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Awards & Buzzy Book News

2022 Orwell Prizes finalists have been announced.

Amber Boothe and Letitia Jarrett have won the 2022 Owned Voices Novel Award. 

Smithsonian Magazine explores "what makes the Library of Congress a monument to Democracy."

Elspeth Barker, author of O Caledonia (Scribner), has died at 81. NYT has more on her life.

Page to Screen

May 20:

Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh. Apple TV+. No reviews | Trailer

Troppo, based on the book Crimson Lake by Candice Fox. Amazon Freevee. Reviews | Trailer

May 23:

Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, based on the manga series Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Popsugar shares a list of books to read before seeing the movies they are based on. 

Reviews

NYT reviews You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (Atria): "a departure in genre and prose style from their previous work, and it could appeal especially to people who, living through an isolating pandemic that has accelerated loss, hunger for more joie de vivre." Also, four short reviews on the newest in crime and mystery including: With Prejudice by Robin Peguero (Grand Central), Poison Lilies by Katie Tallo (Harper: HarperCollins), Goering's Gold by Richard O'Rawe (Melville House), and Sinkhole by Davida G. Breier (University of New Orleans). 

The Washington Post reviews This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead): "settle in for the ride, confident that Emma Straub will conduct you to the welcoming place where fiction and wishful thinking align. There are plenty of signposts to ease your way."

NPR has three short reviews of translated Latin American literature featuring: Yesterday by Juan Emar, trans. by Megan McDowell (New Directions), Family Album by Gabriela Alemán, trans. by Dick Cluster (City Lights), New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza, trans. by Sarah Booker (Dorothy: Penguin Random House). Also, four more short reviews for summer books including: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead), Search by Michelle Huneven (Penguin Pr.), One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips (Soho Crime), and Knock Off the Hatby Richard Stevenson (Amble). 

Locus Magazine reviews When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (Doubleday; LJ starred review): “at center the frankly heroic story of Alex fiercely holding on to her educational dreams despite the monolithic forces aligned against her, it’s also a compelling fantasy that resists easy allegorization.”

Tor.com reviews Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda (HarperVia; LJ starred review): “compelling less as a new spin on the vampire genre, and more as an incisive charting of Lydia’s changing relationship to her hunger—fickle and radical—as a means towards self-knowledge.” Also, All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay (Berkley): “ultimately an exercise in patience, pushing the boundaries of vivid but erratically-styled storytelling.”

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

Briefly Noted

The Millions interviews Marie Myung-Ok Lee about her new book, The Evening Hero (S. & S.) and how she brought the story to life.

People speaks to Christine Quinn, How To Be a Boss B*tch (Abrams Image), and she reveals that “she broke up with a former sugar daddy because he tracked her car.”

Naheed Phiroze Patel, Mirror Made of Rain (The Unnamed: Ingram), talks to Electric Lit about “female rage as a righteous response to patriarchal oppression.”

Olympic diver and gold medalist Tom Daley “paints an intimate portrait of his life in his new book” Coming Up for Air (Hanover Square) and chats about it with Shondaland.

The Chicago Tribune speaks to Cynthia Clampitt about “the greatness of the Midwest” and her new book Destination Heartland: A Guide to Discovering the Midwest’s Remarkable Past (3 Fields). 

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, authors of The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There (Dey St.) talk to The Washington Post about their book and "where Jim and Pam would be today."

Authors Mesha Maren, Perpetual West (Algonquin), and Fernando Flores, Valleyesque (MCD x FSG Originals), have a conversation about "music, memory, and the topographies of writing," recounted via Lit Hub. 

NYT features the work of comic book creator Frank Miller.

Lit Hub shares an excerpt of It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him by Justin Tinsley (Abrams).

USA Today has an excerpt of Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher (Del Rey). 

Electric Lit explores Severance by Ling Ma (FSG) and the new television show as examples of “the dissociative demands of office labor.”

The Root’s It’s Lit! provides “10 Books by Black Authors We Can’t Wait to Read in June.”

Bustle lists “The 42 Best Mystery Books to Read Now.”

NYT “10 New Books We Recommend This Week," "6 Audiobooks to Listen to Now," and "New in Paperback."

Tor.com has “Five Stories in Which Aliens Attempt to Reshape the Earth.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Naheed Phiroze Patel, Mirror Made of Rain (The Unnamed: Ingram), about “how patterns of self-destruction are inherited” and shares highlights of the conversation.

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