Topics range from birth to death and the life in between
In search of something good to read? USA TODAY’s Barbara VanDenburgh scopes out the shelves for this week’s hottest new book releases.
1. “The Daughters of Erietown” by Connie Schultz (Random House, fiction, on sale June 9)
What it’s about: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Schultz explores the evolving role of American women in a story about a teen girl with big dreams in small-town 1950s Ohio for whom everything changes when she learns she’s pregnant.
The buzz: “A masterful debut novel,” says a starred review in Kirkus Reviews
2. “Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars” by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco, fiction, on sale June 9)
What it’s about: Adult children cope with the death of their father, a respected patriarch in a small town who dies after he intervenes in an incident of police brutality in this weighty examination of grief, race, class and trauma.
The buzz: “This is a significant and admirable entry in the Oates canon,” says a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
3. “Dead Reckoning” by Dick Lehr (Harper, nonfiction, on sale June 9)
What it’s about: A definitive account of “Operation Vengeance,” the targeted kill by U.S. fighter pilots of Japanese military icon Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect behind the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The buzz: “Even the most dedicated WWII buffs will learn something new from this granular account,” says Publishers Weekly.
4. “Broken People” by Sam Lansky (Hanover Square Press, fiction, on sale June 9)
What it’s about: Fresh off publishing a memoir about his drug and alcohol addiction, an LA writer named Sam plots a visit to a Portland, Oregon, shaman, who claims to perform “open-soul surgery” on the emotionally damaged.
The buzz: “Lansky’s tale of self-acceptance offers surprising depth,” says Publishers Weekly.
5. “Pizza Girl” by Jean Kyoung Frazier (Doubleday, fiction, on sale June 9)
What it’s about: A charmingly dysfunctional (and pregnant) teenage pizza delivery girl becomes obsessed with one of her customers in suburban LA.
The buzz: “A bittersweet Bildungsroman about life’s random turns,” says Kirkus Reviews.