Booklist

And so we want to kick it off with what were your publishing highs and lows this month? Mariko, do you want to go first?

The Museum of Modern Love got a starred review from Booklist, which was really exciting.

And it got some other really good trade reviews this month also.

So that was just really exciting to see.

And then what was almost just as exciting was that in the Booklist review, the first sentence of it was like a great elevator pitch for the book.

They said when the mischievous energy of from the mixed up files of Mrs.

Basil E. Frankweiler combines with the round con vibes of Lynn painters better than the movies.

Her debut novel was published in 2012.

Since then, her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus.

She's been an RT Reviewer's Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance and Best Historical Romance Love and Laughter.

Two of her books have been nominated for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.

But the devil always gets his due, and what comes next is a shocking new urban legend.

Booklist said, quote, the real terror here comes when readers inevitably interrogate their own social media choices.

Think of the 2024 film, The Substance, but this time with more substance.

So, All Makatsu is great.

It depends how irritating you'd like to be.

Critically, the book did pretty well for something that began life as essentially Scalzi asking himself, can I do this? Booklist praised it as an absurd, funny, satirically perceptive first contact story.

Publishers Weekly was more reserved, describing it as entertaining but lightweight and finding the plot predictable.

General readers have remained pretty positive.

People are saying it's her best one yet.

It has gotten starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, School Library Journal, and more.

I actually didn't see any reviews that weren't starred.

So this seems to be a standout from an author who is already very beloved.

R.B. Lemberg is a writer of fiction and poetry, a translator from Ukrainian and Russian, and a sociolinguist whose academic work is concerned with immigrant discourse, identity, and gender.

They're the author of six books, four of which are set in the Birdverse, a beautiful fictional universe that Booklist accurately described as, quote, "A deep and rewarding world full of complex characters who are often LGBTQIA+ and/or neurodiverse." End quote.

The Birdverse is truly a magical place full of deep magic, families and relationships of rich variety, and also, among many other wonders, some really amazing goats.

You will find those goats in the first Birdverse collection of poems and stories, Geometries of Belonging, which was shortlisted for the 2023 Ursula K.

Check it out.

And her voice has earned her the Golden Voice Narrators by Autofile Magazine and Voice of Choice by Booklist.

put in the chat if you've listened to any books and you're like oh my god that's Bonnie yeah I know her I know her voice in fact you can go to your audio books and you can put in search Bonnie Turpin and it'll tell you if any of your books are by her been narrated by her so I'm just saying ladies and gents the lovely and talented

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What? From who? How do they even have it?

From Booklist magazine.

Oh.

Do you wanna know what it says?

Good, good-

"Green's storytelling, Green's storytelling-

Booklist reviews always have, like, plot summary, so he's skipping that.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying not to, uh, have any spoilers.

So that was, that was awesome.

They loved it, and, uh, Booklist gave it a really amazing review.

So it's getting, you know what I mean? It's just, we, it hasn't hit yet.

Um, as we get closer to the publish date, I'm sure there'll be more reviews, but right now everything seems to be looking up.