Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Awards, News & Book Club Picks

The fiinalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards are announced. LJ’s Barbara Hoffert is named the inaugural NBCC Service Award winner, honoring extraordinary and longstanding service to the organization. The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize is launched. Plus,  Joy Harjo and City Lights receive lifetime achievement awards. Library Journal,  Publishers Weekly , LitHub and LA Times have coverage.

The 2023 Rathbones Folio prize shortlists are announced. The Guardian has coverage. 

Madeline McIntosh steps down as CEO of PRH US, PW reports. NYT also covers McIntosh’s departure.

Announced via press release, Penguin Random House Audio has acquired Playaway Products LLC. 

February's Read with Jenna pick is Maame by Jessica George (St. Martin’s); a ticketed Virtual Book Club Event is scheduled with the author on February 21st. 

GMA picks River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer (Berkley). 

B&N selects  The Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz (Little, Brown & Co.).

Reviews

NYT reviews Reckoning by V (formerly Eve Ensler) (Bloomsbury): “indeed Reckoning is, if not a failure, kind of a bloody mess, but defiantly, provocatively, maybe intentionally so. It exhorts readers to confront the worst and ugliest, pleads for progress and peace, and provokes admiration for its resilient, activist author.” And, Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron; LJ starred review): “Fantasy is not for everyone, and to love this book, which I did, you have to let yourself be carried along by the joy and playfulness mixed with the darkness.” And, What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall (Flatiron): “Marshall elevates the novel with unexpected plot twists, deep psychological perspicacity, and an endlessly interesting dance between past and present that evokes the dread and intensity of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects.” Also, The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett (Atria): “Be patient. Hallett swoops in with a bravura final section that sheds new light on everything you’ve read before and will leave you amazed at her ingenuity. It’s all right there in the code.” And, The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams (Morrow): “The mysteries abound, including how to characterize this book. Is it a cautionary tale about remote workers losing their grip? Is it a workplace satire in the vein of Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End? Sometimes, with its circular conversations and sense of inertia, it reminded me of Waiting for Godot.”

Plus, NYT reviews Victory City by Salman Rushie (Random House): “this is not the first time that he has been the Cassandra of his own fate, and in its haunting, uncanny, predictive power Victory City shows once again why his work will always matter.” The Guardian also weighs in:  “On the page, Rushdie’s fairytale of futility feels positively jaunty, very nearly a romp, and it covers the ground at a brisk, steady clip.”

The Washington Post reviews Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois (Harper): “Kois highlights the pleasure of voracious friendships that feed off enthusiasm and potential. It is joyful and comforting to read a novel with loving, complicated characters who aren’t defeated by life — despite many reasons they could be.” And, Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It by Elie Honig (Harper): “This engaging book demonstrates how those who can exert substantial power of some kind — through public office, great wealth, control of a crime family — have consistently been able to avoid paying a price for serious wrongdoing.”

Briefly Noted

February’s Costco Connection is out featuring an interview with the two authors of the novel Something Wilder (Gallery). The pair write as Christina Lauren. The buyer’s pick is Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes (Pamela Dorman: Viking).

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover (Atria), the top holds title of the week.

LJ’s Barbara Hoffert has new August Prepub Alerts for Literary Fiction and Short Story Collections.

NPR has an interview with Eduardo J. Gómez, author of Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries Are Reshaping Emerging Economies (Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr.), about how “junk food industries thrive in low resource countries at the expense of children and the poor.”

Kerry Washington will release a new memoir, Thicker Than Water (Little, Brown, Spark), this fall, People reports. Essence also covers the news.

AARP has a new “Weekly Read”.

Locus releases its annual Recommended Reading List for 2022.

Amazon editors pick February’s best books. 

NYT previews 13 new books for February. 

LA Times shares “10 books to add to your reading list in February.”

The Root lists “15 of Our Favorite Books On Black Romance.”

Gizmodo has “49 New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books to Sweeten Your February.”

Seattle Times highlights “10 new paperbacks to read this February.”

Karin Slaughter recommends 4 great new thrillers at The Washington Post. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 crime novels for the month. 

“Carin Goldberg, 69, Who Transformed Book and Album Cover Design, Dies.” NYT has an obituary. 

Authors On Air

NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour enters “into the Harry and Meghan discourse.”

Tordotcom shares behind-the-scenes video from the upcoming film Knock at the Cabin, based on the book by Paul Tremblay. 

GMA lists what’s new on Hulu in February. 

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.