Fill out your reading list with our top picks of the week
Elijah Cummings’ posthumous memoir, Desus & Mero’s Bronx guide.
1. “We’re Better Than This”
by Elijah Cummings and James Dale (Harper, nonfiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: This posthumous book from the beloved civil rights advocate and longtime Baltimore congressman, completed with help from his widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, tells his life story with a powerful call to presentday action.
The buzz: In a statement to The Associated Press issued through her publisher, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings said, “This book is for the ages and the moment. Elijah's fierce defense of our democracy was tied to his total certainty that without it, freedom and opportunity for all would be impossible.”
2. “God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx”
by Desus & Mero (Random House, nonfiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: The Bronx natives and co-hosts of Showtime’s first-ever late-night talk show offer a riotous, streetsmart guide to life.
The buzz: “A poetically profane, verbally adroit guide to life by two jokers who are smarter than they act,” says Kirkus Reviews.
3. “Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation”
by Anne Helen Petersen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, nonfiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: An insightful examination of millennial burnout and the endless hustle, debt, pressure, anxiety, unrealistic expectations and exhaustion behind it.
The buzz: Publisher Weekly calls it “an incisive portrait of a generation primed for revolt.”
4. “The Thursday Murder Club”
by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman Books, fiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: A cozy mystery set in a peaceful British retirement village, where four septuagenarians discuss old unsolved crimes in the Jigsaw Room. But then The Thursday Murder Club finds itself with a real mystery on its hands when a local developer is found dead.
The buzz: “A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please,” says a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.
5. “Hench”
by Natalie Zina Walschots (William Morrow, fiction, on sale Tuesday)
What it’s about: Anna is a millennial office drone for criminals, taking on “henching gigs” through a temp agency and doing data entry for minor supervillains.
The buzz: “A fiendishly clever novel that fizzes with moxie and malice,” says a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.