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Lift Every VoiceWhen Cole Arthur
Rileywas growing up, she didn’t talk.
“This is not an exaggeration,” she writes
in her first book, “This Here Flesh,”
which weaves three generations of fam-
ily stories with reflec-
tions on spirituality
and liberation. “Apart
from the family who
shared a home with
me, I was nonverbal
around most people I
encountered until I
was 7. It’s called selec-
tive mutism, and it’s
an anxiety disorder.”
Riley describes
getting her hand stuck
between a sliding-
glass door and a
screen door when she was 4 or 5 years
old — how she stayed silent, trapped,
until her sister stumbled upon her, pried
the doors open and insisted that the two
of them practice yelling together in the
backyard. She writes, “Our squeals
pierce the glass. Inhale. Again.And the
whole house comes running.”
That primal scream echoes through-
out “This Here Flesh,” which makes its
debut this week at No. 9 on the advice,
how-to and miscellaneous list. Having
found her voice, Riley is now a spiritual
teacher in residence at Cornell Univer-
sity and the writer and creator of
@blackliturgies on Instagram, where
she explores themes such as rage and
dignity through literature and prayer.
She is also the narrator of her own au-
diobook, clocking in at six hours and
eight minutes. Click on the sample on
Libro.fm and you’ll hear Riley: “I have a
favorite sound. To be precise, it’s not a
singular sound, but a multitude.” She
comes across as calm and soothing, with
the definitiveness of a woman who has
thought long and hard about what she’s
going to say.
Loud and ProudDid someone say
feminist retelling of...? If you are the
parent of a 14-year-old who gravitates
toward stories along the lines of HBO’s
“Euphoria” — yes, I am aware that it’s a
wildly inappropriate show for this age
group, but everyoneis watching — then
you, too, might leap at the chance to
bring Axie Oh’s “The Girl Who Fell
Beneath the Sea” into your hedonistic
fold. In this fantastical revisitation of a
beloved Korean folk story, Mina, a young
girl who has descended into the Spirit
Realm, must figure out how to get her
voice back (sense a theme?), wake the
Sea God and save her people. Our re-
viewer described Mina as “a character
who ranks among our great Y.A. her-
oines. She’s smart, she’s rebellious, she’s
assertive and, after all she and her peo-
ple have been through, she’s mad.” Oh’s
fourth book appears at No. 2 on the
young adult hardcover list. 0
Inside the List
E LISABETH EGAN
‘I was non-
verbal around
most people I
encountered
until I was 7.’ANTIQUITIES,by Cynthia Ozick.
(Vintage, 272 pp., $16.)The Times
critic Dwight Garner noted that
this collection of five stories may
be a small addition to Ozick’s
voluminous body of work, but it’s
one that is “richly patterned and
strongly colored.” The titular story,
a novella set in 1949, follows a
retired lawyer as he joins six other
semi-distinguished old men to
write accounts of their time at a
defunct patrician boys’ academy.A LITTLE DEVIL IN AMERICA:Notes
in Praise of Black Performance,
by Hanif Abdurraqib. (Random House,
320 pp., $18.)Abdurraqib reflects
on Black performance in America
through essays on television,
music, film, minstrel shows and
vaudeville. As our reviewer, Lau-
retta Charlton, noted, the book is
also a meditation on Abdurraqib’s
experience as a Black man, “writ-
ten with sincerity and emotion.”AMERICAN DELIRIUM,by Betina
Gonzalez. Translated by Heather
Cleary. (Holt, 224 pp., $17.99.)As
our reviewer, Anderson Tepper, put
it, this fluidly translated novel, set
in a Midwestern American town
taken over by a powerful hallucino-
genic plant, is “a dizzying vortex”
that “offers an eerily familiar vision
of American madness and decay —
from an Argentine writer, no less.”SOUL CITY:Race, Equality, and the
Lost Dream of an American
Utopia,by Thomas Healy. (Metropoli-
tan, 448 pp., $19.99.)In 1969, the
civil rights leader Floyd McKissick
set out on an ambitious and ill-
fated mission to build a Black-run
city on a former slave plantation in
rural North Carolina. As our re-
viewer, Chris Lebron, noted, Healy
“does an excellent job recounting”
the details of “one of the greatest
least-told stories in American
history.”MY FRIEND ANNA:The True Story
of a Fake Heiress,by Rachel De-
Loache Williams. (Gallery, 304 pp.,
$18.99.)The story of Anna Delvey,
the con artist who bilked hundreds
of thousands of dollars from New
York’s wealthy, has been told in
magazine profiles, books and now a
Netflix series. As our reviewer,
Sadie Stein, commented, Williams’s
“earnest, sympathetic and all too
conscientious” account may also be
the most definitive.HOSTAGE,by Clare Mackintosh.
(Sourcebooks, 336 pp., $16.99.)
This thriller — in which a flight
attendant is on a plane to Sydney
when her 5-year-old daughter is
ransomed — is notable for its
capacity to get into the heads of its
characters. “Multiple viewpoints
have a tendency to derail a full-
throttle narrative, but Mackintosh
is a pro,” our reviewer, Tina Jordan,
observed. “She pulls it off.”Paperback Row/ B Y MIGUEL SALAZARPRINT | HARDCOVER BEST SELLERS
WEEKS
ON LIST
THIS
WEEK
LAST
WEEKTHIS WEEKLAST Fiction WEEK NonfictionWEEKS
ON LIST1
(^) THE PARIS APARTMENT, by Lucy Foley. (Morrow) Jess has 1
suspicions about her half-brother’s neighbors when he goes
missing.
2
(^1) HOUSE OF SKY AND BREATH, by Sarah J. Maas. 2
(Bloomsbury) The second book in the Crescent City series.
Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar must choose to fight or stay
silent.
3
(^3) THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, by Matt Haig. (Viking) Nora Seed 64
finds a library beyond the edge of the universe that contains
books with multiple possibilities.
4
(^4) THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, by Amor Towles. (Viking) Two 21
friends who escaped from a juvenile work farm take Emmett
Watson on an unexpected journey to New York City in 1954.
5
(^8) THE MAID, by Nita Prose. (Ballantine) When a wealthy man 8
is found dead in his room, a maid at the Regency Grand
Hotel becomes a lead suspect.
6
(^7) THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, by Laura Dave. (Simon & 41
Schuster) Hannah Hall discovers truths about her missing
husband and bonds with his daughter from a previous
relationship.
7
(^11) THE JUDGE’S LIST, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The 19
second book in the Whistler series. Investigator Lacy Stoltz
goes after a serial killer and closes in on a sitting judge.
8
(^9) THE CHRISTIE AFFAIR, by Nina de Gramont. (St. Martin’s) 4
Miss Nan O’Dea becomes the mistress of Agatha Christie’s
husband.
9
(^5) ABANDONED IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. (St. Martin’s) The 3
54th book of the In Death series. Eve Dallas investigates
a homicide and the disappearance of other women who
resemble that victim.
10
(^12) THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT, by Mitch Albom. (Harper) 17
After a ship explodes, 10 people struggling to survive pull a
man who claims to be the Lord out of the sea.
1
(^2) RED-HANDED, by Peter Schweizer. (Harper) The author of 5
“Profiles in Corruption” portrays a conspiracy of how the
Chinese government might infiltrate American institutions.
(†)
2
(^3) THE 1619 PROJECT, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin 15
Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein. (One World)
Viewing America’s entanglement with slavery and its legacy,
in essays adapted and expanded from The New York Times
Magazine.
3
(^5) WILL, by Will Smith with Mark Manson. (Penguin Press) The 16
actor, producer and musician tells his life story and lessons
he learned along the way.
4
(^7) CRYING IN H MART, by Michelle Zauner. (Knopf) The leader 32
of the indie rock project Japanese Breakfast describes
creating her own identity after losing her mother to cancer.
5
(^6) GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. (Crown) The 61
Academy Award-winning actor shares snippets from the
diaries he kept over the last 35 years.
6
(^9) THE STORYTELLER, by Dave Grohl. (Dey Street) A memoir 21
by the musician known for his work with Foo Fighters and
Nirvana.
7
(^4) THE NINETIES, by Chuck Klosterman. (Penguin Press) An 3
overview of the cultural and historical impact of the 1990s.
8
(^8) HOW TO BE PERFECT, by Michael Schur. (Simon & Schuster) 5
The creator of “The Good Place” incorporates works by
various philosophers to examine ethical questions and moral
issues.
9
(^10) THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE FRANK, by Rosemary Sullivan. 6
(Harper) New technology was used to investigate who
revealed the location of Anne Frank and her family to the
Nazis.
10
(^11) UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public 91
speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice.
An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.
SALES PERIOD OF FEBRUARY 20-