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Interview with Laura Dave, author of Eight Hundred Grapes

**Tell us a little bit about your new release, Eight Hundred Grapes.**

Eight Hundred Grapes is a messy, wonderful family drama set against the lush backdrop of Sonoma's Wine Country. It's a novel about marriage, love, family, wine - and the treacherous terrain in which they all intersect.

**Who do you want to play the protagonist in the movie of Eight Hundred Grapes?**

Great question. Who do you think it should be? Readers have been coming up with great ideas - Emma Stone keeps popping up and she would be fantastic.

What's the last song that was stuck in your head?

What's Been Going On. Amos Lee.

What are you currently craving?

Pasta.

What's your favorite scene from your book?

I like when Jacob and Georgia first meet and we can feel how connected they are. I like how Jacob acts with Georgia, how they act together, right from go.

If you had an extra hour each day, how would you spend it?

I love cooking with my husband, so we'd cook! He actually was a chef when he was in high school, so he knows what he's doing.

You now host a talk show (congrats). Who is your first guest?

David Letterman. How much do we all miss him already?

Who is your favorite fictional character from literature?

Elizabeth Bennet. Pride and Prejudice

Laura Dave is the author of the new book Eight Hundred Grapes.

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New Book Releases in Literary Fiction | July 14

This week's star new book to read? Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. (Want to know why it's getting so much press? Read this).

Additional buzzy books include The Joy of Killing, a literary tale of crime and psychological suspense by best selling author Harry MacLean and Racing in the Rain by John L. Parker Jr.

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New Biographies & Memoirs | July 14

Puppies? Check. Adventure? Check. Gronk? Check.

With new books by Matt Graham, Anthony M Amore and more, you'll be able to feed your need for non fiction this week.

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New Thriller & Mystery Books | July 14

Love tales of crime and looking for new books to read? New York Times Bestselling authors Iris Johansen and Linda Castillo have new books this week! Dive into these suspenseful reads and catch the killers... before its too late.

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New Romance Novels | July 14

From Innocent to Erogenous this week's new releases in Romance will keep you company on the beach, by the pool, or lounging in your hammock.

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New Books for Teens & Young Adult Fiction | July 14th

Fans of the Hunger Games, never fear, Alive by Scott Sigler will quench your thirst for action packed dystopians with a female lead. Lean more toward the Maze Runner? Then pick up Outrage, the second book in John Stanford and Michele Cook's The Singular Menace Series.

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New Books to Read about Business | July 14

Explore the world's economies from China to Great Britain in Something Will Turn Up and China's Disruptors. Or, focus on yourself with Disrupt You! and The Achievement Habit!

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Go Set a Watchman Reactions and Ruminations

Go Set a Watchman is the book on everyone's mind and social media feeds this week. On July 14th it will enter the hands of the general populace, after a lot of negative press following the pre-release of the first chapter on Friday July 10th. To get caught up on some of the buzz around Harper Lee's new release, check out the following stories.

Harper Lee is 88, and has been a very private person for much of her life. There are questions concerning her mental health, and thus ability to approve the publication of her novel. Read The New York Times on Harper Lee's Health↦ .

One of the players in the politics behind the publication of Go Set a Watchman is Harper Lee's lawyer Tonja Carter. Jezebel thinks that she is a shady figure, that may be taking advantage of the ailing author. Read More ↦

Records show that Go Set a Watchman is an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, that was drastically edited by Harper Lee and her editor at the time, Tay Hohoff. Which story the beloved Mockingbird or the dark, racist Watchman aligns more with Lee's vision? Read More ↦

NPR reviewed the book over the weekend calling it "A Mess That Makes Us Reconsider a Masterpiece". It appears that among literary circles, Go Set a Watchman was best left unpublished. Read More ↦

Where does this leave all of the children named Atticus after the character who was one of the most loved literary depictions of progressive politics. Read More ↦

The LA Times is asking people to rethink the racist Atticus in Go Set a Watchman as a character who evolved into the beloved that we meet in To Kill A Mockingbird. Read More ↦

Everyone close to Harper Lee, or Nelle as her confidants call her, says that Lee is excited about Watchman. Mary Murphy, director of Harper Lee: Hey Boo, released a web exclusive showing Lee recieving the book. Read More ↦

The numbers are in, Watchman sells 1.1 million copies in the first week alone, with 3.3 million in print. Read More↦

Want to make your own opinion?

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Or enter to win a copy by retweeting the below tweet:

Dying to read the new Harper Lee book? RT this tweet for a chance to #win Go Set a Watchman. #giveaway pic.twitter.com/pbrEBKsoy2

— NewInBooks (@NewInBooks) July 13, 2015

5 Books to Read if You Are Afraid of the Internet (But Use it Anyway)

Hey, lets be honest: Technology and the Internet are fantastic tools that we use every day. But, you know, some of us have a love/ hate relationship with those ads that show us that pair of shoes that we looked at online last week (we aren't paranoid... they are FOLLOWING US!). And we might be just a little tripped out by virtual reality and the prospects of AI. For those of us that are a little afraid of the internet (but use it anyway) these Science Fiction books are the perfect reads to solidify our paranoia! I mean... the perfect ways to spend our downtime offline!

5 Books to Read if You Are Afraid of the Internet

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The Circle by Dave Eggers is a fantastic book. Picture a world in which, next week, Facebook and Paypal merge, adding some Google +-esque additions to the system, and VOILA! You have the world of The Circle. Get ready to learn just a few potential uses of drones, personal cameras, and social sharing!

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The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson is an interesting thought experiment on potential social uses of the same sorts of algorithms that decide whose posts you see on social media/ whose profiles you see on dating websites. In The Affinities, an algorithm, based off of the results of basic test scores, sorts people into different groups that show similar traits, and thus are able to work together and foster friendships with little fuss. It's the perfect answer to "How to make friends after college"... but maybe not the best option for society at large...

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Reamde by Neal Stephenson is a technothriller hosting a cast of not quite stable characters who spend just as much time cheating in virtual worlds, as they dogaming the system in the physical world. Fast paced and full of fire power, read Reamde to find out the implications of a virtual virus that targets MMO players, holding their bank accounts hostage.

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Avogadro Corp by William Hertling is in the class of novels that turns science fiction into science fact. When an AI is accidentally formed in a moment of angry coding, the development team for new email software is thrilled when their program receives extra funding, until they realize it isn't a human pulling the strings. Robopocalypse with less guns and in a more believable modern day, Avogadro is psychological, smart, and an edge of your seat read.

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Buzzy since Nexus' initial publication in 2012, The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam (Whose third and final installment, Apex, came out in May 2015) pulls the reader into a near-future in which a nano-drug that can link human minds together creates social and political drama. What happens when enough of the populace is linked? Welcome to a post-human society.

Interview with Emily Bingham, author of Irrepressible

Tell us a little bit about your new release, Irrepressible.

My great aunt Henrietta Bingham was almost never mentioned while I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, but when I heard that she'd spent time in London among the Bloomsbury crowd (the coterie of intellectuals and artists that formed around Virginia Woolf and her sister the painter Vanessa Bell) I took notice. And when my grandmother said in an aside during an oral history I did with her in the 1990s that she was incredibly sophisticated and alluring, but "an invert, you know," I was intrigued. Born in time to catch the Jazz Age wave, she danced the Charleston and Black Bottom and deployed her legendary sexual and social magnetism to cover up the demons that plagued her, collecting besotted lovers of both sexes from Bloomsbury artists to tennis champions, royalty, and theater stars along the way. Tallulah Bankhead once confronted her, grabbing the pearls around Henrietta's neck: "You promised these to me!"

If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?

Well, I'm a little stuck in the 20th century right now. I'd like a dinner party that included Henrietta Bingham, Noel Coward, Sigmund Freud, and ... Lorrie Moore. Coward was friends with Henrietta and of course possessed of an unparalleled wit. Freud because I just would like to feel his aura and his mind at work. Lorrie Moore because of her exquisite sensitivity to human feeling.

What’s the last book you read?

Lily King, Euphoria.

What are you currently craving?

Currently craving time with my kids and getting back to cooking.

What fictional literary world would you most like to visit?

Wonderland--as in Alice.

If you had to pick one place to vacation for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

Umbria, Italy.

What's on your writing desk?

A "Nostalgia" essay for Vogue and a song biography of Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home." How did the wrenching lament of a slave being sold down river become a celebration of hoop skirts and "Southern Heritage" with capital S and H.

What's your favorite quote from Irrepressible?

Quote from me: "Pharmaceuticals have their own cold poetry."

Quote from Henrietta's lover, John Houseman (Academy Award-winning actor) that just the memory of riding in a car with her, a silver flask full of bourbon on the seat between them, seeing her strong and beautiful hands on the wheel, looking over into her violet eyes, would produce "orgasms of uncontrollable weeping."