Alan Gratz
5. The Official Harry Potter Baking Book by Joanna Farrow

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• What makes a great setting in a novel
• Err on the side of providing context (page critique)

Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:

• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
• Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Twitter
• Follow my page on Facebook
• Join the Facebook Group
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, there’s a lot of discussion these days about how lots of people have seen their relationship with work change a great deal during the pandemic. Cal Newport takes a look back at one of the influential harbingers of this shift, Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek.

Have a great weekend!

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