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Awards & Buzzy Book News

Marjoleine Kars wins the 2021 Cundill History Prize for Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (New Press).

NYT covers a story regarding issues with Amazon's Bookstore.

Page to Screen

December 3: 

Alex Rider, based on the book series by Anthony Horowitz. IMDb TV. Reviews | Trailer

Benedetta, based on the book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C. Brown. IFC Films. Reviews | Trailer

Cobalt Blue, based on the book by Sachin Kundalkar. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, based on the book series by Jeff Kinney. Disney+. No reviews | Trailer

Dune, based on the book by Frank Herbert. Warner Bros. Pictures. Reviews | Trailer

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, based on the book Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

December 9:

And Just Like That…, based on the book Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell. HBO Max. No reviews | Trailer

Asakusa Kid, based on the book by Takeshi Kitano. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama by Claude A. Clegg III (Johns Hopkins): “And while he discovers that the Black American response was “complex, layered and fractured,” as one would expect from a population of nearly 47 million people, the main conclusion of his comprehensive, interpretive study is the steadfast commitment of Black voters to the president, despite the disappointments expressed by many Black leaders with the degree to which his policies changed the actual condition of African Americans.” Also, Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles by Lydia Davis (FSG): "“Essays Two,” Lydia Davis’s new collection of 19 pieces on translation and the learning of languages, all written over the past two decades, offers overwhelming proof of the benefits to a writer of a practice of translation." Plus, Garbo by Robert Gottlieb (Farrar; LJ starred review): "And once Garbo steps in front of the camera, Gottlieb’s book comes gloriously into its own, a tour through a career offered by a shrewd, deeply perceptive docent, brimming with knowledge and insight."

The Washington Post reviews Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott (Random; LJ starred review): "In the case of Andrea Elliott’s “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City,” you start with something meaningful but shaky — say, a mom and dad with eight kids holding it together in one room of a Brooklyn homeless shelter. Then you watch pieces get subtracted and wait to see how long it takes for the tower to fall." Plus, Shoot the Moonlight Out by William Boyle (Pegasus: S. & S.): "In an interview last year, Boyle said he tries to write about how bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things. In “Shoot the Moonlight Out,” Boyle achieves his aim marvelously." Also, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage by Todd Gitlin (Bantam: Penguin Random House): "By shining a spotlight on racial justice, a forever war and reproductive freedom in the past, Boyle offers important lessons for the present and the future." And, several additional reviews posted today.

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

Briefly Noted

Electric Lit interviews Anton Hur and Sang Young Park, translator and author of Love in the Big City (Grove Press), about “falling in and out of love in Seoul.” Also, a discussion with Christopher Gonzalez, I'm Not Hungry But I Could Eat (Independent), about “the hunger of young, fat, and queen Puerto Rican men.” Plus, Ariel Henley on “growing up with Croutzon Syndrome,” which wrote about in her book A Face For Picasso (Macmillan).

The Believer interviews Percival Everett, author of The Trees (Graywolf), about his life as a writer, painter, and professor. 

Bitch Media speaks with Catherine McCormack, author of Women in the Picture: What Culture Does With Female Bodies (Norton), about “challenging the Western gaze through a feminist lens.” Also, a talk with Faith Jones, Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult (Morrow; LJ starred review), about “the abusive community her grandfather created.”

Anjali Enjeti, author of The Parted Earth (Hub City Press: Ingram) and Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change (University of Georgia Press), writes about her Year in Reading for The Millions. Also, Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets (Penguin Random House), shares his Year in Reading.

Tor.com shares news about Janelle Monáe’s writing collaborators on Memory Librarian (HarperCollins) including Alaya Dawn Johnson and Sheree Reneé Thomas, among others. People also covers this story.

Fox News reports on Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers by James Andrew Miller (Henry Holt) about how HBO executives had concerns about James Gandolfini’s health during his time on The Sopranos.

The Vox Book Club is reading No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead: Penguin Random House) and Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler (Catapult) as “novels of our online brains.”

Salon outlines a “timeline of Alice Sebold’s Lucky saga, from a wrongful conviction to a redemptive documentary.”

CrimeReads provides “Great Ominous Beach Settings in Fiction.”

Parade lists “The 40 Best Dystopian Novels of All Time” and “25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2022 Off On The Right Foot.”

Popsugar shares “7 Social-Horror Books” and 15 books recommended by TikTok users.

Book Riot gives “December 2021 Horoscopes and Book Recommendations.”

Town & Country provides “The 23 Must-Read Books of Winter 2022.”

Shondaland shares “The Best Books for December 2021.”

Good Morning America lists “12 books for your loved ones this holiday season.”

NYT gives “11 New Books We Recommend This Week,” “The Year’s Best Wine Books” and "New in Paperback" featuring Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate: Harper) and Borges and Me: An Encounter by Jay Parini (Doubleday: Random House; LJ starred review). Plus, many book buying and end-of-the-year "best of" lists posted today.

Authors on Air

Emily Kwong from Short Wave speaks to Camilla Pang about her award-winning memoir, An Outsider’s Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are (Viking: Penguin Random House) for NPR’s Book of the Day.

Pamela Paul of 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet (Crown) and Cecilia Kang of An Ugly Truth (Harper) discuss “the good, the bad, and the ugly of the internet” with Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast.

Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock (Morrow), speaks with Andrew Keen about his "opinions about the metaverse" on the Keen On podcast.

Hannah Brown, God Bless This Mess: Learning to Live and Love Through Life’s Best (and Worst) Moments (HarperCollins), appears on the Kelly Clarkson show tonight.

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