Cormac McCarthy… well, you just gotta read it (This week in books)

This week! Books!

First up, the blog will take next week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and whether you’re in the U.S. or not, let me just say I’m very thankful for you! Thanks for reading and commenting and just generally hanging in there.

Now then. In a harrowingly bizarre profile that should have content warnings for statutory rape, sex trafficking, and crimes against the English language, Vincenzo Barney at Vanity Fair profiles Augusta Britt, a woman Cormac McCarthy met when he was 42 and she was 16, who McCarthy more or less kidnapped to Mexico after changing her birth certificate with a typewriter. Britt went on to serve as an inspiration for many of McCarthy’s characters, male and female, and they maintained frequent correspondence throughout his life.

After all she’s been through (and it’s a lot), I certainly believe Britt deserves to air her own vantage point in this story. She clearly bears McCarthy no apparent ill will, and in fact repeatedly claims he saved her life. But Barney’s effort to craft a hagiography around this sordid, criminal mess is deeply gross. I also can’t help but note Vanity Fair’s choice to publish this slant at a time when the incoming presidential administration is seeking to stack its cabinet with men and women accused of sexual misconduct.

In happier news, National Book Award winners!

• Fiction: James by Percival Everett
• Nonfiction: Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León
• Young people’s literature: Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi
• Translation: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King
• Poetry: Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

DW McKinney and Pooja Makhijani at Publishers Weekly spoke with employees of color in various areas in publishing about their experiences, and big congrats to the wonderful organization We Need Diverse Books on celebrating its 10 year anniversary.

It’s not the sexiest area of the publishing industry, but distribution massively underpins the entire business, and, like the industry as a whole, it’s undergoing ongoing consolidation. Another domino fell this week as distributor National Book Network is closing and offering its clients the chance to move to Simon & Schuster Distribution Services. Even when small presses are nominally independent, they are often now distributed by one of the Big 5 publishers or Ingram.

And speaking of publishing consolidation, Hachette struck a deal with Barnes & Noble to acquire Union Square & Co., which includes imprints Union Square and Union Square Kids. Barnes & Noble initially acquired Sterling Publishing in 2003 with an eye toward vertical integration before rebranding it in 2022 as Union Square.

Jordan Michelman at The Atlantic takes a look at the most beloved screenshot in the literary world, the deal announcement from Publishers Marketplace.

Best-of season is upon us, and the New York Times and the New York Public Library have a feature on the best illustrated children’s books of the year.

Like Maris Kreizman, I was a bit disquieted by what the enormous popularity of 50 Shades of Grey said about us as a country, and she bravely revisits 50 Shades in the wake of a certain misanthropic billionaire returning to power and the rise of tradwife content.

And it’s lately become fashionable in some publishing circles to argue that books shouldn’t be written about “these terrible times,” whether that’s COVID or trying to process the gravity of the upheavals in our society. Author Charlie Jane Anders argues–correctly, in my opinion–that while it’s almost impossible to speak to this precise moment with a book (time isn’t your friend) you can absolutely process these terrible times and write what results.

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. To Die For by David Baldacci
2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
3. The Women by Kristin Hannah
4. The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
5. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Melania by Melania Trump
2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
3. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
4. Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey
5. The War on Warriors by Pete Hegseth

Young adult hardcover:

1. A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
2. If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin
3. Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter
4. The Glass Girl by Kathleen Glasgow
5. Murtagh by Christopher Paolini

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
2. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
3. The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. The Last Dragon on Mars by Scott Reintgen
5. The Bletchey Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

This week on the blog

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

• Should writers pay for editing?
• Should writers fight A.I. or play ball?

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads and Bluesky
• Follow my page on Facebook
• Join the Facebook Group
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, for my fellow Survivor nerds, Sol dropped a bomb on the Survivor-sphere by showing up for his first jury appearance in a hot vest, and the resulting Subreddit thread is priceless.

Have a great weekend! And Happy Thanksgiving!

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