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Awards & Book News

Patricia Evangelista’s Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country (Random) wins NYPL’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.

American Book Fest reveals the winners of its American Legacy Book Awards.

The winners of the Vermont book awards are announced, Seven Days Vermont reports.

Finalists for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award are announced.

Shortlists for the British Booksellers Association’s Indie Book Awards are released. 

Publishers Weekly rounds up May book club picks, from Alta Journal’s California Book Club through TeaTime Book Club.

Page to Screen

May 8

Hollywood Con Queen, based on The Con Queen of Hollywood: The Hunt for an Evil Genius by Scott C. Johnson (Harper). Apple TV+. Reviews | Trailer

May 10

The Image of You, based on the novel by Adele Parks. Paramount. Reviews | Trailer

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, based on the novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. 20th Century Studios. Reviews | Trailer

Tarot, based on the novel Horrorscope by Nicholas Adams. Sony. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NPR’s Fresh Air reviews Long Island by Colm Toíbín (Scribner): “Toíbín floats with ease between time periods in the space of a sentence, but it's Toíbín’s omissions and restraint, the words he doesn’t write, that make him such an astute chronicler of this working-class, Catholic, pre-therapeutic world where people never speak directly about anything, especially feelings.”

Washington Post reviews Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna (Ecco: HarperCollins; LJ starred review): “The best parts of Rebel Girl detail Hanna’s difficulties navigating a world she and her peers had to make for themselves”; An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S. & S): “Despite so many predecessors, Goodwin’s new book, An Unfinished Love Story, manages to be different than anything that has come before”; and This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud (Norton): “Literary spelunkers may expect the voyeuristic thrill of climbing through the life of the author who wrote The Emperor’s Children, The Woman Upstairs, and other terrific novels, but there are treasures here far beyond the merely autobiographical.”

LitHub rounds up the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

Dark Horse will publish a library edition of Mark Millar’s The Magic Order graphic novel series; Publishers Weekly talks to the author.

Saxophonist Kenny G has a new memoir, Life in the Key of G: One Note at a Time, due out this fall from Blackstone, People reports.

Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze will publish a book Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, due out from Harper this summer; Kirkus has the news.

In CrimeReads, Bruce Riordan looks at the legacy of Chester Himes and a new edition of his collected works: The Essential Harlem Detectives (Everymans’ Library).

Judi Dench, coauthor of Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent (St. Martin’s; LJ starred review), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire, while Leïla Slimani, author of Watch Us Dance (Penguin Bks.) and The Scent of Flowers at Night (Hodder Studio), answers The Guardian’s “The Books of My Life” questionnaire.

The Millions interviews Lilly Dancyger, author of First Love: Essays on Friendship (Dial).

LitHub hosts a conversation on the state of queer lit between Christina Cooke, author of Broughtupsy (Catapult), and Marissa Higgins, author of A Good Happy Girl (Catapult).

LA Times talks to System of a Down singer Serj Tankian about his new memoir, Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts) (Hachette).

T: The New York Times Style Magazine explains how Pakistani novelist Ali Sethi became a pop star.

NYT has “6 New Books We Recommend This Week” and six new paperbacks to read this week.

CrimeReads gathers the best international crime fiction of May 2024 and six books featuring killer women.

Vulture reports from the Freedom to Write for Palestine reading, an alternative celebration of PEN America Award nominees.

“Bernard Pivot, Host of Influential French TV Show on Books, Dies at 89”; NYT has an obituary.

Romance novelist Shirley Conran has died at age 91; The Guardian has an obituary.

Authors on Air

PBS Canvas interviews Edward O’Keefe, author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President (S. & S.).

Today, NPR’s Science Friday will host Rae Wynn-Grant, author of Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World (Get Lifted: Zando), while Fresh Air will talk to Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer (Grove; LJ starred review).

Syfy has given a series order to Revival, based on Tim Seeley and Mike Norton’s comic book series of the same name, Deadline reports.

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