DESUS & MERO ALSO HAVE A FUNNY, NEW BOOK, PLUS 5 MORE MUST-READ OFFERINGS
Here’s the lowdown on some of the latest must-read new books.
‘God-Level Knowledge Darts’ by Desus & Mero Random House, nonfiction, $26
What it’s about: The Bronx natives and co-hosts of Showtime’s first-ever late-night talk show offer a riotous, street-smart guide to life.
The buzz: “A poetically profane, verbally adroit guide to life by two jokers who are smarter than they act,” Kirkus Reviews writes.
‘Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation’ by Anne Helen Petersen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, nonfiction, $26
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: Publishers Weekly calls it “an incisive portrait of a generation primed for revolt.”
‘Just Us’ by Claudia Rankine Graywolf, nonfiction, $30
What it’s about: Claudia Rankine’s follow-up to her acclaimed “Citizen” continues her personal and historical exploration of race and racism in the United States. Like “Citizen,” a collage of poetry, illustrations and commentary that received nominations from the National Book Critics Circle for poetry and criticism, the new book features multiple art forms, as if to mirror and celebrate the country’s diversity.
The buzz: “She draws on her experiences (including her relationship with her husband, who is white) to make a case for people to cultivate an ‘empathetic imagination,’ ” The New York Times writes.
‘Monogamy’ by Sue Miller HarperCollins Publishers, fiction, $28.99
What it’s about: Mourning her husband after his sudden death, Annie wonders how she’ll go on without him — and then she learns he’d been unfaithful.
The buzz: “If you’re looking for spare, show-don’t-tell narration, brisk pacing and snappy dialogue spoken by easily comprehended characters, look elsewhere” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo writes in a review in The New York times. “Miller operates differently, and the result is an oldfashioned, slow burn of a novel that allows readers to dream deeply.”
‘Homeland Elegies’ by Ayad Akhtar Little, Brown and Co., fiction, $28
What it’s about: Ayad Akhtar’s brilliant new novel “Homeland Elegies” mourns an America that has lost its way in the half century since it welcomed his parents’ generation of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan. He does this through a kind of autobiographical fiction narrated by a man named Ayad Akhta who, like the author, is best known for writing a hit Broadway play in which the lead character, a Pakistani American lawyer, expresses sympathy for the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center. The buzz: “A searingly honest, brutally funny, sometimes painful-to-read account of being a Muslim in America before and after 9/11,” The Associated Press writes.
‘Next to Last Stand’ by Craig Johnson Viking, fiction, $28
What it’s about: In the 16th book in Craig Johnson’s popular mystery series, Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire’s pal Charlie Lee Stillwater has died of natural causes. But the penniless old soldier somehow has left a huge hoard of books about art, a scrap of canvas that appears to be a copy (or perhaps an actual piece) of a painting called “Custer’s Last Fight” (which Aneuser-Busch helped make one of the best-know art works in American history) and a box containing $1 million in $100 bills.
The buzz: “Johnson excels at introducing his series characters to new readers without boring longtime fans with details they already know,” The Associated Press says. “The plot is not as dark as the last few Longmire tales . . . and the prose is firstrate.”