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Awards & Buzzy Book News

The Mystery Writers of America announce the 2022 Grand Master, Raven, and Ellery Queen Award recipients. Laurie R. King wins the Grand Master Award. The Raven Award goes to librarian and LJ mystery columnist Lesa Holstine. Juliet Grames wins the Ellery Queen Award. 

The 9th Annual Crook's Corner Book Prize goes to Eric Nguyen for Things We Lost to the Water (Knopf).

Lit Hub asks why “Americans are buying more books-but reading fewer of them than ever.”

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

Invisible by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) appears at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 4 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Maid by Nita Prose (Ballantine; LJ starred review) starts at No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba–Stories of Water and Flame by Ryoji Hirano (S. & S.) slices to No. 8 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Shielding Sierra by Susan Stoker (Amazon) opens at No. 10 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin’s) debuts at No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Star Wars: The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray (Del Rey) shines at No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (S. & S.; LJ starred review) scores No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy by Jamie Raskin (Harper) starts at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 7 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Reviews

NYT reviews Mala’s Cat by Mala Kacenberg (S. & S.): “This memoir, rescued from obscurity by the efforts of Mala Kacenberg’s five children, should be read and cherished as a new, vital document of a history that must never be allowed to vanish.” Also, American Urbanist by Richard K. Rein (Island): “Rein trails his subject with a sure step. He first encountered Whyte’s ideas about challenging the status quo as a freshman at Princeton himself, and reported for Time and People. The two men never met, though Whyte once quoted U.S. 1, a community newspaper Rein founded about the Princeton-Route 1 corridor, praising it as “sprightly.” The threads of commonality between them hoist the story, rather than choke it. Plus, Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955 by Harald Jähner (Knopf; LJ starred review): ““Aftermath” is about the price and the accomplishment of a new beginning when the aggressive war the Germans had waged was reversed to utter defeat in 1945. A talented journalist, Jähner concludes with guarded optimism: Precisely the egoism of citizens, their loudmouthed irritation with one another and ultimately their self-serving refusal to let the past be a burden blocked a return to the fierce nationalism of the post-World War I period.”

NPR reviews To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday): “Yanagihara crammed three centuries of imagination into this novel, and that is undoubtedly an achievement. She also managed to put human emotions at the center of every narrative, and that grants To Paradise emotional resonance. However, the onslaught of details and stories ultimately muddle the narrative in a way that injects a healthy dose of bewilderment and frustration into what could have been an outstanding reading experience.” Also, Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby (Penguin Random House): “Kirby's book succeeds not just because she's a preternaturally gifted prose stylist, but because of her willingness to take risks.”

Book Marks has "5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week."

Briefly Noted

Nikki May, author of Wahala (Custom House; LJ starred review), speaks to Entertainment Weekly about “the importance of food in books.” EW also has an interview with Rachel Roasek, who was inspired by Cryano de Bergarac for her newest LGTBQ book Love Somebody (Farrar).

Jamie Lynn Spears discusses her relationship with her sister and her memoir, Things I Should Have Said: Family, Fame, and Figuring it Out (Worthy Books) with Good Morning America. People also covers how Jamie Lynn has been threatened by her sister’s fans and how she found peace from past trauma and mental health struggles.

Lindsey Vonn, Rise (Dey Street), chats with People about her ongoing friendship with ex Tiger Woods.

Vulture explores Hanya Yanagihara’s writing style from her 2015 book, A Little Life (Doubleday), to the most recent, To Paradise (Doubleday).

The New York Times Magazine has an article on Sjón, author of CoDex 1962: A Trilogy translated by Victoria Cribb (MCD: Macmillan) considering him as a "surrealist for our time."

NYT's "Inside the Best-Seller List" features The Maid by Nita Prose (Ballantine; LJ starred review) and Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy by Jamie Raskin (Harper).

Oprah Daily pays tribute to eight authors and a few organizations that use their “forces for good” including: Lan Samantha Chang of The Family Chao (Norton), Isabel Allende of Violeta (Ballantine), Imani Perry of South to America (Ecco), Hanya Yanagihara of To Paradise (Doubleday), Kathryn Schulz of Lost & Found (Random), Meghan O’Rourke of The Invisible Kingdom (Riverhead), Margaret Atwood of Burning Questions (Doubleday), and Mesha Maren of Perpetual West (Algonquin).

The Washington Post’s critic Michael Dirda shares his favorite 66 books.

Authors on Air

Paramount Pictures will adapt Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone (Holt) into a film, according to Tor.com. Deadline also covers this story.

Nicole Kidman discusses being a “bookworm” with NPR’s Fresh Air.

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