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Awards, News & Booklists

Salman Rushdie gives his first interview following the stabbing attack upon him last August. CBS News, The Guardian, and The Associated Press all have coverage. USA Today recaps Rushdie's history and his latest book, Victory City (Random House). His agent confirmed previously, that Rushdie will not promote the new novel at any events. The Guardian has that news. 

Audiofile announces the February 2023 Earphones Award winners.

The 2023 Tähtivaeltaja Award shortlist is announced. Locus has details.

The 2023 Canopus Awards Winners are announced. 

The Millions previews February’s most anticipated titles. 

LAMBDA Literary shares February's most anticipated titles. 

Parade lists "Black Booksellers Recommend 25 Books To Read During Black History Month and Beyond."

Reviews

NYT reviews Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon (Knopf; LJ starred review): “As a drive down the highway of old-style entertainment (theater, movies, books, music, TV) — with gossip columns on the shoulder — Up With the Sun is an unqualified success.” And, Couplets by Maggie Millner (Farrar): “Couplets might seem like the perfect vehicle for a coupling, but they also require repulsion, since repetition is not the same as rhyme. Gender- and genre-bending are hard-wired into the book’s genome.” Also, Stealing by Margaret Verble (Mariner): “Kit has a timeless voice, descriptive and observant, weaving a complicated story about racial and religious bigotry, violence and, yes, the stealing of children.” And, Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns (Doubleday): “is at its best when Guns shows the monotony of Damani’s daily toil and satirizes the exploitation and indignity that come with her work. She takes multiple shots at the gig economy, but the real target is capitalism itself.” And, Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmela Ciuraru (Harper; LJ starred review): “Reading her five portraits of these conveniently deceased figures and their fraught unions feels a bit like chasing fistfuls of candy with slugs of vinegar.” Also, A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back by Bruce Schneier (Norton): “What he’s proposing, ultimately, is a kind of gestalt shift, a means of understanding our lives in terms of their systems and weaknesses, with hacks at the center of a ceaseless struggle between the letter and the spirit of the law.” And, The Unfortunates by J K Chukwu (Harper): “J K Chukwu wrote The Unfortunates,her playful, powerful debut novel, in the form of an academic thesis.” Plus, Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner (Norton): “In this account, culture resembles a centuries-long game of telephone, as ideas resound through time and spread across continents.” Lastly, Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West by Bryce Andrews (Mariner): “At a certain point, like Hamlet’s mother, I wondered why it seems so particular with Bryce Andrews, why he’s so eager to embrace the guilt of past generations.”

The Washington Post reviews City of Blows by Tim Blake Nelson (The Unnamed Pr.): “Much like the metropolis it satirizes, City of Blows may be too sprawling for its own good.” And, The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls by Miriam Darlington (Tin House): “The Wise Hours proves we don’t need life lessons to appreciate the world’s marvels. Every simple fact, from the burrowing owl’s strikingly persuasive imitation of a rattlesnake’s warning to Darlington’s own lavish curiosity, requires no supporting argument.” Also, Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (Scribner): “the dissonances between Greta’s transcribed sessions and her lived life make for a fun read with the quick pace of a Nell Zink novel.” And, Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon (Knopf; LJ starred review): “Up With the Sun’s great triumph is to render its world in not two dimensions but three, to make the lives of a pair of peripheral players not merely operatic but genuinely, shatteringly tragic.” Plus, there are reviews of “four new sci-fi and fantasy novels featuring bizarre transformations.”

LA Times reviews The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Penguin Pr.): “Rubin has written a fascinating book infused with deep thoughts, insight and, yes, lots and lots of creativity. Although it would have benefitted from more personal anecdotes, The Creative Act merits a close read with an open mind, body and soul.”

Slate reviews I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever by Barbara Rae-Venter (Ballantine): “Based on I Know Who You Are, I would trust Rae-Venter when it comes to finding the facts. But deciding what to do with them calls for someone much less easily surprised by human nature and with a lot less blind faith in our institutions.”

Salon reviews Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche by John Higgs (Pegasus): “While other cultural artifacts have slipped into the past, 007 and the Fab Four have transcended one generation after another, still finding new adherents six decades removed from their originating moments. Long may the monsters abide.”

Briefly Noted

NYT features the work of Barbara Brandon-Croft, and has an interview with the author, whose latest book is Where I'm Coming From (Drawn and Quarterly). 

FoxBusiness talks with James Patterson about his latest book, Walk the Blue Line, written with Matt Eversmann and Chris Mooney (Little, Brown & Co.). 

Vanity Fair features costume designer and stylist Patricia Field and her new book, Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All the Rules (Dey Street Books), due out next week. 

BookPage features new mysteries set in the art world, romance for Valentine's Day, and February mysteries.

Jojo Moyes, Someone Else’s Shoes (Pamela Dorman Books), takes Elle’s Shelf Life literary survey.

NYT explores the essential Collette. 

LitHub shares 23 new books. 

OprahDaily argues “why everyone should read” Louise Penny. 

CrimeReads highlights thrillers set in stunning locales. 

T&C has “The Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now.”

Bustle shares “10 Equally Romantic & Heartbreaking Books From British & Irish Authors.”

Autostraddle highlights "Butch Memoirs To Check Out in Honor of Hijab Butch Blues."

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Heinz Insu Fenkl, about his new novel, Skull Water (Spiegel & Grau).

History of Violence by Édouard Louis, trans. by Lorin Stein (Picador), will get a german language film adaptation. Deadline reports.  

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