Books Briefing: Bookstores, Transformed

July 14, 2020

Newly designed small tables near the entrance of a Barnes & Noble store in Yonkers.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Hi readers,

Here’s your weekly catch-up on everything you need to know going on in the book world.

The news:

The next time you shop in a Barnes & Noble, it might look a little different: The chain used the coronavirus shutdown as an opportunity to redecorate more than half of its 614 stores across the U.S. “I knew I wanted to rip these stores apart and put them back together in a different way,” the company’s chief executive said. “And then suddenly: ‘Oh my goodness, they’re all shut. Let’s get to work.’”
In his new memoir, “A Very Punchable Face,” the “Saturday Night Live” star and Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost contemplates a life and career that are still in flux. We spoke with him from Long Island, where he’s been quarantining, about the pandemic, filming “S.N.L.” remotely and more.
“Too Much and Never Enough,” the highly anticipated memoir by President Trump’s niece Mary L. Trump, comes out today. Here are seven insights from the book.
We talked to Andy Mulvihill, whose new book, “Action Park,” revisits the beloved and notorious amusement park in New Jersey founded by his father. “Many people have an Action Park story or two, but I have hundreds,” he said.
Nonfiction out today: “Too Much and Never Enough,” by Mary L. Trump; “The Year of Dangerous Days,” by Nicholas Griffin; “Underwater,” by Ryan Dezember; “The King of Confidence,” by Harvey Miles; “The People, No,” by Thomas Frank; “The Bohemians,” by Norman Ohler; “A Very Punchable Face,” by Colin Jost; “Big Friendship,” by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman; “Filthy Beasts,” by Kirkland Hamill; “Butch Cassidy,” by Charles Leerhsen.
Fiction out today: “Crooked Hallelujah,” by Kelli Jo Ford; “Utopia Avenue,” by David Mitchell.

The critics:

Jennifer Szalai reviews Mary L. Trump’s “Too Much and Never Enough,” in which Donald Trump’s niece writes that he is turning the United States “into a macro version of my malignantly dysfunctional family.” Though the memoir is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about the president, Szalai says, it has an “undeniable power.”
In “Pew,” Catherine Lacey’s new novel, a Southern town is unnerved by the arrival of the title character, a genderless, racially ambiguous and seemingly mute outsider. As Dwight Garner puts it in his review: “What works in this novel is its Kafkaesque sense, through Pew, of free-floating anxiety and mortification of a sort that is impossible to define and thus impossible to soothe.”
And Parul Sehgal writes about “Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession,” in which Marjorie Garber “prods at the cloud of confusion surrounding the word — its philosophical roots, literary history, political uses and inadvertent comedy.”

That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I’ll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com.

All my best,

Joumana Khatib

Books at The New York Times

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