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Awards & News 

Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind (Milkweed Editions), is named the new U.S. poet laureate. NPR has coverage. NYT also covers the story.

The 2022 Imadjinn Awards winners are announced.

Kwame Alexander will host and executive produce a new reality show, America’s Next Great Author, a writing competition featuring a judging panel that includes Jason Reynolds, Angie Goff, and Marga Gomez. The Guardian has the story. 

The AAP Stat Shot report shows falling revenues for the United States trade book industry. Publishing Perspectives has details. 

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Tanqueray by Brandon Stanton and Stephanie Johnson (St. Martin’s): “There’s already been a bidding war for the television rights to her story. This book is your chance to hear her hilarious — and, yes, heartbreaking — tale on her own terms. The only complaint is the packaging, a small hardcover with large type and mostly unnecessary illustrations, which makes it look like a YA novel. And this is no YA novel.”

NYT reviews Circus of Dreams: Adventures in the 1980s Literary World by John Walsh (Constable): “His prose is mostly good, and genial, even if this memoir lacks introspection. It’s a drain that could use a bit of snaking.” And, A Matter of Trust: India-US Relations from Truman to Trump by Meenakshi Ahamed (HarperCollins): “Those wishing to understand the complicated relationship between these two countries will find Ahamed’s perceptive, evenhanded book the best available on the topic, both a pleasure to read and deeply informative.” Also, Harry Sylvester Bird by Chinelo Okparanta (Mariner): “fashions itself as an anthropological study of a contemporary white liberalism far less invested in the eradication of evil than in the ridiculous self-flagellations of the ruling classes. But it flattens its subjects, stripping them of both familiarity and farcicality.” And, Winter Work by Dan Fesperman (Knopf): “Fesperman accurately depicts the corrosive effect of life under a surveillance society, debasing both the watchers and the watched.”  And, Total: Stories by Rebecca Miller (Farrar): “You’ve read stories of this ilk before, but Miller knows and is playing with the ways that familiarity is also comfort, also proof of all the ways stories and lives infinitely repeat. You’ve never quite seen them inhabited by these versions of these characters, nor at the tenor of these sentences, with these deftly deployed layers of surprise.” Also, Brother Alive by Zain Khalid (Grove; LJ starred review): “Khalid’s beguiling debut, caroms among decades and continents, its epistolary structure lending a confessional tone. It’s a Muslim novel, albeit one concerned less with doctrine than with the gnarled politics of global traditions. It’s also a queer narrative and a coming-of-age tale, though neither qualifies as the main attraction.” Plus, Gods of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang (One World): “Within these stories, obsessed with the vagaries of emigration and adolescence and populated by ghosts and spirits, the stiff, regimented structures of life in America dissolve into a slipstream of folkloric myth.” Lastly, Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis (PublicAffairs Perseus): “A fascinating subject at a pivotal time in her life, Baker still doesn’t come alive on the page and remains unknowable. Maybe her ability to conceal and charm are why she was so good at espionage, but Lewis doesn’t take much time to explore the question of how she conceived of her own story.”

USA Today reviews Who We Were in the Dark by Jessica Taylor (Dial Books), giving it 2.5 out of 4 stars: “The book is perfect for those who reminisce on the melancholic feelings that John Green's Looking for Alaska gave them and want to further explore the genre of enigmatic young women who go missing, only for the remaining characters to reckon with their guilt over the disappearance.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and LJ share readalikes for The It Girl, by Ruth Ware (Scout; LJ starred review), the top holds title of the week. 

The Millions talks with Teddy Wayne about writing his new book, The Great Man Theory (Bloomsbury).

Ken Auletta discusses his new book, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence (Penguin Pr.), with the LA Times.

NYT has an interview with Stephanie Johnson about her new memoir, Tanqueray, written with Brandon Stanton (St. Martin’s), and her “grand and gritty New York life.” Plus, NYT profiles Akhil Sharma who rewrote his own novel, An Obedient Father (McNally Editions), 22 years later.

Tomi Obaro discusses her latest book, Dele Weds Destiny (Knopf), “navigating mother-daughter relationships, boundaries and social expectations in the collectivist culture,” and more with ElectricLit.

NYT’s Group Text recommends Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown (Putnam), for book clubs and offers discussion questions.

The Washington Post suggests “14 ways to get out of a reading slump.”

Bustle suggests 10 must-read books for the week.

LitHub highlights 20 newly released books. 

CBC lists “15 Canadian books we can't wait to read in July.”

The Guardian rounds up best recent crime and thriller writing.

Esquire shares “80 Books Every Man Should Read.”

NYPL has a list of retellings of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Autostraddle has “12 Self-Published LGBTQ Books To Bring to the Beach This Summer.”

ElectricLit has 8 books about the gig economy, and Nada Alic, Bad Thoughts: Stories (Vintage), recommends 9 stories with “thoughtful rumination and interior complexity.”

Datebook suggests "Unreliable narrators, imaginative authors make for compelling reading.”

The Atlantic’s archive is now available online.

Bustle looks “History Of Reproductive Rights In The US, As Told Through 20 Books.”

“Susie Steiner, Author of Acclaimed British Crime Novels, Dies at 51.” NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Caroline Elkins about her book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Knopf; LJ starred review), and Britain’s “liberal imperialism.”

Refinery29 talks to the Delia Owens and the cast of Where the Crawdads Sing, about bringing Owen’s bestselling novel to the screen.

Edie Windsor's memoir, A Wild and Precious Life (St. Martin's Griffin) will be adapted as a limited TV series. Deadline reports.

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