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Awards

The 2022 Pulitzer Prizes are awarded with The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen (New York Review Books) winning the top prize for fiction. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Eliott (Random; LJ starred review) wins for Best General Nonfiction and Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert & Erin I. Kelly (Bloomsbury), wins for Biography. Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace (Liveright: Norton) takes the Pulitzer in History. The Prizes for Poetry and Drama go to Diane Seuss, frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press), and James Ijames, Fat Ham, respectively. NYT has a guide to the awards and winners. The LA Times also covers the awards, as does USA Today. NPR’s All Things Considered also has coverage, and OprahDaily has a feature.

Short fiction is shortlisted for the Canadian ReLit Awards. CBC has coverage.

The 2022 Saskatchewan Book Awards shortlist is announced.

Trillium Book Awards announces finalists.

The Science Fiction Debut Writing Prize is announced.

Reviews

NYT reviews Either/Or by Elif Batuman (Penguin Pr.): “This novel wins you over in a million micro-observations.” And, The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches by Daniel Bergner (Ecco): “It’s hard to do justice to the sweep of the larger story he tells, but probably the most shocking part is the utter randomness that has characterized so much of the modern search for psycho-pharmaceuticals, combined with the utterly devastating side effects they can have.” And, Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, trans. by Angela Rodel (Liveright: Norton): “The morality of artificially returning people to the past, and the broader question of whether this truly brings solace — whether indulgence in nostalgia is curative or pernicious — is the central question of Georgi Gospodinov’s newly translated novel, Time Shelter.” Also, The Partition by Don Lee (Akashic): “In some ways, Alain is a kind of Everyman — the aimless, alienated American male overpopulating the classic short stories of John Cheever, J. D. Salinger and Richard Yates. When he’s viewed through the lens of Lee’s significant career and contributions, however, it’s hard not to read Alain also as a metaphor for the collective struggles of contemporary Asian American self-representation. And how much there is still left to do.” And, 2 A.M. in Little America by Ken Kalfus (Milkweed Editions): “is a highly readable, taut novel. It pulls the reader into its world, and suggests that many interesting human complications await us at the end of the story called the United States of America.” And, Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi (Catapult): “How generations are shaped by this period of compressed change — what unfolded over centuries in other societies came to Oman in decades — is central to Alharthi’s writing.” Plus, Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, trans. by Sophie Hughes (New Directions: Norton): “Melchor’s Miltonian talent is imbuing 'evil' with psychological complexity. In Polo, brown and poor in an economically brutal and racialized society, a student of American literature might be reminded of another murderous character, Bigger Thomas.”  Lastly, paired reviews of two comic novels: Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber (Coffee House Press), and The Longcut by Emily Hall (Dalkey Archive Pr.).

LA Times reviews The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian (Doubleday; LJ starred review): “the entourage is eternal, and it’s the breakdown of one such group that gives Bohjalian a big cat’s feast of a plot. Drawing on its cast for both color and depth, The Lioness provides a meaty look at what makes us animals in what we call civilization — and what makes us human when we’re out in the wild.”

USA Today reviews The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner (Atria), giving it 4 out of 4 stars: “with its Cape Cod setting that evokes seashells, cool water, melting ice cream and summer bliss, it's sure to be the must-have beach bag item this year.” And, Star Wars: Brotherhood by Mike Chen (Del Rey), giving it 4 out of 4 stars: "What’s most impressive about Brotherhood is how it vastly improves the often-maligned prequel era by implementing an emotional connectivity that two movies and seven seasons of the animated series only lightly tapped into."

The Washington Post reviews Here Goes Nothing by Steve Toltz (Melville House): “Clever lines drop down on these pages like flowers thrown on a casket. But a plot about the eternally static nature of reality risks being infected by its own lack of progress.”

Briefly Noted

Publishers Lunch releases Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter. It can be downloaded here at Edelweiss. 

The Rumpus interviews Robert Lopez about his new story collection, A Better Class of People (Dzanc Books).

ElectricLit talks with Alyssa Songsiridej about her novel, Little Rabbit (Bloomsbury).

USA Today talks with Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum about his new book, Double Talkin’ Jive: True Rock ‘n’ Roll Stories from the Drummer of Guns N’ Roses, the Cult, and Velvet Revolver (Rare Bird Books).

BookRiot asks: “Who was bell hooks?”

BBC writes “How to survive the 'post-book blues’.”

Jennifer Weiner, The Summer Place (Atria), pens an essay for LitHub about “how plus-size women finally—finally!—landed on book covers.”

Shondaland has an excerpt from Ali Wentworth’s new book of essays, Ali's Well That Ends Well: Tales of Desperation and a Little Inspiration, out now from Harper.

Authors Alison Espach, Brad Listi, Cleyvis Natera, Steve Toltz, and Pyae Moe Thet War answer May’s LitHub Questionnaire.

Entertainment Weekly shares 16 books for summer.

The Millions highlights notable new releases.

AARP has a Paris booklist.

ElectricLit has 8 books about women’s rage.

CBC has “25 books to celebrate Asian Heritage Month in Canada.”

BookRiot lists 150 characters by their Myers-Briggs type, and  ‘8 books that expose the failings of the true-crime genre.” Plus, the best new releases for the week.

“Midge Decter, social critic and leader of neoconservative movement, dies at 94.”The Washington Post has an obituary.

Authors On Air

Danyel Smith, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop (Roc Lit 101; LJ starred review), talks about giving Black women their due on The Washington Post’s Capehart podcast.

NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recommends nonfiction.

Ali Wentworth, Ali's Well That Ends Well: Tales of Desperation and a Little Inspiration (Harper), will be on Live with Kelly and Ryan tomorrow. And, Molly Shannon, Hello, Molly!, written with Sean Wilsey (Ecco), will visit Drew Barrymore.

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