Celebrated poet and BONE and THE TERRIBLE author Yrsa Daley-Ward sat down with Refinery29’s Unbothered to speak about writing her latest book, THE HOW. “This year shone a light on so many things that we do on autopilot just to appease the people or be part of a group,” she says. “You then realize you do it so often you forget that you don't want to do it. It just becomes part of a weekly or monthly thing or whatever, down to personal relationships, friends that you have had for a long time, but when you really reassess and you think about it, it doesn't bring you joy.” Daley-Ward will also be collaborating with global florists—Urban Stems in the US and McQueens in the UK—to promote THE HOW alongside featured bouquets in coordinated online and social media campaigns. In the US, she will be doing an Instagram story takeover on Urban Stems’s account on October 27, and she will do a coordinated giveaway with Penguin and Urban Stems on November 4 to celebrate the book’s launch. In the UK, McQueens is working with Yrsa to create her own floral arrangement for their bouquet of the month, designed in collaboration with the talented Hamish Powell. McQueens will also feature the UK edition of the book online and in stores alongside the bouquet, complete with bookplates signed by Yrsa. Around publication time, McQueens will promote the collaboration heavily on its socials and create an article for their journal, as well as sending dried flower bundles along with copies of THE HOW in their influencer mailout. Penguin Books will publish THE HOW on November 2, 2021.

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow has received a wealth of praise surrounding its publication. In a review for The Atlantic, William Deresiewicz calls the book “[a] brilliant new account…something of a glorious mess, full of fascinating digressions, open questions, and missing pieces,” and a “final, unexpected gift” from the late Graeber, who Deresiewicz refers to as “[n]ot an extremely intelligent person – a genius…[who] seemed to belong to a different order of being from me, like a visitor from a higher dimension.” The Times applauds it as “[p]acey and potentially revolutionary…This is more than an argument about the past, it is about the human condition in the present.” Lastly, The Guardian praises it as “an impressively large undertaking that succeeds in making us reconsider not just the remote past but also the too-close-to-see present, as well as the common thread that is our shifting and elusive nature” and ran an excerpt from the book: “Unfreezing the Ice Age: The Truth About Humanity’s Deep Past.” Allen Lane published the UK edition of the book on October 19, 2021, and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux will publish the US edition on November 9, 2021.

BEING YOU by Anil Seth published this week to rave reviews. The Financial Times writes: “Seth covers complex topics, such as neurosurgery, mind-altering drugs, animal consciousness, and artificial intelligence, with skill and warmth…[and] fluent and accessible analysis.” Meanwhile, The New Statesman praises: “In lucid, engaging prose Seth deftly navigates long-standing philosophical debates over the nature of consciousness…[U]sing hard science to chip away at the hard problem won’t make the topic any less fascinating or awe-inspiring.” Dutton published the book on October 19, 2021.

DISCORDIA, an Audible Original by Max Barry, was released this week. Barry calls it “an audiobook full of lies,” adding: “[P]reviously, I thought people made up their minds based on facts. Sure, you can lie, but that’s just making up facts; facts are still involved. The new idea was that facts were a jumping-off point. People could also be persuaded by how confidently I spoke, or whether I connected my argument to some other thing they liked or disliked. Since then, there has been a wild explosion of disinformation…I wrote a comedy about disinformation getting out of control.” Audible published the audiobook on October 12, 2021.

James Han Mattson’s REPRIEVE launched this week to a cascade of wonderful press. The novel was named a best book of October by Lambda Literary, The Millions, CrimeReads, Entertainment Weekly, PopSugar, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and more, and was chosen by Literary Hub as the Scorpio pick for its Astrology Book Club. Mattson also sat down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly to discuss his writing process while working on the book. He told EW: "Some avid horror readers may be disappointed by the fact that this book isn't a gore fest…But I think all of my writing is going to be tinged with darkness in some way." William Morrow published the book on October 5, 2021.

DEAR CYBORGS author Eugene Lim’s next book, SEARCH HISTORY, published this week to much fanfare. The Washington Post offered an excellent review, calling the novel “an authentic expression of a mind striving to comprehend the inexplicable cruelties of the universe and humanity’s most proper response,” adding: “Fans of Haruki Murakami’s melancholy, oneiric tales will also delight in Lim’s assault upon consensus reality.” Granta featured an excerpt from the book on its website, and Lim sat down for a Q&A with Poets & Writers. When asked about the most challenging part of writing the novel, Lim said: “Even if there are many things going on in it, I think at its heart this novel is a book about grief. And writing about that subject while enduring its wound makes you doubt yourself, makes you wonder whether one is being honest or honoring or insensitive or sentimentalizing. I wanted to articulate and be honest to the emotion of grief but also I wanted it to be both original and transformed by and into fiction—not so that the emotion was made into mere artifice but so that the artifice and strong emotions could stand together without either feeling manipulated or made false by the other.” Coffee House Press published SEARCH HISTORY on October 5, 2021.

THE SWANK HOTEL by Lucy Corin published this week to a flurry of praise. The book was featured on various must-read lists for October, including Chicago Review of Books (“Long whispered about in writer’s circles as a one of a kind talent, Lucy Corin’s latest novel seems poised to finally break her out big.”), Alta, and NYLON (“[T]antalizingly gloomy [and] surreal. Intrigue!”). Graywolf Press published the novel on October 5, 2021.

THE 22 MURDERS OF MADISON MAY author Max Barry’s IT CAME FROM CRUDEN FARM was curated by award-winning editor and Locus magazine critic Jonathan Strahan for THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION VOLUME 2, which published this week. Tor calls the collection “[a]n assemblage of future classics” and “a must-read for anyone who enjoys the vast and exciting world of science fiction.” Gallery/Saga Press published the collection on September 28, 2021, and G.P. Putnam’s Sons published THE 22 MURDERS OF MADISON MAY on July 6, 2021.

Anderson Cooper’s VANDERBILT published this week with a flurry of media attention. Cooper appeared on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, CBS News’ Sunday Morning, and CBS Mornings to discuss the book. Cooper told CBS News: “I thought, 'I wanna write a book for my son that kind of explains part of his past or his family's past.' And it's an honest view, I think, at this remarkable family – remarkable in good ways, and also bad." Harper published the book on September 21, 2021.

L. Alison Heller’s THE NEIGHBOR’S SECRET has been chosen as a Book of the Month Club selection for September 2021! The thriller also received a starred review from BookPage: “Heller excels at the complex characterization required to engage readers, resulting in a book that’s truly impossible to put down. The myriad anxieties her characters feel—fear for their children, their reputation, their community—are entirely relatable. A sense of dread and foreboding permeates the narrative. We know a murder is coming; Laurel, Abe and Lena all seem on the verge of imploding. With such a wonderful buildup and a truly surprising finish, The Neighbor’s Secret is a delight to read.” Flatiron will publish the book on October 5, 2021.