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

Awards News

The 2021 Harriet Tubman Prize finalists are announced. 

Gene Wolfe becomes part of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s 2021 class of inductees. Locus Magazine has the news.

Page to Screen

August 20:

Truth Be Told, based on the book Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber. Apple TV+. Reviews | Trailer

August 22:

Chapelwaite, based on the short story Jerusalem’s Lotby Stephen King. Epix. Reviews | Trailer

The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. AMC. Reviews | Trailer

August 23:

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, based on the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

August 24:

Supergirl, based on associated titles. CW. Reviews | Trailer

August 26:

Edens Zero, based on the manga series by Hiro Mashima. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NPR reviews Names for Light by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint (Graywolf): “For me, Names for Light was more of an embodied experience than a read, like swimming in a pool of exquisite reflections on family and rootedness and deracination and sorrow and love.” Also, Silent Winds, Dry Seas by Vinod Busjeet (Doubleday): “There are books where writers play skilled games on the page. And there are books where writers bring their experiences, heart, and radical living to the page. This debut novel, from a writer in his 70s, is a luminous example of the latter.”

Los Angeles Times reviews The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (One World: Random House): “While Ruffin’s stories can’t help but transport the reader to humid, sunken, decaying New Orleans, it’s too easy to say this book is merely a set of love songs to the city. What makes such collections ring true is the way they subvert conventional knowledge.”

The Washington Post reviews The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock & the Washington Post (S. & S): "Indeed, while the book is framed around the question of why the war in Afghanistan failed, it is the overarching narrative of deception that is most interesting." Also, WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy by Michael Knox Beran (Pegasus: S. & S.): "Good writers tell us what happened; greater writers make meaning of what happened. Beran is a great writer who seeks to connect dots others wouldn’t see. Too often, though, this effort slides into peripatetic wandering." Plus, The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal by Mary L. Trump (St. Martin’s): "A great rant can be cathartic, but it needs discipline. Trump is sloppy. There are no footnotes. Too many sentences contain half-truths and gross generalizations, unsupported by facts..." Lastly, Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson (Crown: Random House; LJ starred review): "Writers seek intimacy to get readers to care about their subjects when disaster strikes. That tactic works here, yet it does more."

Locus Magazine reviews The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro (Flametree Press; LJ starred review): “Castro’s writing is clear, but not particularly vivid. The best thing about the novel is its accurate portrayal of the life of migrant farmworkers in 1952 Texas. Additional points can be awarded for effective use of Mexican culture and mythology, women-oriented elements, a theme of perseverance, and the condemnation of racism.”

Book Marks has "The Best Reviewed Books of the Week."

Briefly Noted

Dorinda Medley chats about “reliving heartbreak,” her role on Bravo’s Real Housewives, and her new book Make It Nice (Gallery: S. & S.) with Entertainment Weekly. Cai Emmons, Sinking Islands (Red Hen Press), chats with The Rumpus Book Club about “how writing a sequel is and isn’t different from writing a standalone novel, the research involved in writing about climate change, and the importance of teaching as a way of changing perspectives.” Also, an interview with Willa C. Richards, author of The Comfort of Monsters (HarperCollins) about “her complex attachment to Milwaukee, intimacy between sisters, and the way institutional forces intersect with violence and power in the personal sphere.”

Electric Lit talks to Jaime Cortez about his new book Gordo (Grove) and “nicknames, writing semi-autobiographical fiction, and inheriting humor as a tool of survival.” James Whiteside, Center, Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet (Viking: Penguin), speaks to Vanity Fair about “the benefits of performance highs and crossword puzzles.”

Entertainment Weekly has a first look at Isaac Fitzgerald’s upcoming book Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional set to come out May 2022. George Floyd’s Aunt Angela Harrelson will be coming out with a book, Lift Your Voice: How My Nephew George Floyd’s Murder Changed the World (Post Hill Press) to be released in February 2022. People has more. Book Riot has a cover reveal for Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Berkley: Penguin). Oprah Daily shares an excerpt of Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be (Grand Central; LJ starred review). Lit Hub has an excerpt of Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo by Mansoor Adayfi (Hachette).

Ginny Hogan revisits the “spinster” novels of Barbra Pym in an essay for Electric Lit. The Root Presents: It’s Lit! revisits Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper (St. Martin's: Macmillan; LJ starred review) and what the book foresaw about America.

Diane Williams, author of How High? -- That High (Soho), speaks with The Millions about how writing is “an athletic ordeal on every level.”

Walter Mosley will be writing a new The Thing series for Marvel. Lit Hub has more.

Book Riot lists “15 More Books About Appalachia to Read Instead of Hillbilly Elegy” and “Mystery Stories You Can Read Out of Order.”

CBC provides “56 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in fall 2021.”

CrimeReads has “August’s Best International Crime Fiction.”

Lit Hub gives recommendations “based on your quarantine hobby.”

Tor.com provides “Six Books About Reincarnation.”

Oprah Daily lists “15 Erotic Short Stories for Women by Women.”

NYT provides “10 New Books We Recommend This Week,” "New in Paperback: 'The Bass Rock' and 'The Lost Pianos of Siberia'," and features “New Crime Novels from Louise Penny and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”

NPR releases their 2021 Summer Poll: “A Decade of Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s Code Switch features an discussion with Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights (Algonquin: Workman), on “writing daily essays on things that delighted him.”

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner (Riverhead: Random House), shares his “worries for the Afghan people” in an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Charlie Jane Anders reads from her newest book Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories (Tor.com: Macmillan) for Gizmodo.

Lit Hub has the trailer for Apple TV+’s new adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

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