It’s another Wednesday and time for another Want It Wednesday post where I spotlight some of the new releases for the week!
***this post contains affiliate links. The links to Amazon are affiliate links which means that if you click the link and make a purchase, then I receive a small commission.***
And now for the books!
The Vineyards of Champagne by Juliet Blackwell
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
The Words I Never Wrote by Jane Thynne
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
Careless Whiskers by Miranda James (Cat in the Stacks #12)
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
Wife After Wife by Olivia Hayfield
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
The Wife and the Widow by Christian White
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
Remembrance by Rita Woods
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
The Girl With the Golden Scissors by Julia Drosten
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
The Binder of Lost Stories by Cristina Caboni
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
Last Stop Auschwitz by Eddy de Wind
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Amazon (Affiliate Link!) | Goodreads
So many great sounding releases this week! And I’m sure there are many more out there that I didn’t spotlight. I’m intrigued by Wife After Wife, which is a modern re-telling of Henry VIII and his wives. The cover art does not indicate that at all, but it sounds like an interesting read! I’m always drawn to Henry VIII stories.
And now bringing it back to my blogging break, well, it’s more like a break from writing book reviews, but I also need to take a short break from these Want It Wednesday posts for a week or two for various reasons. So, I most likely won’t be posting for the next two weeks (unless my personal schedule reeeaally lightens up), but I plan on being back for Wednesday, February 12th!
luvtoread 
I am excited to read American Dirt, too!
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It sounds interesting! But now I’m hearing about all of this controversy about it, so now I’m not sure about reading it.
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American Dirt is popping up all over the blogosphere, so I expect to get a bunch of reviews in the next few months.
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I’ve seen it everywhere today on Twitter and on this article here from Entertainment Weekly: https://ew.com/books/2020/01/21/what-you-need-to-know-about-oprah-winfreys-controversial-new-book-club-pick-american-dirt/
Apparently there is a lot of controversy regarding it. I haven’t read any reviews of it yet, and haven’t had a chance to read through the Twitter threads about the book and the controversy.
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I just had an article pop up in my news feed about American Dirt, too! The article was about Lauren Groff reviewing the book, but spending most of the review questioning if a white woman should review a book about Mexicans, and then wondering if a white woman should write a book about Mexicans. I think Groff should have stepped back instead of putting herself into an awkward situation with which she was not comfortable in the first place. https://newrepublic.com/article/156282/not-write-book-review
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Oof, I just read the article you linked. I’m not sure what to think about the Latinx being divided on their reception of American Dirt. Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez praise it. I do feel like the author’s strategy to make this go away is a bit icky — that she changed her Twitter bio to indicate she has Puerto Rican ancestry, that an unidentified Chicana professor told her that as many people as possible need to tell this story…
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Thanks for linking that article! (If you haven’t read it yet, be sure you read the Myriam Gurba article linked in the article – it’s very good).
The more I read about American Dirt, the less I’m interested in reading the book – at least, I won’t be purchasing the book (unless I found it at a library book sale or a garage sale) and if I decide to read it would likely borrow it from the library.
Why was the author offered 7 figures for the book (that seems like a very high number?) and why this particular author for this story? Why did the publisher not go for ownvoices? And why does this particular read have such a large marketing push? I can’t recall the last time I saw so much marketing for a book…all in the last day or so…plus it’s the new Oprah book club selection and it’s going to be made into a movie so we’ll probably be hearing about it for some time!
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I thought seven figures sounded very high, too. Typically, a really good author will get six figures. I’m not sure….maybe before the book was officially released they knew Oprah was going to recommend it? But I think writers get advances before they even write the book, thus the term “advance.” Maybe I know nothing, ack!
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Sorry for the delay in replying! I was out of town for the week and I ended up not looking at my computer for the whole week! It was so nice to not look at a screen all day like usual.
This whole thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Now the book tour has been cancelled by the publisher. My local bookstore was one of the stops on the tour – they actually had posted a short, positive review on their facebook page right when the book was released, and then all of this controversy came forward. I don’t know if they still stand by their positive review of the book, or what. I haven’t walked into an actual bookstore since the book came out to see how it’s being displayed/marketed in the stores, but there was a giant stack of the book in the Costco I went into in Oregon this week.
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It’s weird to me because I don’t believe in censorship. It’s too risky to withhold something, even if it may be dangerous, because the alternative — to have limitations on the publication of anything — is just as dangerous. In a capitalist society, we’re supposed to support things with our money, not censorship. Then again, a publisher is also a money-making business and is under no obligation to support a book tour.
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Exactly! And this title is getting sooo much more attention now than it probably would be getting without all this controversy.
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