Bookpulse

Best of the Year booklists and recommendations arrive from The Atlantic, Slate, The Millions, Vogue, LA Times, The New Yorker, and more. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is December’s GMA Book Club pick. January's Indie Next Preview features #1 pick The Fury by Alex Michaelides. Plus, Liz Cheney's Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, publishes today.

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney leads holds this week. Thirteen LibraryReads and 12 Indie Next picks publish this week, including Hall of Fame pick and People book of the week The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. December’s Costco Connection features a new paperback edition of Never Lie by Freida McFadden. Audiofile announces the December 2023 Earphones Award Winners. Longlists for the Wingate Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize are announced. “Rizz” is named Oxford’s Word of the Year. Plus, more best of the year lists, including LJ’s Best Books of 2023.

Sandra Day O’Connor, author and the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, has died. Penguin Random House sues Iowa over book banning. David R. Samson wins the $60K Balsillie Prize for Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good. Amazon's editors recommend the best books of December. Andrew Miller is named president and publisher of Henry Holt. Plus, Page to Screen.

Katherine Rundell wins Waterstones Book of the Year 2023 for her “instant classic” Impossible Creatures. AudioFile showcases the Best Audiobooks of 2023. Best Books of the Year lists also arrive from Publishers Lunch, The New Yorker, and WSJ. New title best sellers include Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Danielle Steel and more. Liz Cheney's forthcoming book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, arrives next week. Plus, author and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100. 

Julia Armfield and Jon Ransom win Polari Prizes. Ransom’s book The Whale Tattoo will also be adapted for film. Apple reveals its top books of 2023. Omid Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival courts reviews and controversy. Two pop culture books arrive with buzzy details: Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History by Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage & Alan Sepinwall, and Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars. Savannah Guthrie announces her forthcoming faith-based book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, due out in February. And Paul Greengrass is set to direct a film adaptation of T.J. Newman's novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421.

NYT selects the 10 Best Books of 2023. Ed Yong wins the Royal Society Science Book Prize for An Immense World. Robbie Arnott wins the Voss Literary Prize for his novel Limberlost. NPR’s Morning Edition reports on how some groups are hoping to change how selection is handled in public libraries. Interviews arrive with Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, Nita Prose, Sam Wasson, Maru Ayase, Kenneth Womack, and more. Anon Pls. by Deuxmoi will be adapted for TV. Plus, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

Paul Lynch wins the Booker Prize for Prophet Song. The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose leads holds this week. Jenna Bush Hager picks We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein (also People’s book of the week) for her book club. Two LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. NPR releases Books We Love, NYPL publishes its Best Books of 2023, and NYT announces its 100 notable books of 2023. Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying turns 50. Plus, a new documentary, The ABCs Of Book Banning, explores the impact of book bans in Florida public schools.

John Vaillant wins the Baillie Gifford Prize for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World. Kim Stanley Robinson wins the Hans Carl von Carlowitz Sustainability Award for The Ministry for the Future. The winners of the National Outdoor Book Awards are announced. Waterstones shares its books of the year for Scotland and Wales; Blackwell’s also announces its books of the year. The shortlist for the CBC Poetry Prize is released. Washington Post and Book Riot name their best books of 2023.

The winners of the National Book Award are announced: Justin Torres’s Blackouts, Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, Craig Santos Perez’s from unincorporated territory [åmot], and Stênio Gardel’s The Words That Remain, tr. by Bruna Dantas Lobato. Halik Kochanski wins the Wolfson History Prize for Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939–1945. Kirkus lists its best fiction of 2023. Washington Post shares more picks for the best books of 2023. Plus new title best sellers.