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Awards

The 2022 National Book Awards finalists are announced with coverage from The NYT, LA Times, The Guardian, and NPR. Publisher's Weekly also has a write-up. Winners will be announced on November 16th.

Saba Sams wins the BBC national short story award. The Guardian reports. BBC Sound has a recording of the author reading the story.

Rebecca Solnit is awarded the Paul Engle Prize.  

The 2022 Salam Award winners are announced. 

The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded tomorrow, October 6. The New Republic places bets and The Guardian writes on Salman Rushdie's odds.

HarperCollins Focus acquires Cider Mill Press Book Publishers.  

Vulture lists "The Best Books of 2022 (So Far)."

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu (Doubleday): “For all the soul-searching, therapeutic work and years of rumination imprinted on Stay True, it’s the ache of a friendship lost but honored that will linger for readers.” And, Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday): “A reader could become as punch drunk on Atkinson’s complex intersecting plotlines as Nellie’s customers do on her high-octane 'Turk’s Blood' cocktails, but the pleasure is worth the mental hangover.” Also, Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen (Liveright; LJ starred review): “In a rush to overturn many historical fallacies, the book unfortunately ends up reaffirming several of the very myths it aims to contest, particularly a narrative of Indigenous decline at odds with the book’s emphasis on Native American power.” Plus, Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York by Jeremiah Moss (Norton; LJ starred review): “is worth our attention for its striking narrative of a city where radical community flourished in a protracted period of crisis. New York City forges ahead, it’s not just its wildness that Moss and I both hope it retains, but also its interconnectedness, its intelligence and its swagger.”

NYT reviews Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont (Viking; LJ starred review): “Delmont doesn’t skimp on such sobering stories, explaining that he wants to provide a 'definitive history.' But he also clearly sees his book as a chance to honor those Black Americans who fought for the United States but never properly got their due.” And,  Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth by Nancy Marie Brown (Pegasus): “Brown overlays a glowing web of connections on Iceland’s folkloric — and literal — landscape of ice and fire, illuminating the answers to the many questions she poses. Her passionate defense of the huldufólk would gratify the most sensitive elf.”

NPR's Fresh Air reviews Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press; LJ starred review): “Ng's own masterful telling of this tale of governmental cruelty and the shadow armies of ordinary citizens who both facilitate and resist is its own best testimony to the unpredictable possibilities of storytelling." NPR also reviews Kalyna the Soothsayer by Elijah Kinch Spector (Erewhon): "in Elijah Kinch Spector's delightful debut fantasy adventure Kalyna the Soothsayer, not only is the fortuneteller the unlikely hero, but she's also a shameless fake."

LA Times reviews Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk, tr. by Ekin Oklap (Knopf; LJ starred review): “In the film 'Night at the Museum,' Ben Stiller, a security guard at the Museum of Natural History, undergoes a harrowing night in which the collection’s ancient predators come to life. It is safer — and more thrilling — to spend a week inside Nights of Plague.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press; LJ starred review), the buzziest book of the week. 

USA Today talks with William Shatner about his new book, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, written with Joshua Brandon (Atria; LJ starred review), death, and his relationship with Leonard Nimoy.

LA Times talks with photographer Carell Augustus about the process of putting together his new book, Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments (Sourcebooks).

The Washington Post has a Q&A with Mia P. Manansala, Blackmail and Bibingka (Berkley), about her new "Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery" and the inspiration behind the cozy series. Mansansala also recommends her favorite Christmas-themed mysteries for CrimeReads.

Actress/Director Lake Bell talks to People about her forthcoming audiobook, Inside Voice: My Obsession with How We Sound, due out from Pushkin Industries November 1. 

Author Katie Nicholl shares details from her new book, The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth's Legacy and the Future of the Crown (Hachette), with FoxNews Digital.

Al Pacino is close to a blockbuster deal with Penguin Random House to pen a memoir. PageSix reports. 

Entertainment Weekly reports on the controversy surrounding the writers behind The Rise of the Dragon companion novel.

Good Morning America shares “15 October books to make you think and feel.”

The Guardian rounds up the best thrillers of the month.

NYT suggests 8 newly published books.

Country music legend and author Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter, and Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline, both (Grand Central), has died at the age of 90. Rolling Stone has an obituary and PBS Canvas has a remembrance.

“Theo Richmond, Who Revived the Past in a Polish Shtetl, Dies at 93.”NYT has an obituary.

“Charles Fuller, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who explored racism with 'A Soldier's Play,' dies.” LA Times has the obituary.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Ari Berman, Mother Jones reporter and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (Picador; LJ starred review), about voting rights cases at the Supreme Court.

Jess Kidd discusses her novel, The Night Ship (Atria) on B&N's Poured Over podcast.

Harlan Coben reups at Netflix, greenlighting a Myron Bolitar series. Deadline reports. 

Kelly Ripa, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories (Dey Street), will visit with Seth Meyers tonight. 

Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America (Penguin Pr.), visits The Daily Show. 

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