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Awards & News & Events

Hyde by Craig Russell (Doubleday) wins the 2021 McIlvanney Prize. Locus reports.

Netflix buys the entire Roald Dahl catalog. The Independent reports. 

Lena Waithe and Gillian Flynn launch new imprints at Zando. The NYT reports. Deadline also covers the story. 

LJ's Fall Virtual Day of Dialog is set for tomorrow, September 23rd. View the speaker lineup here.

Reviews

USA Today reviews The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg (Knopf; LJ starred review), giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: “Bragg has done it again, focusing his lyrical prose on one aspect of his Southern roots while managing to embrace much larger terrain in the process.”

NPR reviews Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Norton; LJ starred review): “a hauntingly intimate story set within the privacy of one family trapped in the penumbra of mourning.”

The Washington Post reviews Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence by Frances Wilson (FSG): "is an unconventional biography — it skips Lawrence’s early life almost entirely — and, page by page, a fairly entertaining one. Its main virtues derive directly from its subject." And, The Last Viking: The True Story of King Harald Hardrada by Don Hollway (Osprey Publishing): "If you love Frans Bengtsson’s picaresque masterpiece, The Long Ships, Robert Graves’s intrigue-suffused I, Claudius, or heroic fantasy in the mold of Robert E. Howard, George R.R. Martin and Howard Andrew Jones, you owe it to yourself to pick up The Last Viking. It’s that exciting, that good."

LA Times reviews The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan (Farrar): “While the struggle to define “the right to sex” rages on, one thing is for certain: Amia Srinivasan has entered the chat.”

NYT reviews The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power by Max Chafkin (Penguin Pr.): “Scared people are scary, and Chafkin’s masterly evocation of his subject’s galactic fear — of liberals, of the U.S. government, of death — turns Thiel himself into a threat." Also, Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics by Anne-Marie Slaughter (Princeton Univ. Pr.): “Slaughter has given herself the task of tying the lessons she learned from her career struggles to the larger forces buffeting the country, and offering a way forward. That’s quite an assignment, and she seems swamped by it.” Plus there are paired reviews of The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773–1783 by Joseph J. Ellis (Liveright; LJ starred review), and Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood (Oxford Univ. Pr.): “In these two masterly works, the great historians of America’s Revolutionary era, Gordon S. Wood and Joseph J. Ellis, show how this experiment in republican self-government almost didn’t happen.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (S. & S.), the buzziest book of the week.

People highlights details about the White House transition from Trump to Biden in Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (S. & S.).

NYT has an interview with Maria Tatar, author of The Heroine with 1001 Faces (Liveright; LJ starred review).

The Seattle Times has an interview with Anthony Doerr about his new book, Cloud Cuckoo Land (Scribner; LJ starred review), and the "timeless power of books."

LitHub talks with Lauren Groff, Matrix (Riverhead), about "blending research and imagination in historical fiction."

Bitch speaks with Kerry Cohen about her new book, Crazy for You: Breaking the Spell of Sex and Love Addiction (Hachette Go), “how to stop pathologizing our own behaviors, and how we can all learn new ways to love.”

Essence talks with Gabrielle Union, You Got Anything Stronger? (Dey Street Books), about giving and taking advice.

People talks with Cassandra Peterson, who opens up about her romantic life in new memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark (Hachette).

At CBC, Heather O'Neill reflects on her award winning debut novel, as Canada Reads celebrates 20 years. 

Latinx author Angie Cruz, Dominicana (Flatiron: Macmillan; LJ starred review) nominates Saraciea J. Fennell, editor of the forthcoming Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora (Flatiron: Macmillan) for the “GMA Inspiration List: Who's Making Hispanic Latinx History Right Now.”

Spotlighting So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow (Feiwel & Friends), Slate asks: “How Much Can You Change Little Women Before It Stops Being Little Women?”

Ebony highlights Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel (Henry Holt), which “implores folks to stay true to themselves.”

OprahDaily excerpts the audiobook of Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke (Flatiron; LJ starred review).

LitHub releases “The Ultimate Fall 2021 Books Preview.”

Buzzfeed has “26 New Science Fiction And Fantasy Books To Read This Fall.” 

NYPL highlights 9 new Sci-Fi and Fantasy titles.

Esquire has “The 10 Best Horror Books, Just In Time for Spooky Season.” 

BookRiot has the best horror books of the decade. 

Buzzfeed has “12 Historical Fiction Books That Will Transport You Around The World.”

CrimeReads shares September’s best debut novels.

PopSugar offers Sally Rooney read-alikes.

Bustle suggests 10 must-reads for the week.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with by Keyshawn Johnson about his new book, The Forgotten First: Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley, Bill Willis, and the Breaking of the NFL Color Barrier, written with Bob Glauber (Grand Central), “about the four Black pioneers who broke the NFL's color barrier.”

NPR’s Fresh Air has an interview with Max Chafkin about his new book, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power (Penguin Pr.).

The Root Institute 2021 talks with Tarana Burke about her new book, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement (Flatiron; LJ starred review).

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