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Awards & News

The Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards 2023 releases its shortlist. 

WNBA star Brittney Griner is working on a memoir that will deal with her Russian captivity, due out from Knopf in spring 2024. NPR reports. LA Times also has coverage.

Jacqueline Woodson will deliver the lunchtime keynote at U.S. Book Show. Publishers Weekly announces. 

Vanity Fair reports on a potential writers’ strike in Hollywood, that could halt TV and film production. 

LA Times presents: The Ultimate L.A. Bookshelf: 110 essential Los Angeles books.

Author Chuck Forester Donates $250K to Lambda Literary. PW reports. 

Hachette Book Group releases its fourth DEI annual report, focusing on work increasing BIPOC employee representation. Publishing Perspectives provides analysis. 

Phaidon Press celebrates 100 years. The Bookseller has details. 

Ulysses Press has acquired VeloPress.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel (Riverhead): “If you could cross Anne Tyler’s novels with strands of DNA from Michael Crichton’s thrillers, you might produce this new book by Ramona Ausubel.”; Alexandra Petri's US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) by Alexandra Petri (Norton): “Petri’s book operates as satire at the highest level. Even the title — Important American Documents — conjures archivists delicately handling sacred papers with white-gloved hands. It’s an image that contrasts nicely with the way Petri gleefully twists, grabs and reconfigures the past for her pleasure — and ours — in this godsend of a book.”; Hit Parade of Tears: Stories by Izumi Suzuki, trans. by Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, and Helen O'Horan (Verso Fiction): “Suzuki is not averse to escapism, so long as it is accompanied by the recognition that there is always something to escape."

The Millions reviews Losing Music by John Cotter (Milkweed Editions): “More than about Ménière’s, Losing Music is a powerful addition to the memoir canon—hard-hitting, beautiful, profound—a story of finding safe ground in a world regularly buffeted by very rough seas.”

Gizmodo reviews Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee (Tordotcom): “Combining ancient Persian mythology with the impossible-to-explain bond between pets and humans, Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee captures pain, guilt, and revenge in a single tidy novella.”

Lambda Literary reviews Phantom Advances by Mary Lynn Reed (Split/Lip Pr.): “The stories lay everything out but never tell the reader how to feel, letting the reader appreciate instead the complex, messy, and at times unsettling inner lives of these characters.”

LA Times reviews the new reissue of Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer (MCD): “VanderMeer fans who missed Veniss Underground won’t be disappointed; it’s an enjoyable, thoughtful novel with a new weird idea on every page. But they’ll also be impressed with how the author has, over the years, cultivated his own aberrant growth, flowering into marvelous, decadent forms out of this misshapen seed.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Dark Angel by John Sandford (Putnam), the top holds title of the week. 

LJ’s Barbara Hoffert has new prepub alerts in U.S. history, world history,  3 big memoirs,  8 pop fiction titles, and 6 big biographies. 

Abraham Verghese leads a literary tour through Kerala for NYT.

LitHub highlights the best flowers in literature. 

AARP has a new “Weekly Read” newsletter. 

Kirthana Ramisetti writes about how the Real Housewives franchise inspired her new novel, Advika and the Hollywood Wives (Grand Central), for Elle. 

U.S. Representative Katie Porter, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan (Crown), answers Elle’s literary questionnaire.

HipLatina previews “12 Poetry Collections by Latina Poets Coming out in 2023.”

LJ recommends 10 books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.

NYT recommends 8 newly published books. 

CrimeReads has April’s best psychological thrillers.

Buzzfeed shares 10 new thrillers. 

PopSugar lists eight of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling books. 

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with NPR’s All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly about her new book, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs (Henry Holt, & Co.). 

NPR’s Short Wave visits Tove Danovich’s chicken coop to learn about her star chickens and her new book, Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them (Agate Surrey). 

LitHub compiles “22 (More) Adaptations Better Than the Books They’re Based On.”

Harvey Keitel will star in the adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, based on the book by Heather Morris. Deadline reports. 

The Last Thing He Told Me, an adaptation of the book by Laura Dave, starring Jennifer Garner, premieres this Friday, April 14 on Apple TV+. Watch the trailer.

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