{"id":60976,"date":"2025-08-11T08:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60976\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T08:08:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:08:20","slug":"what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-literary-hub-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60976\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week \u2039 Literary Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Book<\/a><\/p>\n

Jason Mott\u2019s People Like Us, \u00c5sne Seierstad\u2019s The Afghans, and Elaine Castillo\u2019s Moderation\u00a0all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.<\/p>\n

Brought to you by Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Fiction<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Moderation\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1. Moderation<\/a> by Elaine Castillo
(Viking)<\/p>\n

7 Rave \u2022 3 Positive \u2022 2 Mixed \u2022 1 Pan
Read an excerpt from Moderation here<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSharply attuned to the costs of employment: financial, emotional, psychic \u2026 Castillo\u2019s close third-person narration, and her unerring ear for social performance, make for a novel that is often baroquely funny, full of barbed observations that detonate like precision-guided bombs \u2026 Castillo favors long sentences that twist and kink like a delirious garden hose, delighted by the unruly spillage of thought \u2026 Succeeds in rendering visible the often invisible dirty work of the digital era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Rhonda Feng (The New York Times Book Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

2. People Like Us<\/a> by Jason Mott
(Dutton)<\/p>\n

7 Rave \u2022 1 Positive<\/p>\n

\u201cRiveting \u2026 A hugely ambitious book. It takes big swings at topics many people like us are struggling to understand. It doesn\u2019t always connect, but that barely matters in a work that insists we must keep trying to put together words that help each other make sense of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Chris Hewitt (The Star Tribune<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"god-and-sex-\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3. God and Sex<\/a> by Jon Raymond
(Simon & Schuster)<\/p>\n

5 Rave \u2022 1 Positive
Check out Jon Raymond\u2019s \u201cGod-tier\u201d books here<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis slim novel is ostensibly about a schlubby writer sleeping with his friend\u2019s wife, but profound, ancient questions animate the book, and justify its oversize title. And these questions, which grow more urgent with every season of fire and floods, have haunted me since I finished reading it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Sam Dolnick (The New York Times Book Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Nonfiction<\/a><\/p>\n

\"King<\/a><\/p>\n

1. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation<\/a> by Scott Anderson
(Doubleday)<\/p>\n

8 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 3 Mixed<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an exceptional and important book. Scrupulous and enterprising reporting rarely combine with such superb storytelling. Anderson leavens his sweeping and complex chronicle with rich character portraits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Mark Bowden (The New York Times Book Review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

2. The Afghans: Three Lives Through War, Love, and Revolt<\/a> by \u00c5sne Seierstad
(Bloomsbury)<\/p>\n

5 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 2 Mixed<\/p>\n

\u201cRemarkable \u2026\u00a0Seierstad chronicles years of war and the rise and resurgence of the Taliban through the intimate, affecting portraits of three lives lived in history\u2019s shadow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Bridget Thoreson (Booklist<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Blessings<\/p>\n

3. Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama<\/a> by Alexis Okeowo
(Henry Holt & Co)<\/p>\n

5 Rave<\/p>\n

\u201cInsightful \u2026 [Okeowo] goes beyond the broad strokes that often represent Alabama to the rest of the U.S\u2026to tell a more intriguing and much more complex story \u2026 With a keen eye for detail and a thoughtful big-picture perspective, Okeowo paints a layered portrait of a state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Katie Noah Gibson (Shelf Awareness<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Mott\u2019s People Like Us, \u00c5sne Seierstad\u2019s The Afghans, and Elaine Castillo\u2019s Moderation\u00a0all feature among the best reviewed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-60976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}