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Awards & News

NYPL has announced finalists for the 37th annual Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

The Barry Award nominations are announced.

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association names F.J. Bergmann as their 2024 Grand Master. Bergmann will also receive the SFPA President’s Lifetime Service Award. Locus has details.

Savannah Guthrie speaks out as her new book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere (Thomas Nelson), is targeted in online workbook scam, People reports. 

After Annie by Anna Quindlen (Random) is the new B&N book club pick for March.

Atria launches Primero Sueño, a new bilingual imprint. Publishers Weekly has the story.

Independent Publishers Group adds four new publishers, including Firefly Press, Monogatari Novels, Northwestern Publishing House, and Iskanchi Press, Publishers Weekly reports.

Reviews

NYT reviews Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory (HarperOne): “It’s tempting to write vaguely of sisterly solidarity, of women bonded through centuries of repression, but Gregory pours molten lead all over that cozy picture.” There is a paired review of Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State by Byron Tau (Crown) and The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China by Minxin Pei (Harvard Univ.), two books which explore modern surveillance, government, and technology. Plus, there are short reviews of three science fiction books: Exordia by Seth Dickinson (Tor.com), Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett (Del Rey: Ballantine), and The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (Tor.com; LJ starred review). 

NPR reviews Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley (MCD): “By wrangling her complicated friend onto the pages of this elegiac book, Crosley holds onto what she can. The result is a noteworthy addition to the literature of grief”; and Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Taffa (Harper): “While some reviewers have already qualified her book as a ‘Native memoir,’ Taffa’s story is in fact distinctly American, full stop, and one that a country afraid of its own history needs to hear.”

The Guardian reviews Ours by Phillip B. Williams (Viking): “Ours is a bold, ambitious, often beguiling piece of work – an epic folk tale of Black American emancipation. But the tale’s prolonged scenic ramble demands stamina and resolve.”

Washington Post reviews The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll (Penguin Pr.): “The path to abandoning that hubristic prerogative can start with absorbing the lessons of The Achilles Trap, another triumph from one of our best journalists”; and Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn (Knopf): “In this extraordinary biography, Dearborn brings Carson McCullers to life, revealing the debilitating physical ailments and near-constant psychic torment she had to conquer to produce four works of fiction imbued with some of the most emotionally sensitive poetic prose ever produced in American letters—a testament to why McCullers will live on as a unique and enduring artist.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Three-Inch Teeth by C.J. Box (Putnam), the top holds title of the week.

LJ has new prepub alerts.

NYT previews new books coming in March. 

OprahDaily shares a reading schedule for The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by Lara Love Hardin (S. & S.), which Winfrey selected as her 104th book club pick.

The Rumpus has a conversation with Leslie Jamison about her new book, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (Little, Brown).

Tommy Orange discusses his new book, Wandering Stars (Knopf), with LA Times. Orange also talks with Esquire  about “addiction, telling true stories through fiction, and writing against ‘literary tourism’," and takes Elle’s “Shelf Life” literary survey.

Washington Post explores the body of work from author Alasdair Gray, author of Poor Things (Mariner).

Merriam-Webster elicited strong feelings from readers by giving permission to end a sentence with a preposition, NPR reports. 

 NYT curates “The Essential James Baldwin.”

Tomás Q. Morín, Where Are You From: Letters to My Son (Univ. of Nebraska), answers 10 questions at Poets&Writers. 

Terry Hayes, David Downing, and Lea Carpenter recommend their favorite fictional spies, at LA Times. 

ElectricLit shares “10 Books About Boxing.”

Harper's Bazaar has “Seven debut novels by female authors to read in 2024.”

Authors on Air

Data scientist Hannah Ritchie talks with NPR’s Short Wave about her new book, Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation To Build a Sustainable Planet (Little, Brown). 

“Read With Jenna” February author Dolly Alderton, Good Material (Knopf), visits Today. 

Danny Seo, Do Just One Thing: 365 Ideas for a Better You, Life, and Planet (Countryman), visits with Drew Barrymore.

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