In Manhattan Beach, Calif., Pages: A Bookstore had a "great" Thanksgiving weekend, with store owner Linda McLoughlin Figel reporting that Plaid Friday/Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cider Monday all saw significant increases over 2022. The store was up 5% in November as a whole, and October was up 16% compared to 2022, she added. 

Figel noted that she and her team did not see much early shopping this year, but people have certainly "begun their shopping in earnest." Last week the store hosted the first of two Holiday Rep Nights, which feature reps discussing books with "many of our most loyal and enthusiastic customers." The $10 ticket includes wine, cheese, and $5 off at the register; Figel said the rep nights are a great way to "hone in on the core titles" the store plans to feature for the holidays.

Asked about major titles so far, Figel pointed to recent award winners such as Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, and the titles on the New York Times Top 10 list, which she noted are "now hard to get and may not be available until after Christmas." 

The team has been a bit surprised that The Woman in Me (Britney Spears) is outselling My Name Is Barbra (Barbra Streisand); other strong sellers include David Grann's The Wager, Chris Erskine's What the Bears Know, James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, and Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, both by Rebecca Yarros. For sidelines, popular items include Blackwing pencils, Deux Cranes chocolates, and puzzles.

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Evan Schertz, owner of Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colo., said the season got off to a slow start, with some "terrible weather" contributing to a relatively quiet Thanksgiving weekend and end of November. Now, though, "things are cranking along," and what's stuck out to Schertz is the "amazing" breadth of titles doing well this year.

With Iron Flame being perhaps the only exception, the store is "rarely chasing titles," and there doesn't seem to be a "single title carrying the season at all." A "really diverse and spread-out mix" of both new releases and backlist are selling, with Schertz remarking that some of them have come as a surprise.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is "having a moment," though it was released in 2015, and he attributed the resurgence to its popularity on BookTok, noting that social media trends are "really influencing holiday shopping, maybe more than we've ever seen." It can make it a bit tougher for buyers to know what titles to really get behind, but for the most part, the store "bought most of the right titles correctly," and "fulfillment has been fine."

Maria's Bookshop doesn't do any in-store author events during the month of December. Instead, the focus is on promotions and special programs, including a book drive that the store facilitates for a local family center.

In general, Schertz added, there continues to be a feeling of uncertainty on a "week-to-week and month-to-month basis," making it hard to "plan and budget for sales." But so far this season, the store is "tracking right along with last year."

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At Wellesley Books in Wellesley, Mass., Thanksgiving weekend marked a strong start to the season, co-owner Gillian Kohli reported, but unfortunately things "softened somewhat after that." Kohli noted that Wellesley's downtown shopping area puts on a holiday stroll on the first Sunday of December, and while it was still "lively and festive" this year, it rained heavily all day and "definitely kept some customers at home." Kohli noted that while there are some "reliable early shoppers" every year, there didn't seem to be a particular push for early shopping this season.

Standout titles have included Ann Patchett's Tom Lake, Rachel Maddow's Prequel, The Art Thief by Michael Finkel, How to Know a Person by David Brooks, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, Zadie Smith's The Fraud, Emily Franklin's The Lioness of Boston, and Big Heart Little Stove by Erin French. Kohli expects them to continue selling well, and so far the store has not encountered any supply-chain problems with either books or gifts. --Alex Mutter

If you are interested in having your store appear in a subsequent Holiday Hum article, please e-mail alex@shelf-awareness.com.

Once Upon a Time Books, which operates stores in Tontitown and Bentonville, Ark., is planning to expand to Fayetteville. The Flyer reported that the shop, which will be located in the Evelyn Hills Shopping Center at 1336 N. College Ave., is launching in the spring of 2024.

"We are planning to open a children's bookstore at the Evelyn Hills location," general manager Allison Harrison confirmed. "This spot will be in addition to current offerings, and it will not affect stores in Tontitown or Bentonville."

The shop's flagship store, including a large book shop and a cafe, is located at 462 E. Henri De Tonti Blvd. in Tontitown. In 2020, Once Upon a Time Books expanded to open a location on the Bentonville square at 116 W. Central Ave.

Arcadia Books in downtown Spring Green, Wis., is closing early in the new year for structural repairs that are expected to take several months, the Cap Times reported. At the same time, Paper Crane, the coffee shop inside the store, will leave the space for good. Arcadia Books is looking for a new business to take its place.

Natalie Iaury, who has worked at the store since it opened in 2011, told the newspaper that while the store had some problems with the building, it didn't realize the extent until last spring, when a structural engineer estimated that the floor could adequately support just 30% of its current load of "really heavy" books. The building dates back to 1872.

Repairs have already been made to the roof and two apartments above the bookstore. After the holiday season, contractors will come in, remove the floor, pour cement in the basement and adjust supports, the newspaper noted. "The store will be closed, and Iaury and other Arcadia staff are going to try to fulfill online and phone book orders out of the portion that's not under active construction."

"Through COVID, we learned how to operate with an online business and not being open to the public," Iaury commented. Still, "it's definitely not our preference, because our customers are the heartbeat of who we are."

As for Paper Crane, Iaury said owner James Bohnen "doesn't want (the café) to go away. It's essential to who we are." But Paper Crane owner Jenn Jensen decided to leave because she couldn't afford to be closed for at least several months.

Tracy Behar is joining Penguin Publishing Group as senior v-p, publisher, Avery and TarcherPerigee, effective in the new year. She succeeds Megan Newman, who has accepted Penguin Random House's voluntary separation offering.

Tracy Behar

Behar is currently at Little, Brown, where she is v-p, publisher and editor-in-chief of the imprint she founded in 2018, Little, Brown Spark, which focuses on prescriptive nonfiction. Behar has overseen publishing in the categories of health, psychology, self-help, science, nature, parenting, business, and reference. Before joining Little, Brown in 2005, she held senior management positions at Atria Books; Broadway Books, where she was a founding member; and HarperCollins. In 2017, she was awarded Hachette's Les Pockell Mentoring Award.

Lucia Watson

Michael Szczerban

Also, at Avery, Lucia Watson has been promoted to v-p, editor in chief. Watson began her publishing career as an editorial assistant at Viking in 1998 and joined Avery in 2005. She has acquired a diverse list in the categories of wellness, personal development, psychology, and cooking.

At Little, Brown, Michael Szczerban will become v-p, publisher, Voracious and Spark, effective January 1. He has been at Little, Brown for nine years. In 2019, he launched the Voracious imprint. He began his career at Simon & Schuster, and later helped launch the Regan Arts imprint at Phaidon. He is a recipient of the Lawrence Peel Ashmead Editorial Award.

Juergen Boos and Chile’s minster of culture Carolina Arredondo Marzán sign the guest of honor agreement. (photo: Chilean ministry of culture)

Chile will present its literature and culture as the guest of honor for the 2027 Frankfurt Book Fair, to be held October 6-10. Frankfurter Buchmesse director Juergen Boos and the Chilean minister of culture Carolina Arredondo Marzán recently signed the official agreement in the country's capital, Santiago. Chile will be the fourth Latin American country to be guest of honor at the fair, following Mexico (1992), Brazil (1994, 2013), and Argentina (2010).

"I am very much looking forward to Chile being Frankfurter Buchmesse's guest of honor," said Boos. "We will not only learn more about Chile's vivid and young publishing scene and discover new literary voices, but also delve into the literary worlds of renowned writers such as Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende, and Roberto Bolaño. Chilean book illustrations, which have been internationally recognized with numerous awards, will also be highlighted." 

Boos added: "Those who have already been to Chile will be familiar with the breathtaking, wide and clear star-strewn sky, as we can see it over the Atacama desert. I am very excited that the guest of honor will be taking up this image, showing us how the sky and the stars tell their own stories and have an influence on and can be connected to Chilean creativity and literature."

Marzán commented: "Headlining the fair is a great opportunity to show the world the vitality, originality and beauty of Chile's literature, as well as the resourcefulness of the many publishing houses that help the new literary voices find their audiences. As President Gabriel Boric said, to invest in culture is to invest in a better world. He took it upon himself to make this happen, and we thank him for it."

Upcoming Frankfurter Buchmesse guests of honor are Italy (2024), the Philippines (2025), and the Czech Republic (2026). 

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Simply Books

Small Business Saturday was celebrated this past weekend in the U.K. and Ireland, a week after the annual campaign to promote shopping locally was held in the U.S. Among those marking the day: 

Books Are My Bag: "Happy Small Business Saturday! Bookshops are the beating heart of our high street and communities. Shop local and #ChooseBookshops today."

Mold Bookshop, Mold: "Today is Small Business Saturday please support our amazing small businesses by shopping small, shouting about your favorites and popping into the many independent businesses we have in Mold."

Dormouse Books, Belper: "Happy Small Business Saturday! It's cold outside but we have hot chocolate and books. Support your high street and vote for the world you want to live in."

Simply Books, Bramhall: "It's #SmallBizSatUK! Come in and say hi! OR buy a book from our @bookshop_org_uk store for the chance to win a £250 gift card! Link in bio!"

Imagined Things Bookshop, Harrogate: "Can't get into the shop today? You can still choose bookshops online! We've partnered with bookshop.org so we get commission on your purchases with them (when you use our link below or nominate us) & if you shop there TODAY you could win a £250 voucher! But we have our own website too with lots of books and other goodies. Especially good for the special things we offer like book subscriptions... Thank you to everyone who chooses bookshops this Christmas!"

Bookshop.org U.K.: "Happy Small Business Saturday for those who celebrate. Go forth and get cosy in a bookshop today! Don't have a local bookshop? Any book you buy today with us gives you the chance to win a £250 Bookshop.org digital gift card. Nice."

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Karl Lagerfeld's photo studio 7L, on the Rue de Lille in Paris, "is roaring back to life in a way Lagerfeld would have relished," Women's Wear Daily reported. Librairie 7L is "now brimming with cultural events, dance and musical performances, exhibitions, book signings, readings, lectures, bespoke services and cool merch."

"It is not a museum," said Laurence Delamare, who became director of 7L in 2021, shortly after Chanel acquired the venue, where a significant part of the French fashion house's visual history was recorded. "My idea from the beginning was to bring creativity back to this place. It won't be a fashion photo studio anymore, but a place for contemporary artists.... To continue a project that Karl created is an honor, it's exceptional and it's such an exhilarating mission."

During the past two years, Delamare and her team have been working on a cultural program, sparking up an Instagram account; revamping 7L's website and resuming online sales; and restarting 7L's activity as a publisher. "Guiding their work is the template forged by Lagerfeld, who established 7L in 1999, specializing in photo books displayed flat on high tables or on picture rails like artworks, a nod to the venue's former life as an art gallery," WWD noted.

Books at 7L are displayed flat on tables, or on picture rails, like artworks. "The bookstore itself is like a living projection of Karl's mind. And the book selection is also a reflection of the books in the library," Delamare said. "We continue to advocate Karl's eclecticism, Karl's taste, the things he loved. And I think our clients, our audience is very emotionally attached to our curation of books. The editorial line has not changed." --Robert Gray

This past Wednesday, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 960,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 962,424 customers of 239 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, December 28. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the November pre-order e-blast, see this one from Leopard Print Books, Saginaw, Mich.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

You Only Call When You're in Trouble by Stephen McCauley (Holt)
The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell (W.W. Norton)
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury)
Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo (Harper One)
5 Ingredients Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver (Flatiron)
Family Family by Laurie Frankel (Holt)
1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg (Simon Element)
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (Putnam)
The Fury by Alex Michaelides (Celadon)
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang, illus. by LeUyen Pham (First Second)
Beasts of War by Ayana Gray (Putnam)

Avid Bookshop, Athens, Ga., and Athens Pride & Queer Collective hosted Raquel Willis at the Athens-Clarke County Library in celebration of her book The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation (St. Martin's). Pictured: (l.-r.): Shae Jordan, bookseller; Raquel Willis; Rachel Watkins, events director; and Mikey LaFave, bookseller.

Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Mich., shared the lovely story of "Sam & Lillian: A Very Literati Wedding" in a social media post, noting: "Romance novel or reality? Sam and Lillian are hired the same month at Literati Bookstore as booksellers. In the ensuing years they both get MFAs in writing. Lillian publishes an acclaimed novel and gets a degree in information sciences. Sam rises the ranks to be lead inventory manager at the bookstore. They fall in love somewhere along the way, and then get married. We are happy to report it is a very true love story (although we're sure someone could turn it into a bestselling book). Cheers and best wishes to the happy couple!!"

Diamond Book Distributors is now exclusive distributor to North American and international book markets of Goodman Games. Distribution to the comic book specialty market is handled exclusively by Diamond Comic Distributors.

Goodman Games is a tabletop role playing game publisher known for its classic adventure, Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game (DCC RPG), first released in 2012. Grounded in the sword and sorcery fiction that underpins classic RPGs, DCC RPG is the most popular tabletop RPG in the sub-genre now known as Old School Renaissance. DCC RPG has sold more than 100,000 copies through 11 printings for traditional game and hobby channels, and the broader line of DCC adventures has sold more than 750,000 copies. Goodman Games also publishes popular titles such as Mutant Crawl Classics, Xcrawl Classics, Fifth Edition Fantasy, and the hit Original Adventures Reincarnated series.

Sonja Flancher has been promoted to marketing associate at Holt.

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Liz Cheney, author of Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning (Little, Brown, $32.50, 9780316572064).

Harriet Walter, Timothy Spall & Harry Melling have been added to the cast for the BBC/Masterpiece PBS TV adaptation of The Mirror and the Light, the third volume of Hilary Mantel's award-winning trilogy, Variety reported. The six-part series is currently filming across the U.K..

Walter (Succession) will play Lady Margaret Pole, while Spall (Mr. Turner) is the Duke of Norfolk and Melling (The Queen's Gambit) plays Thomas Wriothesley. They join returning cast members Mark Rylance (Thomas Cromwell), Damian Lewis (King Henry VIII), Jonathan Pryce (Cardinal Wolsey), Kate Phillips (Jane Seymour), and Lilit Lesser (Princess Mary).

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light will be directed by Peter Kosminsky, adapted for television by Peter Straughan, and produced by Playground and Company Pictures. Executive producers are Colin Callender and Noëlette Buckley for Playground, Kosminsky, Lucy Richer for the BBC, and Susanne Simpson for Masterpiece.

Kosminsky said, "Casting director Robert Sterne has done a truly extraordinary job assembling the most stunning cast with which I've ever had the privilege to work. Led by Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, they've been drawn by the quality of Hilary Mantel's writing and Peter Straughan's adroit adaptation. Shooting in Tudor locations all over England and Wales, it is our privilege to bring Hilary's last novel to an international television audience."

Colin Callender, CEO of Playground, added, "Peter Kosminsky and our brilliant casting director Robert Sterne and his team have brought together a glorious cast with many of the original cast returning alongside some very exciting new faces."

Amy Edmondson's Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive won the £30,000 (about $37,745) Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award, which recognizes a work that provides the "most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues," the Bookseller reported.

Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times and chair of the panel of judges, said: "Amy Edmondson lays out a powerful framework for how to learn from failure and deal with risk. Right Kind of Wrong is a highly readable and relevant book, with important lessons for leaders and managers everywhere."

Schroders Group CEO Peter Harrison added: "Failure often lies behind progress but is 'failing fast' really a good thing or simply a cliché? Amy Edmondson's Right Kind of Wrong provides clarity and practical prescription to address the issues businesses face every day. It is invaluable reading."

photo: Shana Surek

Barbara McClintock is an award-winning illustrator and author of more than 40 books for children. Her picture book Tomfoolery!: Randolph Caldecott and the Rambunctious Coming-of-Age of Children's Books, written by Michelle Markel (Chronicle Books), was published in November.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

This is a picture book about the life of the man for whom the Caldecott medal is named, how he revolutionized picture books, and how he still influences illustrators today.

On your nightstand now:

I'm currently illustrating a graphic novel for Roaring Brook Press, so graphic novels have been in constant rotation on my reading queue.

I love the work of British author and illustrator Posy Simmonds. Her graphic novel Tamara Drewe is a contemporized satirical send-up of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, with all the poignancy of class and drama of the original story. Simmonds has broken up her drawn images into panels and vignettes creating a combo platter of current and 19th-century comic-book styles, all refreshing and intuitive and brilliant.

I'm also reading Making Comics by Lynda Barry, which is a celebration of drawing as our first and native language. The book is entirely handwritten and drawn; it's passionate, playful, and rejoices in everyone's inherent ability to draw.

I read a review of North Woods by Daniel Mason and just had to read the book--I live in a house built in 1815, and I imagine stories of all the inhabitants that preceded our living here. (Hopefully no bones of long-dead sisters are under the floorboards!)

And on the far corner of my nightstand, I love the dark fantasy and charm of the tiny-in-size book Fairy Tales in Electri-City by Francesca Lia Block. It's something I pick up and read when I need a little blast of fear and beauty. 

Favorite book when you were a child:

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. I would lay on my bedroom floor for hours reading and rereading this book! I especially loved Little Bear getting dressed to play in the snow, and his ever-patient and wise mother looping back to the fact that he was wearing a fur coat and needed nothing else. It was so wonderfully silly and sensical at the same time.

Your top five authors:

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Charles Dickens, George Saunders, Jane Austen, and Tomie dePaola. I love all of them for their ability to write with clarity, charm, and an immediacy that goes right to the heart.

Book you've faked reading:

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Barry Linton. It was on a bookshelf in our house, and when I was in the seventh grade, I felt a family duty to try to read it. There are themes in it that I felt drawn to, but it was a bit much for me at the time. Should I try reading it now? Let's see a show of hands!

Book you're an evangelist for:

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Irreverent, funny, comforting, charming, delightful, surprising. What's not to love here?

Book you've bought for the cover:

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. That confident little boy! The dough plane! Those Oliver Hardy bakers! (Well, they were inside and not on the cover. Nonetheless...) The city made of milk cartons, jars, and a strainer dome! And all this AT NIGHT! I still get that "what the heck is happening here?" feeling whenever I see the cover.

Book you hid from your parents:

The Fantastic Four comic book. My mom actually hid it from me! This was a long time ago when, in the minds of parents, comics had forbidden qualities unsuitable for impressionable children.

Book that changed your life:

When I was in my early 20s I discovered J.J. Grandville's Vie Privée et Publique des Animaux (The Private and Public Lives of the Animals) published in 1842. Grandville's artwork was fantastical--he's considered by some to be the father of the surrealists. The drawings of anthropomorphized animals characterizing people of all walks of life in this book blew my mind! I still reference the crazy exuberance and imagination of his drawings, especially of animals, in my own work.

Favorite line from a book:

"Donkeys!"

--Betsey Trotwood, from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Just the best well-timed outburst!

Five books you'll never part with:

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Hot Dog by Doug Salati, Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Okay, that's six. Forgive me! 

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Every year I reread the book, perhaps recapturing some of the wonder of my first reading? But it doesn't matter. I'm transported by the journey of a young person's life, and I love every second of it.

So... just what is it that illustrators do?

We illustrators (chest puffed out!) are the visual translators of a written text. We provide a visual pathway for young children to feel confident in their growing ability to read written words by reinforcing a story through pictures. There is a dynamism between pictures and text that happens in picture books that is entirely unique as an art form.

Film and theater may be close cousins to what we do, but there is nothing else that supports literacy and encourages a joy of reading for young children outside of our wonderful, miraculous weaving together of text and art.

Angela's Glacier is an evocative, expressive tale of how the bond between a child and her father--and their shared love for the "ancient blue" of a frigid landscape--leads the girl to find her own heartbeat in the gentle, familiar sound of "a glacier's music."

Angela's glacier, "covered in clouds" before she is born, suddenly "bloom[s] under the milky Arctic sunlight" when Angela makes her appearance. Her father wraps her in a blanket so they can go outside and listen to the "whispers of ancient ice fill[ing] Angela's birthday morning." Before she can walk there herself, her father carries her "to the glacier's ice-blue heart," where Angela listens contentedly to a "universe of sound." Angela's father teaches her the glacier's name, Snæfellsjökull, as they go. As Angela grows, she begins visiting on her own. Step by step, "SNÆ (left foot) FELLS (right foot) JÖ (left foot) KULL (right foot)," Angela hikes to the glacier "to feel and listen."

Eventually, Angela "walk[s] away from her glacier." She becomes busy with "school, friends, violin, soccer, bike rides, homework," and no longer shares her secrets with Snæfellsjökull. That's when she realizes her heart "sound[s] strange." Her father advises her to visit Snæfellsjökull, so she does. Only then, once again, is she able to find the true rhythm of her heart, as it beats over and over: SNÆ FELLS JÖ KULL.

As he did with the text of the magnificent I Talk Like a River, Jordan Scott makes use of elements of the natural world to explore the art of staying grounded. In Angela's Glacier, Scott fashions a story about a girl and the glacier she adores that's surprisingly accessible. Rhythmic, melodious language conjures a kinship for the harsh and beautiful landscape, which includes the "coldest of cold" heart of the book: Snæfellsjökull. Diana Sudyka's (Little Land) dazzling gouache and digital illustrations effortlessly imbue sky, land, water, humans, and animals alike with vitality and elan, her lushly colored world singing with the glacier's sound. This inspiring picture book celebrates the wonder of "staying still" and listening to "ourselves [and] to each other," as well as "to the ecosystems and their inhabitants who sustain us." An endnote points to the fragility of nature, and the tragedy that Snæfellsjökull itself is projected to be extinct in 15 to 20 years due to global warming. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Shelf Talker: Angela's Glacier is a magnificently executed story about a girl who finds her heartbeat in the gentle, familiar sound of a "glacier's music."

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstores during November:

Fiction
1. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (Recorded Books)
2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Recorded Books)
3. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (HarperAudio)
4. System Collapse by Martha Wells (Recorded Books)
5. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (HarperAudio)
6. Babel by R.F. Kuang (HarperAudio)
7. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (HarperAudio)
8. Godkiller by Hannah Kaner (HarperAudio)
9. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Penguin Random House Audio)
10. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)

Nonfiction
1. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears (Simon & Schuster Audio)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Tantor Media)
3. My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand (Penguin Random House Audio)
4. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Macmillan Audio)
5. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry (Macmillan Audio)
6. Cultish by Amanda Montell (HarperAudio)
7. Opinions by Roxane Gay (HarperAudio)
8. Prequel by Rachel Maddow (Penguin Random House Audio)
9. How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler (Hachette Audio)
10. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (Penguin Random House Audio)