When author Maud Hart Lovelace wrote her beloved Betsy-Tacy stories in the 1940s, storytelling was her only agenda. She renamed her family and childhood friends, sending them on adventures in Deep Valley, a fictionalized version of the place and time she grew up: Mankato, Minnesota, in 1901.

But the imaginative escapades of Betsy, her steadfast...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Billy Ray is terrified.

Or at least that's what the award-winning screenwriter says in response to the innocuous-to-the-point-of-pitiful interview-opener: "How are you doing?"

Strangely, he is not referring to the state of our country (though he has been scathingly critical of both the Trump administration and the Democratic ...Read more

In the midst of a brutally cold winter, an unwelcome armed force invades a peaceful community, bringing panic, turmoil and brutal violence. And despite overwhelming odds and unconscionable cruelty, the locals surprise the world with their resilience and refusal to bow to injustice.

The above description might sound like current events, but it�...Read more

Harriette Simpson Arnow, the Kentucky writer who chronicled the Appalachian diaspora in novels like “The Dollmaker,” grew up in Pulaski County, and used its wooded hills and lush riversheds in vivid contrast to the industrialized north.

In 1939, she and her husband, Harold, bought 139 acres on the Cumberland River near Burnside, with hopes ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Christina Applegate is where she spent many listless, painful nights over the last year working on her memoir: in bed. She passes most of her days inside a bedroom of her Laurel Canyon home. And it's already not a great day when we connect over video conference in late February — no day is free from the exhaustion and symptoms ...Read more

Lauren Groff’s new collection, “Brawler,” should come with a warning because anyone who picks up the book and idly starts reading the first story will be unable to stop without finishing it.

“The Wind” is 18 nonstop pages of drama, tension and deft character sketching, beginning with this sentence: “Pretend, the mother had said when...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Feb. 21, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2026 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2026, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The ...Read more

NEW YORK — Liza Minnelli takes an intimate, unfiltered look at her whirlwind love life in her upcoming memoir, “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!”

The book chronicles her roller-coaster romances with men from Desi Arnaz Jr. to Martin Scorsese, in addition to her “traumatizing” marriage to David Gest.

In 1972, Minnelli got engaged to ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- There’s a little bit of everything coming to libraries and bookstores in March.

Dirt-spilling superstar memoirs? Showbiz survivor Liza Minnelli has you covered. Bound-to-be-bestselling thrillers? Tana French is on it, with the return of a beloved character last seen in 2024 in “The Hunter.” Books with Minnesota connections?...Read more

Francesca Wade is the author of “Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife,” her acclaimed biography of the iconic 20th-century author, art collector, and personality (which was also one of our picks for the best books of 2025).

Wade is also the author of “Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars,” and her work has appeared ...Read more

Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files, an urban fantasy series that has sold more than 14 million copies in the U.S., as well as the Codex Alera and Cinder Spires novels.

His latest Harry Dresden book, “Twelve Months,” is out now, five years after the last installment.

Butcher took the Q&A to talk about the book and his reading ...Read more

The first time Anna Vaughn almost gets killed is on the third page of “The Method.” There will be literally dozens more “almosts” in the next 400 pages.

“The Method” is the danger-packed new thriller from Matthew Quirk, whose “The Night Agent” is the basis of the Netflix spy series. “Method” introduces a new character, ...Read more

Get ready for a deep dive into the Purple One.

Among the questions suggested by Rashad Shabazz’s “Prince’s Minneapolis” are: When the late singer wrote “slave” on his cheek to protest his record company, was he thinking about his paternal great-grandparents, who were born into slavery? When the singer contacted Jonathan Cain of the ...Read more

According to relationship scientist Paul Eastwick, online dating is a market where there are dramatic winners and losers. "I think our modern existence happens to pull from modes of interaction that really amp up the importance of mate value," Eastwick said. "But it does not have to be this way, and for a long time, it was not this way."

This ...Read more

Get ready for a deep dive into the Purple One.

Among the questions suggested by Rashad Shabazz’s “Prince’s Minneapolis” are: When the late singer wrote “slave” on his cheek to protest his record company, was he thinking about his paternal great-grandparents, who were born into slavery? When the singer contacted Jonathan Cain of the ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Feb. 14, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2026 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2026, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Night ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Finalists and honorees for the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday.

Writer-curator Ekow Eshun is among the biography finalists for "The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them," which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and ...Read more

When young adult author Courtney Summers got the rights back to her backlisted titles in 2024, she initially wasn't sure what to do with them.

Summers' novels, the bulk of which enjoyed peak popularity in the 2010s, had by then faded into the periphery — despite a film adaptation of her 2012 zombie thriller "This Is Not a Test," which is ...Read more