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Awards & Buzzy Book News

Beverly Gage, Kelly Lytle Hernández, and John Wood Sweet win the 2023 Bancroft Prize for, respectively, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking), Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (Norton), and The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America (Holt). NYT reports.

The 58th Nebula Award Finalists are announced.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Lit Hub delves into the “Brief History of All the Women Who Have Won the Nobel Prize.” Also, “woman born in library celebrates 94th by returning to the stacks whence she came.”

NYT delves into the debate on how handle to rare books—with or without cotton gloves.

People features a piece on the “FReadom Fighters,” two women who are helping embattled librarians and readers fight book bans across the country.

Penguin Random House is raising entry-level salaries, according to Publishers Lunch. 

New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Storm Watch by C.J. Box (Putnam) roars to No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury) shines at No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager) sails to No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Sellers list.

Nonfiction

The Courage To Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival by Ron DeSantis (Broadside) starts at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May (Riverhead) rises to No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

Wake Up with Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years by Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, written with Seth Davis (Harper Select), debuts at No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth by Jermaine Fowler (Row House) begins at No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Sellers list.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins (Dutton): “An important book that will come as no surprise to the nation’s teachers. But for those who seek a fuller understanding of what educators are coping with these days, it should prove invaluable. And for those who most need to read it—those in a position to effect change in the lives of conscientious and talented teachers who are considering abandoning the profession—one can only hope that its message will be heeded before it is too late”; The Magnificent Boat: The Colonial Theft of a South Seas Cultural Treasure by Götz Aly, tr. by Jefferson Chase (Belknap): “A major contribution to the debate over whether and how to repatriate the countless objects and artworks acquired through dubious means that reside in the museums of former colonial powers”; and The Zelensky Effect by Olga Onuch and Henry Hale (Oxford Univ.): “The basis of Zelensky’s personal courage and the solidarity of Ukrainians resisting unprovoked Russian aggression are among the key themes of Olga Onuch and Henry E. Hale’s deeply researched and well-argued book.”

NYT reviews We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian (Farrar): “Journalist Roxanna Asgarian set out to learn more about where the children came from for her debut book. The result is We Were Once a Family, a harrowing account of what she discovered, along with a powerful critique of a foster care system “that directed the course of their short lives, a system that remained unaccountable for their deaths.” Also, there are four short reviews for books that “reflect on faces, fragments and torments,” including: The Full-Length Mirror: A Global Visual History by Wu Hung (Reaktion: Univ. of Chicago); Patchwork: A World Tour by Catherine Legrand (Thames & Hudson); Uncrating the Japanese House: Junzo Yoshimura, Antonin and Noémi Raymond and George Nakashima, ed. by Yuka Yokoyama (August Editions); and Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook by Elizabeth Tunstall (MIT). 

Tor.com reviews Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder (Tor Nightfire): “A no-holds-barred look at how women are affected by a pandemic that is bigger, worse and more eldritch than anything the world has ever imagined.”

Book Marks picks “5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Thriller writer Christopher Bollen explains why he set his new book, The Lost Americans (Harper), within the Cairo arms industry in a feature by CrimeReads. 

Journalist Benjamin Hall shares his survival story as detailed in his soon-to-be-released memoir, Saved: A War Reporter’s Mission To Make It Home (Harper), and more in an interview with People.

Alan Lightman, The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science (Pantheon), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questions.

V.E. Schwab, author of the “Shades of Magic” book series, will be continuing it with a new book, The Fragile Threads of Power, to come out in the fall. Entertainment Weekly has a cover reveal and more details.

Fantasy author Christopher Paolini is coming out with a new title, Murtagh (Knopf), according to Entertainment Weekly. Tor.com also covers the news.

Tor.com provides a cover reveal for Menewood, by Nicola Griffith (MCD). 

Polly Stewart, author of forthcoming thriller The Good Ones (Harper), revisits In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien for CrimeReads. 

Maria Dong, Liar, Dreamer, Thief (Grand Central), makes recommendations for Poets & Writers.

Lit Hub issues two “Oscars Countdowns: What to Read (and Watch)” for Elvis and Avatar: The Way of Water.

Tor.com has “Four Books About Living Gods Working in Mysterious Way.”

CrimeReads shares a list of “Witch Lit: Five Novels Featuring Witchcraft.”

NYT recommends three new audiobooks.

Authors on Air

Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, co-editors of Letters to a Writer of Color (Random), chat about “finding community with each other” on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast.

Writer Sally Adee of We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds (Hachette), talks to NPR’s Fresh Air host Terry Gross about “how researchers are trying to harness the electricity in the human body.”

Elisabeth Griffith, author of Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920–2020 (Pegasus; LJ starred review), discusses “the history of equal rights for women, the 19th Amendment, and how a century later all women are still grappling to secure their rights” on the Just the Right Book podcast.

Judy Blume will be featured in a new documentary, Judy Blume Forever by Prime Video, to premiere on April 21, according to People. Lit Hub also shares the trailer.

Filmmaker Chinonya Chukwu will be adapting Cin Fabré’s memoir, Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street (Holt), for Apple+, Deadline reports.

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