Holds Alert: SWEETBITTER
Fed by a growing buzz from literary as well as foodie outlets, Stephanie Danler’s debut novel, Sweetbitter (PRH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), is developing an impressive holds list at many libraries we checked, topping a 6:1 ratio in some areas.
The New York Times has spotlighted the author, who lived in the city and worked in its restaurants and wine stores, in four separate pieces, most recently this week’s profile in the Style section, following Danler as she goes on tour, promoting her book at a local indie bookshop, in an interview with Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef/author of Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef.
Daily NYT‘s reviewer Dwight Garner offered his take in mid-May, calling it “an unpretentious, truth-dealing, summer-weight novel … [that] grows darker than you might expect.” In her NYT Sunday Book Review piece, Gabrielle Hamilton gave it a to-die-for anointment, calling it “brilliantly written” and the “Kitchen Confidential of our time.”
Entertainment Weekly gives the novel an A- and The Wall Street Journal offers an illustrated profile [may require subscription].
Bon Appétit magazine headlines it as “the Summer’s Hottest Beach Read” in their podcast interview and offers an excerpt in the print and online issue.
More interviews abound. The foodie site Grub Street offers one full of insider details. Vanity Fair has one too, talking poetry and sex. NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Vogue, Refinery29, and even The Paris Review, that bastion of literary taste, offer interviews, with The Paris Review calling the book “riveting.”
Sweetbitter landed on the USA Today best-seller list the first week of June, taking the #32 spot, which the paper calls “a strong showing for a new writer” and given that the list integrates all types and audiences of books (mixing paperback and hardback, fiction and nonfiction, adult, teen, and children’s) it is indeed a good opening number.
It also made the NYT Fiction Hardcover list on June 12, at #12 and is holding on to the #16 spot this week.
It is a summer reading pick by the Amazon Editors, Harper’s Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal, and Glamour. It is also a hit with GalleyChatters and a May LibraryReads selection.