Greetings from
Three Lives & Company!
There's something both nostalgic
and hopeful about being back on our corner as we enter the summer. We're much
more settled than we have been the past few years: we're back in our home, we
have two years of COVID experience under our belts, and our building is
standing firm. We're in the midst of Pride Month once again, and fittingly, we
have put up our first proper theme table in nearly two years in its honor, with
a slew of new titles – Nina LaCour's Yerba
Buena, Aaron Foley's Boys Come First,
and Rhea Ewing's Fine: A Comic about Gender, to name just a few – alongside
some of our standbys and favorites. It feels great to watch through our old
doors as the city gears up again for the month's festivities.
We have been very, very busy
since our move back, and we're kicking off the hot months with our preview of
the books still to come in 2022. (There are a lot!) Troy has also written up a
mid-year Cookbook Corner with his selections for the season, to keep you in
good food through the summer.
We're taking a break from our
personal reading roundups this issue, but we'd be remiss not to mention a few
books that we've devoured recently. Nora has torn through Ali Smith's Companion
Piece, Fernanda Melchor's Paradais, and Louise Erdrich's Plague
of Doves. Miriam enjoyed Sara Nović's new novel True Biz and Nina LaCour's Yerba Buena;
Lucas is loving Shirley Hazzard's Transit of Venus; and Ryan recently finished
The Kingdom by the Sea, the last Paul Theroux travel book he hadn't read
– and an instant new favorite.
~ Upcoming
Releases ~
A year ago we
thought that every possible author had a major book coming out. Turns out,
quite a few saved their new works for 2022 – lucky us! A number of our
favorite authors are publishing books this summer and fall, and no doubt we'll
have a few more favorites before the year is out. Below you can find an
extensive – but by no means exhaustive! – list
of upcoming releases, but we also wanted to highlight some that we are
particularly eager to get our hands on. (Remember that we are always happy to
preorder these or any other books for you, and it is never too early to request
anything. Just let us know!)
The original idea
was to include each bookseller's two or three most anticipated titles, but it
turns out that's much too limiting for a year as rich as this one. Hence, we
selected nearly three dozen titles in total, and even
that number leaves out plenty of worthy books. There is lots of new work by authors
we already love – including Ida Jessen, Ian McEwan, Vigdis Hjorth, Lynn
Steger Strong, Anthony Marra, Hilton Als, Melissa Clark, Kamila Shamsie, Kevin
Wilson, Jesse Ball, Lawrence Osborne,
Juan Pablo Villalobos, and Clarice Lispector –
and we had some overlap among our selections: multiple people picked Cormac
McCarthy's upcoming novels (yes, plural), George Saunders's latest story
collection, and Louise Kennedy's debut novel.
Our personal
picks are marked below with an asterisk and the name of the bookseller(s) who
picked it. We'd like to know what you're
looking forward to, as well, so send us an email or, next time you're in the
shop, tell us what we were crazy not to select!
June 14
Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
Also
a Poet by Ada Calhoun (Grove)
June 21
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)
An
Immense World by Ed Yong (Random
House)
June 28
A Postcard for Annie by Ida Jessen (Archipelago, translated by Martin
Aitken) *Toby
Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)
July 5
Life
Ceremony by Sayaka Murata (Grove,
translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)
Imagine a City by Mark Vanhoenacker (Knopf) *Miriam
July 12
Total by Rebecca Miller (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Invasion of the Spirit
People by Juan Pablo Villalobos
(And Other Stories, translated by Rosalind Harvey) *Ryan
August 2
Dogs of Summer by Andrea Abreu (Astra House, translated by Julia
Sanches) *Toby
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead)
Mercury Pictures
Presents by Anthony Marra
(Hogarth) *Miriam
On Java Road by Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth) *Ryan
Mothercare by Lynne Tillman (Soft Skull) *Toby
August 9
Autoportrait by Jesse Ball (Catapult) *Nora
August 16
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes (Knopf)
A
Woman's Battles and Transformations
by Edouard Louis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translated by Tash Aw)
August 23
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Riverhead) *Toby
August 30
Carrie
Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins
Reid (Ballantine)
September 6
Dinner in One by Melissa Clark (Clarkson Potter) *Troy
The Unfolding by A.M. Homes (Viking)
Too Much of Life by
Clarice Lispector (New Directions, translated by Margaret Jull Costa) *Lucas
The
Marriage Portrait by Maggie
O'Farrell (Knopf) *Miriam
September 13
Reading My Mother Back by Timothy C. Baker (Goldsmiths Press) *Toby
Natural History by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton) *Toby
How Not to Drown in a
Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
(Flatiron) *Ryan
The Best American
Poetry 2022 edited by David
Lehman (Scribner)
The
Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners edited by Valeria Luiselli (Anchor)
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Lessons by Ian McEwan (Knopf) *Toby
Ti
Amo by Hanne Ørstavik
(Archipelago, translated by Martin Aitken) *Lucas
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley (New York Review Books) *Toby
September 20
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (reissued by Scribner) *Miriam
Less
Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
(Little, Brown)
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Lucy
by the Sea by
Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
September 27
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday) *Miriam
Fen,
Bog and Swamp by Annie Proulx
(Scribner) *Nora
The
Furrows by Namwali Serpell
(Hogarth)
Best
of Friends by Kamila Shamsie
(Riverhead) *Miriam
October 4
Feral City by Jeremiah Moss (W.W. Norton) *Toby
Our
Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
(Penguin Press)
Balladz by Sharon Olds (Knopf)
Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf, translated by Ekin Oklap)
October 11
The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller (Europa) *Miriam
Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet (W.W. Norton) *Toby
Via Carota by Jody Williams, Rita Sodi and Anna Kovel (Knopf)
*Toby
October 18
Demon
Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
(Harper)
Liberation
Day by George Saunders (Random
House) *Toby and Nora
Signal
Fires by Dani Shapiro (Knopf)
October 25
The Singularities by John Banville (Knopf)
Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth (Verso, translated by Charlotte
Barslund) *Toby
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf) *Ryan and Lucas
November 1
The Best American 2022 collections (Essays/Short Stories/Science
and Nature/Mystery and Suspense/Food Writing) (Mariner)
My Pinup by
Hilton Als (New Directions) *Troy
The
World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
(Orbit)
Foster by Claire Keegan (Grove)
November 8
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy (Riverhead) *Miriam and Toby
Galatea by Madeline Miller (Ecco)
Novelist
as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
(Knopf, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen)
Flight by Lynn Steger Strong (Mariner) *Toby
Now
Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin
Wilson (Ecco) *Miriam
November 15
Musical
Tables by Billy Collins (Random
House)
November 22
Smitten
Kitchen Keepers by Deb Perelman
(Knopf)
November 23
The
River Cafe Look Book by Ruth
Rogers (Phaidon) *Troy
November 29
All the Broken Places by John Boyne (Pamela Dorman)
The Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman (Penguin Press) *Toby
The Sorcerer of
Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux
(Atria)
December 6
Stella
Maris by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf)
*Ryan and Lucas
A
Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley
(Knopf)
~ Troy's
Cookbook Corner ~
June is here, and the bounty
of summer fruits and vegetables has only just begun to show up at the greenmarkets
around the city. It's the best time of the year to get a new cookbook and begin
the journey of learning new recipes, techniques, and ways of cooking. I've
chosen two new titles to spotlight, but know that we have a case full of all
different kinds of cookbooks – so I encourage you to come, browse, and
decide which one speaks to you. It's a decision that will transform your summer
and bring you joy.
As I was sitting at my
kitchen table deciding what to write about, I focused on the title of Andy
Baraghani's debut, The Cook You Want to Be (Lorena
Jones Books), a book as stylish and seductive as a '90s fashion magazine. I
thought: that's it – that's what these cookbooks are really about. The
title could easily be The Person I Want to Be. Cooking
is a way to express one's personhood. Baraghani is opinionated, passionate,
sassy, and indebted to his mother for obsessing over food while raising him in
Berkeley, California. (A story he includes in the book about forming shopping
habits with his mom is a blueprint for his future adult self.) But it is the
opening line of the book that most powerfully reveals his intentions to share
how his life experiences have made him the cook he is. "I really tried to not
be a cook. I mean, this little gay Persian boy
imagined he was going to be the next Al Pacino. Then I thought I might be an
anthropology professor. [...] Thing is, I don't remember a time when I was not
obsessed with food." This obsession shows in his unique recipes for spicy
basil shrimp, crispy plum and pistachio cake, and dozens of others. From start
to finish, Baraghani is determined to impart his knowledge and insider tips,
while guiding us to become the cooks we want to be.
Reading Rick Martinez's introduction
to his enthralling and beautiful new cookbook Mi Cocina: Recipes and
Rapture from My Kitchen in México (Clarkson Potter) was so
inspiring. (I'm not using that word carelessly.) Martinez writes about how as a
young Mexican American boy growing up in Texas, he would watch the British food
writer and Mexican cooking authority Diana Kennedy on television, feeling awed
but devastated that she knew more about his culture than he did. Mi Cocina
is based on an incredible journey through México, a road trip of over 20,000
miles to 156 cities in all 32 states. In the words of Martinez: "Mi Cocina
is the story of where I went, who I met, what I learned, what I ate, and how to
make it. It's also the story of who I am, and who I am becoming – past,
present, and future." Mi Cocina is as empowering a cookbook as I've ever
come across, full of recipes I look forward to making – like the Oaxacan
chileatole verde, roasted vegetables in a rich corn broth made from fresh and
dried corn and green chiles – and parts of México I too want to visit.
~ Staff
Favorites Now in Paperback ~
Fiction
The Ocean
House by Mary-Beth
Hughes (Grove)
The Great
Mistake by Jonathan
Lee (Vintage)
Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan (McClelland &
Stewart)
The Book of
Form and Emptiness by
Ruth Ozeki (Penguin)
Beautiful
World, Where Are You by
Sally Rooney (Picador)
Secrets of Happiness by Joan Silber
(Counterpoint)
Under the
Wave at Waimea by
Paul Theroux (Mariner)
Nonfiction
Ravenous by Sam Apple (Liveright)
Everything
Now by Rosecrans
Baldwin (Picador)
On Lighthouses by Jazmina Barrera (Two Lines, translated
by Christina MacSweeney)
~ Signed
Editions ~
Fiction
An
Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
(Grove)
Ashton Hall
by Lauren Belfer (Ballantine)
Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
Cult
Classic by Sloane
Crosley (MCD)
Trust by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead)
Woman of
Light by Kali
Fajardo-Anstine (One World)
Nightcrawling
by Leila Mottley
(Knopf)
This Time
Tomorrow by Emma
Straub (Riverhead)
A Gentleman
in Moscow by Amor
Towles (Penguin)
The Lincoln
Highway by Amor
Towles (Viking)
Rules of
Civility by Amor
Towles (Penguin)
Night Sky
with Exit Wounds by
Ocean Vuong (Copper Canyon)
On Earth
We're Briefly Gorgeous by
Ocean Vuong (Penguin)
Time Is a
Mother by Ocean Vuong
(Penguin Press)
Your
Nostalgia Is Killing Me by John Weir
(Red Hen)
To Paradise
by Hanya Yanagihara
(Doubleday)
Nonfiction
The Cook
You Want to Be by
Andy Baraghani (Lorena Jones Books)
Mean Baby by Selma Blair (Knopf)
Our
Laundry, Our Town by
Alvin Eng (Fordham University Press)
New Yorkers
by Craig Taylor (W.W.
Norton)
~ The Three Lives & Company Bestseller
List ~
1. Book
Lovers by Emily Henry (Berkley)
2. Happy-Go-Lucky
by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)
3. Cold
Enough for Snow by Jessica Au (New Directions)
4. Trust
by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead)
5. Either/Or
by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press)
6. The
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Washington
Square)
7. Time Is
a Mother by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press)
8. Crying
in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Knopf)
9. The
Candy House by Jennifer Egan (Scribner)
10. Klara
and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Vintage)