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Awards & Buzzy Books News

The National Book Critics Circle announces the 2022 Barrios Books in Translation Prize longlist.

The 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards Winners is announced. 

The Swedish-English Translators Association wins the Culture Abroad Award, as announced by Publishing Perspectives.

NPR covers updated news of the HarperCollins Union strike. Publishers Lunch announces the next rally.

Newsweek reports on the controversy surrounding actor Kirk Cameron’s newest children’s book. Fox News also covers this story.

Page to Screen

December 9:

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, based on the book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again, based on the book by Milan Trenc. Disney+. No reviews | Trailer

Something from Tiffany’s, based on the book by Melissa Hill. PrimeVideo. No reviews | Trailer

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley (Knopf): “a mash-up of a Western, a serial-killer mystery and a feminist-inflected tale of life in a bordello...Smiley smoothly melds three distinct narratives into one without breaking a sweat." Also, Treasures of Ukraine: A Nation's Cultural Heritage, introducted by Andrey Kurkov (Thames & Hudson): "has been quickly written as a corrective to Putin’s version of history, in which Ukraine has been nothing more than a part of Russia. It is a bid to shape the future by claiming the past, in a survey stretching from prehistoric times to the current year." Finally, Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty by Andrew Meier (Random House): "a richly told story of a family [Meier] sees as an overlooked American dynasty."

NYT reviews Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (Harper; LJ starred review): "a fat, showbiz-nerd-satisfying tome with something for every showbiz-nerd taste: on-set stories, technical details, funny anecdotes about actors, the echoes of studio executives kvetching and various people complaining about critics."

Tor.com reviews The Stars Undying by Emery Robin (Orbit): “a compelling (if slightly overlong) epic of couplings versus coups, worship versus heresy, memory versus immortality.”

Book Marks shares two lists for the end-of-the-year including "The Best Reviewed Literature in Translation" and "The Best Reviewed Graphic Literature."

Briefly Noted

Jessica Grose, author of Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood (Mariner: Houghton Harcourt), talks about why she chose the subject of her book in an interview with The Rumpus. 

Shondaland talks to Jane Smiley about “finding the joy in writing” and her newest book, A Dangerous Business (Knopf). Also, Tegan Nia Swanson, Things We Found When the Water Went Down (Catapult), discusses “collage and sensory detail, youth empowerment, and individual and collective grief.” Rachel Kapelke-Dale “explores a child prodigy’s complicated past” in her book, The Ingenue (St. Martin’s).

Ryan Lee Wong discusses the themes of “cross-racial solidarity and facing intergenerational trauma” in his book, Which Side Are You On (Catapult) in a conversation with Electric Lit.

Andrew Morton chats with Salon about the Royal family of England covered in his book, The Queen: Her Life (Grand Central: Life & Style; LJ starred review).

Sally Rooney revisits the work of James Joyce for The Paris Review. 

Rachel Kushner, author of The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000–2020 (Scribner), and Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review), have a conversation about their joint screenplay for Datebook. 

Gawker returns to the “brilliant hackwork” of P.G. Wodehouse.

Lit Hub has a cover reveal for A Quitter's Paradise by Elysha Chang (SJP Lit). 

The Millions shares end-of-the-year reading lists curated by authors such as Kyle Lucia Wu, Win Me Something (Tin House: Norton); Dan Kois, author of the upcoming Vintage Contemporaries (Harper); Laura Warrell, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm (Pantheon; LJ starred review); and Edgar Gomez, High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir (Soft Skull).

Entertainment Weekly lists “the 10 best romance novels of 2022.”

HipLatina has “12 Romance Novels by Latinas to Gift Your Book-Living Amiga.”

Book Riot recommends “8 December Mystery & Thrillers to End the Year Reading.”

The Washington Post gives recommenations on "14 mystery books to savor during the long nights of winter."

CrimeReads provides “Five Character-Driven Mystery Novels From European Authors" and "The Best Espionage Novels of the Year."

Electric Lit offers “7 Novels that Use Mystery to Examine Race.”

Tor.com announces “New Horror and Genre-Bending Books Arriving in December” and shares “Must-Read Speculative Short Fiction for November 2022.”

The Seattle Times provides “16 audiobooks that offer life (and language) lessons.”

NYT shares “2022 Reading Picks from Time Staff Critics" and 11 new book recommendations.

Authors on Air

Reese Witherspoon will star in Tracy Flick Can’t Win, an adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s sequel to Election. People reports. The Hollywood Reporter also covers this news.

Director Mike Flanagan of The Midnight Club fame wants to adapt Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series for Amazon, according to Entertainment Weekly. Tor.com also shares details of those story. And, The Hollywood Reporter shares details of the news.

Lit Hub recommends books to read before and after watching documentary The Adventures of Saul Bellow on PBS. 

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