Latest news with #TaylorJenkinsReid
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, July 6
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 4. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 5. So Far Gone by Jess Walter (Harper: $30) A reclusive journalist is forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren. 6. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. 7. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 8. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) A cop relentlessly follows his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina Island. 9. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott (Riverhead Books: $28) What begins as a celebration at a New York country house gives way to betrayal, shattering the trust between two close families. 10. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A study of the political, economic and cultural barriers to progress in the U.S. and how to work toward a politics of abundance. 3. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 4. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 5. How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast (Viking: $28) The author recalls her famed mother, writer Erica Jong. 6. Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll (St. Martin's Press: $30) The journalist chronicles her legal battles with President Trump. 7. The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (Random House: $30) A guide to the art of journaling, with contributions from Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem and others. 8. The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27) The novelist blends truth and fiction in an exploration of faith and love. 9. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden's doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline. 10. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Co.: $32) The naturalist explores rivers as living beings. … 1. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 4. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 5. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $20) 6. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial: $22) 7. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 8. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 9. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper Perennial: $19) 10. Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove (Bindery Books: $19) … 1. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 3. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 5. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Metropolitan Books: $20) 6. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 7. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 8. The White Album by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18) 9. Sociopath by Patric Gagne (Simon & Schuster: $20) 10. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21)
The Advertiser
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
From Evelyn Hugo to NASA: Author Taylor Jenkins Reid reaches for the stars
Taylor Jenkins Reid recalls a moment writing her new novel, Atmosphere: A Love Story, set against NASA's robust 1980s shuttle program, where she felt stuck. She went, where she often goes, to her husband to talk it through. "I said, 'I can't write this book. I don't know enough about the space shuttle. I don't know what happens when the payload bay doors won't shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can't land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.' And he's like, 'Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you're doing.'" Atmosphere follows astronomer Joan Goodwin, who is selected to join NASA's astronaut program. She and fellow trainees become like family and achieve their dream of going to space - until tragedy strikes. The story unfolds in two timelines: One when Joan first joins the NASA program and the other in December 1984 when a mission goes terribly wrong. The duo behind Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are adapting the book into a film with a cinema release in mind. Reid knew that she had to do more than just her average six to eight weeks of research. Research and rabbit holes, by the way, are Reid's jam. She's written blockbuster novels set in the golden age of Hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the 1970s rock scene in Daisy Jones & the Six, 1980s surf culture in Malibu Rising and professional tennis in Carrie Soto is Back. With Atmosphere, though, it took extra time, reading and understanding. "It feels like a fever dream now when I think about it," Reid said. "It was a very intense period of time. " For this endeavor, she needed assistance: "I had to reach out to people, complete strangers that I did not know and say, 'Will you please help me?'" She was surprised at how many people said yes. One of the most important voices was Paul Dye, NASA's longest-serving flight director. "He spent hours of time with me," Reid said. "He helped me figure out how to cause a lot of mayhem on the space shuttle. He helped figure out exactly how the process of the connection between mission control and the space shuttle work. The book doesn't exist if he hadn't done that." Question: How has writing Atmosphere changed you? REID: I'm really into astronomy. Last Thanksgiving my family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I routed us through Scottsdale, Arizona, because I wanted to go to a dark sky park. Because of light pollution, we can only see the brightest stars when we go out and look at the night sky in a major city. Whereas when you go to a dark sky park there is very limited man-made light. So you can see more stars. We got there and it was cloudy. I was beside myself. The next night we got to the Grand Canyon and all the clouds had disappeared and you could see everything. I stood there for hours. I was teary-eyed. I can't emphasise enough: If anyone has any inclination to just go outside and look up at the night sky, it's so rewarding. Q: Last year you left social media. Where are you at with it now? REID: I didn't realise how much social media was creating so many messages in my head of, you're not good enough. You should be better. You should work harder. You should have a prettier home. You should make a better dinner. And when I stopped going on it, very quickly I started to hear my own voice clearer. It was so much easier to be in touch with what I thought, how I felt, what I valued. I was more in touch with myself but also I'm going out into the world and I'm looking up at the sky and I am seeing where I am in relation to everything around me and I starting to understand how small my life is compared to the scale of the universe. Q: Serena Williams is executive producing Carrie Soto for a series at Netflix. Did you meet her? REID: Yes. It's the only time I've been starstruck. I was in my bones, nervous. I had to talk to myself like, "Taylor, slow down your heart rate." The admiration I have for her as an athlete but also as a human is immense. The idea that I might have written something that she felt captured anything worth her time, is a great honor. And the fact that she's coming on board to help us make it the most authentic story we possibly can, I'm thrilled. It's one thing for me to pretend I know what it's like to be standing at Flushing Meadows and win the US Open. Serena knows. She's done it multiple times. And so as we render that world, I think it is going to be really, really special because we have Serena and her team to help us. Q: Now for your favorite question. What's up with the Evelyn Hugo movie? REID: There's not much that I am allowed to say but a lot of times I think people mistake me not saying anything as a lack of interest or focus and that's not the case. Everyone is working incredibly hard to get this movie made and everyone knows that there is a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. We're all hard at work. We're taking it very seriously and I give Netflix so much credit because they have such an immense respect for the readership of that book. They want to make them happy. AP/AAP Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest books content with ease. Taylor Jenkins Reid recalls a moment writing her new novel, Atmosphere: A Love Story, set against NASA's robust 1980s shuttle program, where she felt stuck. She went, where she often goes, to her husband to talk it through. "I said, 'I can't write this book. I don't know enough about the space shuttle. I don't know what happens when the payload bay doors won't shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can't land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.' And he's like, 'Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you're doing.'" Atmosphere follows astronomer Joan Goodwin, who is selected to join NASA's astronaut program. She and fellow trainees become like family and achieve their dream of going to space - until tragedy strikes. The story unfolds in two timelines: One when Joan first joins the NASA program and the other in December 1984 when a mission goes terribly wrong. The duo behind Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are adapting the book into a film with a cinema release in mind. Reid knew that she had to do more than just her average six to eight weeks of research. Research and rabbit holes, by the way, are Reid's jam. She's written blockbuster novels set in the golden age of Hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the 1970s rock scene in Daisy Jones & the Six, 1980s surf culture in Malibu Rising and professional tennis in Carrie Soto is Back. With Atmosphere, though, it took extra time, reading and understanding. "It feels like a fever dream now when I think about it," Reid said. "It was a very intense period of time. " For this endeavor, she needed assistance: "I had to reach out to people, complete strangers that I did not know and say, 'Will you please help me?'" She was surprised at how many people said yes. One of the most important voices was Paul Dye, NASA's longest-serving flight director. "He spent hours of time with me," Reid said. "He helped me figure out how to cause a lot of mayhem on the space shuttle. He helped figure out exactly how the process of the connection between mission control and the space shuttle work. The book doesn't exist if he hadn't done that." Question: How has writing Atmosphere changed you? REID: I'm really into astronomy. Last Thanksgiving my family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I routed us through Scottsdale, Arizona, because I wanted to go to a dark sky park. Because of light pollution, we can only see the brightest stars when we go out and look at the night sky in a major city. Whereas when you go to a dark sky park there is very limited man-made light. So you can see more stars. We got there and it was cloudy. I was beside myself. The next night we got to the Grand Canyon and all the clouds had disappeared and you could see everything. I stood there for hours. I was teary-eyed. I can't emphasise enough: If anyone has any inclination to just go outside and look up at the night sky, it's so rewarding. Q: Last year you left social media. Where are you at with it now? REID: I didn't realise how much social media was creating so many messages in my head of, you're not good enough. You should be better. You should work harder. You should have a prettier home. You should make a better dinner. And when I stopped going on it, very quickly I started to hear my own voice clearer. It was so much easier to be in touch with what I thought, how I felt, what I valued. I was more in touch with myself but also I'm going out into the world and I'm looking up at the sky and I am seeing where I am in relation to everything around me and I starting to understand how small my life is compared to the scale of the universe. Q: Serena Williams is executive producing Carrie Soto for a series at Netflix. Did you meet her? REID: Yes. It's the only time I've been starstruck. I was in my bones, nervous. I had to talk to myself like, "Taylor, slow down your heart rate." The admiration I have for her as an athlete but also as a human is immense. The idea that I might have written something that she felt captured anything worth her time, is a great honor. And the fact that she's coming on board to help us make it the most authentic story we possibly can, I'm thrilled. It's one thing for me to pretend I know what it's like to be standing at Flushing Meadows and win the US Open. Serena knows. She's done it multiple times. And so as we render that world, I think it is going to be really, really special because we have Serena and her team to help us. Q: Now for your favorite question. What's up with the Evelyn Hugo movie? REID: There's not much that I am allowed to say but a lot of times I think people mistake me not saying anything as a lack of interest or focus and that's not the case. Everyone is working incredibly hard to get this movie made and everyone knows that there is a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. We're all hard at work. We're taking it very seriously and I give Netflix so much credit because they have such an immense respect for the readership of that book. They want to make them happy. AP/AAP Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest books content with ease. Taylor Jenkins Reid recalls a moment writing her new novel, Atmosphere: A Love Story, set against NASA's robust 1980s shuttle program, where she felt stuck. She went, where she often goes, to her husband to talk it through. "I said, 'I can't write this book. I don't know enough about the space shuttle. I don't know what happens when the payload bay doors won't shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can't land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.' And he's like, 'Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you're doing.'" Atmosphere follows astronomer Joan Goodwin, who is selected to join NASA's astronaut program. She and fellow trainees become like family and achieve their dream of going to space - until tragedy strikes. The story unfolds in two timelines: One when Joan first joins the NASA program and the other in December 1984 when a mission goes terribly wrong. The duo behind Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are adapting the book into a film with a cinema release in mind. Reid knew that she had to do more than just her average six to eight weeks of research. Research and rabbit holes, by the way, are Reid's jam. She's written blockbuster novels set in the golden age of Hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the 1970s rock scene in Daisy Jones & the Six, 1980s surf culture in Malibu Rising and professional tennis in Carrie Soto is Back. With Atmosphere, though, it took extra time, reading and understanding. "It feels like a fever dream now when I think about it," Reid said. "It was a very intense period of time. " For this endeavor, she needed assistance: "I had to reach out to people, complete strangers that I did not know and say, 'Will you please help me?'" She was surprised at how many people said yes. One of the most important voices was Paul Dye, NASA's longest-serving flight director. "He spent hours of time with me," Reid said. "He helped me figure out how to cause a lot of mayhem on the space shuttle. He helped figure out exactly how the process of the connection between mission control and the space shuttle work. The book doesn't exist if he hadn't done that." Question: How has writing Atmosphere changed you? REID: I'm really into astronomy. Last Thanksgiving my family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I routed us through Scottsdale, Arizona, because I wanted to go to a dark sky park. Because of light pollution, we can only see the brightest stars when we go out and look at the night sky in a major city. Whereas when you go to a dark sky park there is very limited man-made light. So you can see more stars. We got there and it was cloudy. I was beside myself. The next night we got to the Grand Canyon and all the clouds had disappeared and you could see everything. I stood there for hours. I was teary-eyed. I can't emphasise enough: If anyone has any inclination to just go outside and look up at the night sky, it's so rewarding. Q: Last year you left social media. Where are you at with it now? REID: I didn't realise how much social media was creating so many messages in my head of, you're not good enough. You should be better. You should work harder. You should have a prettier home. You should make a better dinner. And when I stopped going on it, very quickly I started to hear my own voice clearer. It was so much easier to be in touch with what I thought, how I felt, what I valued. I was more in touch with myself but also I'm going out into the world and I'm looking up at the sky and I am seeing where I am in relation to everything around me and I starting to understand how small my life is compared to the scale of the universe. Q: Serena Williams is executive producing Carrie Soto for a series at Netflix. Did you meet her? REID: Yes. It's the only time I've been starstruck. I was in my bones, nervous. I had to talk to myself like, "Taylor, slow down your heart rate." The admiration I have for her as an athlete but also as a human is immense. The idea that I might have written something that she felt captured anything worth her time, is a great honor. And the fact that she's coming on board to help us make it the most authentic story we possibly can, I'm thrilled. It's one thing for me to pretend I know what it's like to be standing at Flushing Meadows and win the US Open. Serena knows. She's done it multiple times. And so as we render that world, I think it is going to be really, really special because we have Serena and her team to help us. Q: Now for your favorite question. What's up with the Evelyn Hugo movie? REID: There's not much that I am allowed to say but a lot of times I think people mistake me not saying anything as a lack of interest or focus and that's not the case. Everyone is working incredibly hard to get this movie made and everyone knows that there is a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. We're all hard at work. We're taking it very seriously and I give Netflix so much credit because they have such an immense respect for the readership of that book. They want to make them happy. AP/AAP Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest books content with ease. Taylor Jenkins Reid recalls a moment writing her new novel, Atmosphere: A Love Story, set against NASA's robust 1980s shuttle program, where she felt stuck. She went, where she often goes, to her husband to talk it through. "I said, 'I can't write this book. I don't know enough about the space shuttle. I don't know what happens when the payload bay doors won't shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can't land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.' And he's like, 'Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you're doing.'" Atmosphere follows astronomer Joan Goodwin, who is selected to join NASA's astronaut program. She and fellow trainees become like family and achieve their dream of going to space - until tragedy strikes. The story unfolds in two timelines: One when Joan first joins the NASA program and the other in December 1984 when a mission goes terribly wrong. The duo behind Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are adapting the book into a film with a cinema release in mind. Reid knew that she had to do more than just her average six to eight weeks of research. Research and rabbit holes, by the way, are Reid's jam. She's written blockbuster novels set in the golden age of Hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the 1970s rock scene in Daisy Jones & the Six, 1980s surf culture in Malibu Rising and professional tennis in Carrie Soto is Back. With Atmosphere, though, it took extra time, reading and understanding. "It feels like a fever dream now when I think about it," Reid said. "It was a very intense period of time. " For this endeavor, she needed assistance: "I had to reach out to people, complete strangers that I did not know and say, 'Will you please help me?'" She was surprised at how many people said yes. One of the most important voices was Paul Dye, NASA's longest-serving flight director. "He spent hours of time with me," Reid said. "He helped me figure out how to cause a lot of mayhem on the space shuttle. He helped figure out exactly how the process of the connection between mission control and the space shuttle work. The book doesn't exist if he hadn't done that." Question: How has writing Atmosphere changed you? REID: I'm really into astronomy. Last Thanksgiving my family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I routed us through Scottsdale, Arizona, because I wanted to go to a dark sky park. Because of light pollution, we can only see the brightest stars when we go out and look at the night sky in a major city. Whereas when you go to a dark sky park there is very limited man-made light. So you can see more stars. We got there and it was cloudy. I was beside myself. The next night we got to the Grand Canyon and all the clouds had disappeared and you could see everything. I stood there for hours. I was teary-eyed. I can't emphasise enough: If anyone has any inclination to just go outside and look up at the night sky, it's so rewarding. Q: Last year you left social media. Where are you at with it now? REID: I didn't realise how much social media was creating so many messages in my head of, you're not good enough. You should be better. You should work harder. You should have a prettier home. You should make a better dinner. And when I stopped going on it, very quickly I started to hear my own voice clearer. It was so much easier to be in touch with what I thought, how I felt, what I valued. I was more in touch with myself but also I'm going out into the world and I'm looking up at the sky and I am seeing where I am in relation to everything around me and I starting to understand how small my life is compared to the scale of the universe. Q: Serena Williams is executive producing Carrie Soto for a series at Netflix. Did you meet her? REID: Yes. It's the only time I've been starstruck. I was in my bones, nervous. I had to talk to myself like, "Taylor, slow down your heart rate." The admiration I have for her as an athlete but also as a human is immense. The idea that I might have written something that she felt captured anything worth her time, is a great honor. And the fact that she's coming on board to help us make it the most authentic story we possibly can, I'm thrilled. It's one thing for me to pretend I know what it's like to be standing at Flushing Meadows and win the US Open. Serena knows. She's done it multiple times. And so as we render that world, I think it is going to be really, really special because we have Serena and her team to help us. Q: Now for your favorite question. What's up with the Evelyn Hugo movie? REID: There's not much that I am allowed to say but a lot of times I think people mistake me not saying anything as a lack of interest or focus and that's not the case. Everyone is working incredibly hard to get this movie made and everyone knows that there is a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. We're all hard at work. We're taking it very seriously and I give Netflix so much credit because they have such an immense respect for the readership of that book. They want to make them happy. AP/AAP Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest books content with ease.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Early Prime Day book deals: Save up to 80% on hardcovers, paperbacks, and Kindle editions
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. The best early Prime Day book deals at a glance: BEST HARDCOVER DEAL "Atmosphere" by Taylor Jenkins Reid $21 (save $9) Get Deal BEST PAPERBACK DEAL "The Crash" by Freida McFadden $9 (save $8.99) Get Deal BEST KINDLE BOOK DEAL "So Far Gone" by Jess Walter $2.99 (save $12) Get Deal Amazon Prime Day is nearly here (officially running from July 8 through 11), and we're already being blessed with tons of deals. If you're looking to stack your summer reading list with books, it's time to get going. On top of Amazon offering three free months of Kindle Unlimited and Audible to new members, we're also seeing some pretty sweet discounts on books themselves. Whether you want to load up your Kindle with e-books or you prefer physical books in your hands, there are a ton of deals waiting for you at Amazon weeks ahead of the formal Prime Day start. From bestsellers to hidden treasures, we'll be tracking all the best early Prime Day book deals below and updating the list with the latest and greatest price drops as we inch closer to the main event. Opens in a new window Credit: Ballantine Books Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid $21 at Amazon $30 Save $9 Get Deal Atmosphere is the latest from the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid. Just released earlier this month, it's already listed as one of Goodreads' most popular books of the year. It follows Joan Goodwin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, who is selected as one of the first women scientists to join NASA's Space Shuttle program in the 1980s. The hardcover copy is already on sale ahead of Prime Day for $21, down 30% from its list price. Cher The Memoir: Part One by Cher — $12.50 $36 (save $23.50) Atomic Habits by James Clear — $13.38 $27 (save $13.62) The God of the Woods by Liz Moore — $16.15 $30 (save $13.85) Summer in the City by Alex Aster — $16.60 $28 (save $11.40) The Sirens by Emilia Hart — $17.10 $29 (save $11.90) Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks — $17.84 $28 (save $10.16) Dune: Deluxe Edition by Frank Herbert — $18.10 $50 (save $31.90) The Wedding People by Alison Espach — $18.37 $28.99 (save $ Retreat by Krysten Ritter — $18.50 $28.99 (save $10.49) Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams — $18.50 $32.99 (save $14.49) Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins — $19.17 $27.99 (save $8.82) Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid — $21 $30 (save $9) Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by Alexander Clapp — $22.60 $32 (save $9.40) The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah — $6.78 $17.99 (save $11.21) The Stranger in Her House by John Marrs — $8.60 $16.99 (save $8.39) Keep Your Friends Close by Lucinda Berry — $8.77 $16.99 (save $8.22) The Crash by Freida McFadden — $9 $17.99 (save $8.99) Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez — $10.13 $17.99 (save $7.86) Every Precious and Fragile Thing by Barbara Davis — $10.24 $16.99 (save $6.75) Gravewater Lake by A.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent — $10.48 $16.99 (save $6.51) The Strawberry Patch Pancake House by Laurie Gilmore — $11 $18.99 (save $7.99) The Page Turner by Viola Shipman — $12.80 $18.99 (save $6.19) Those Girls by Chevy Stevens — $13.71 $19 (save $5.29) Skeleton Crew: Stories by Stephen King — $13.99 $21.99 (save $8) The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley — $15 $18.99 (save $3.99) A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set by Sarah J. Maas — $34.95 $95 (save $60.05) Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose — $1.99 $9.99 (save $8) The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen — $2.49 $4.99 (save $2.50) The Last Party by A.R. Torre — $2.49 $4.99 (save $2.50) Pictures of You by Emma Grey — $2.99 $14.99 (save $12) We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker — $2.99 $18.99 (save $16) So Far Gone by Jess Walter — $2.99 $14.99 (save $12) The Good Girl by Mary Kubica — $2.99 $10.99 (save $8) One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune — $10.99 $19 (save $8.01) Dead Money by Jakob Kerr — $13.99 $30 (save $16.01) Matriarch by Tina Knowles — $14.99 $35 (save $20.01) + get $1.50 in Kindle credit The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley — $14.99 $28 (save $13.01) The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong — $14.99 $30 (save $15.01)
USA Today
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Julia Whelan is the voice of the summer: Meet the narrator of your favorite bestsellers
She's your favorite author's favorite audiobook narrator. Julia Whelan is the voice of the summer, the smooth-talking vocals behind some of 2025's biggest books – 'Atmosphere' by Taylor Jenkins Reid, 'Great Big Beautiful Life' by Emily Henry and 'Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil' by V.E. Schwab, to name a few. As an audiobook listener will tell you, the narrator can make or break a good listen. So what about Whelan has authors clamoring to get her on their stories? It's more than just her voice and acting skills – Whelan has become the face of an industry known only for voice, a public figure in a social media era where readers have unprecedented access to the creatives that bring their favorite books to life. Whelan's voice on an audiobook can lead to a boom in sales. There's a responsibility that comes with that, and Whelan is determined not to let it go to waste. Whelan is fighting for more pay and better working conditions for audiobook narrators, who do not receive royalties like other actors. The voice behind Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emily Henry books Credited to her English major background, Whelan is a 'generalist' reader – she's done romance, book club fiction, erotica, fantasy, thrillers and historical fiction. She's the voice of Tara Westover's memoir 'Educated,' Kristin Hannah's 'The Women' (for which she won an Audie Award), narrated a few chapters of Taylor Jenkins Reid's "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' and all of Emily Henry's books. She's at a point in her career she calls 'an embarrassment of riches.' The key to a Whelan narration is close collaboration. Sometimes that's sending voice memos back and forth to get pronunciation right, sometimes that's envisioning actors an author dreams would play their characters. For Laurie Forest's 'The Black Witch,' a series Whelan has been narrating since 2017, she worked with the author to create fictional accents for the fantasy world. Sarah MacLean, a historical romance author whose first contemporary romance, 'These Summer Storms,' comes out July 8, said it was a 'dream' to get Whelan on her novel. 'She's just such an authentic person who cares so much about the adaptation of the book being perfect,' MacLean says. 'She says the audiobook is the first and best adaptation that you're ever going to get as a writer and I think that is so true and it's so powerful. I just trust her implicitly.' A post shared by Sarah MacLean (@sarahmaclean) From child actor to renowned audiobook narrator Whelan got her start as an actor when she was 9, with a notable role on ABC drama 'Once and Again' alongside Sela Ward and Evan Rachel Wood. She left acting in high school to study English in college, assuming she would resume her TV days after she graduated. But with the 2007-2008 writer's strike and recession, Whelan had to look elsewhere. By the time she got in the booth, it was the 2010s boom of YA romance and dystopia, and Whelan's narration of these young protagonists filled an industry age gap. She did the 'typical Hollywood hustle of catch where catch can,' thinking one book a month could give her a steady enough income for her car payment. Then 'Gone Girl' took off. Whelan narrated the calculated, cunning Amy Dunne. She knew from the first 10 pages that it would be huge. Amid the rise in digital reading, platforms like Audible ballooned. Whelan still has people tell her that 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn was the first audiobook they listened to. By then, she was narrating full-time – around 70 books a year – plus writing her first book, 'My Oxford Year.' The quantity was unsustainable and she says she 'almost had a breakdown.' But she was also making a name for herself among both listeners and publishers. When she wrote her second book, 'Thank You For Listening,' she dialed back, but her success didn't. She became known in book communities as an audiobook narrator who intentionally chooses quality books. As audiobook narrators become public figures, Whelan leads fight for change Audiobooks were the perfect happy medium for Whelan, who never liked the public recognition that came with acting. Narrating let her continue acting while maintaining the privacy she craved. Then, about five or six years ago, that changed. Readers started following audiobook narrators like they did their favorite authors or actors. There was a push to be a public figure because her voice helped sell books. When Whelan went on tour for 'My Oxford Year' in 2018, the stops were filled only with a handful of friends and family members. Then the pandemic hit, and Whelan thought it would be the end of audiobooks because people weren't commuting. She was wrong. 'I started getting messages from people saying things like 'You're the only voice I've heard for weeks now,'' Whelan says. 'It was a very intimate experience for a lot of people and a moment of human connection where we were all so isolated.' On her 2022 tour, audiobook fans sold out venues for 'Thank You For Listening.' 'That's when I went, 'OK, we're being exploited,'' Whelan says. Traditional audiobook narrators get paid per finished hour of recording, often a few $100 per hour. Most span from eight to 12 hours. They don't get royalties after, even though others in the publishing industry, like authors and editors, do. Whelan still gets residuals for Lifetime movies she did when she was 12. But she says she's only ever received $2,500 for 'Gone Girl,' popular as it may be a decade later. Meanwhile, as new players like Spotify, Apple and Amazon enter the space, the audiobook industry reached $2.22 billion in 2024, up 13% over the previous year. The fight is especially pressing now that artificial intelligence is encroaching on the industry. In May, Melania Trump announced her memoir would be narrated entirely by AI. 'Synthetic voice is just sitting there waiting to take jobs,' Whelan says. 'So we're going to very quickly find ourselves in a situation where there is not enough work and all the work you've done previously is still out there, still making money for people.' As her platform grew, Whelan realized it was futile to ask big companies 'to do the right thing.' So she started Audiobrary, an audio platform that applies publishing models with royalties to both narrators and authors. And she'll keep talking about it until she sees change on an industry-wide level. 'There comes a point where continuing to just complain about a problem, you are perpetuating a problem if you're not actually fixing it,' Whelan says. 'And this is my attempt to give it a shot and fix it. And jury's out, but I will say that the response I've gotten from listeners and from the industry is just one of massive support.' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Los Angeles Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 29
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries. 4. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 6. King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar: $29) A man returns to his roots to save his family in this Southern crime epic. 7. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 8. The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books: $30) A young father grapples with tragedy and the search for redemption. 9. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 10. With a Vengeance by Riley Sager (Dutton: $30) A deadly game of survival and revenge plays out on a luxury train heading from Philadelphia to Chicago. … 1. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 2. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 3. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 4. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word by Steve Martin (Grand Central Publishing: $30) A collection of greatest hits from the beloved actor and comedian. 5. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 6. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 7. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 8. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) The 'Braiding Sweetgrass' author on gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. 9. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 10. It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Steven Scott, Justin Eisinger and Harmony Becker (illustrator) (Top Shelf Productions: $30) The actor and activist tells his most personal story of all in a full-color graphic memoir. … 1. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 3. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 4. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 6. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 7. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin: $18) 8. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper Perennial: $19) 9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20) 10. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Vintage: $18) … 1. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 2. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 3. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (Penguin: $19) 4. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 5. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin: $21) 6. Sociopath by Patric Gagne (Simon & Schuster: $20) 7. The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger (Harper Perennial: $20) 8. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 9. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Crown: $20) 10. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20)
