Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Awards & Book News

Barnes & Noble announces its list of the best books of 2023.

Woppa Diallo and Mame Bougouma Diene win the Caine Prize for African Writing for “A Soul of Small Places,” a story published in Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction (Tor.com). Shelf Awareness and The Guardian have coverage.

The shortlist is announced for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. CBC has coverage.

Shortlists are announced for the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards.

The Guardian reports that more than 150 writers and publishing workers have called for Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm that’s a leading sponsor of UK literary festivals, to divest from fossil fuels.

Bookshop.org, Electric Literature, Paul English, and Joyce Linehan announce new initiative, Banned Books USA, which allows any resident of Florida to order books that have been banned or challenged in the state of Florida, for free plus the cost of shipping. Electric Lit highlights some specific books on the list.

Expedited appeal in Texas book rating case is delayed by three weeks, Publishers Weekly reports.

Page to Screen

October 6

Desperation Road, based on the novel by Michael Farris Smith. Lionsgate. Reviews | Trailer

The Exorcist: Believer, based on the novel The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. Universal. Reviews | Trailer

Foe, based on the novel by Iain Reid. Amazon. Reviews | Trailer

Killers of the Flower Moon, based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. Apple+/Paramount. Reviews | Trailer

Kraven the Hunter, based on associated graphic novels. Sony. Reviews | Trailer

The Marsh King’s Daughter, based on the novel by Karen Dionne. Lionsgate. Reviews | Trailer

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, based on the novel Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Paramount+. Reviews | Trailer

Priscilla, based on the memoir Elvis and Me: The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N’ Roll by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon. A24. Reviews | Trailer

October 12

The Fall of the House of Usher, based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

October 13

The Conference, based on a Swedish novel by Mats Strandberg (not yet published in English). Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

Dark Harvest, based on the novel by Norman Partridge. MGM. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews My Death by Lisa Tuttle (NYRB Classics): “Tuttle’s work to date has been categorized as horror, or speculative fiction, and My Death deftly navigates between conventional storytelling and the uncanny feeling that things are perhaps other than they appear”; Vengeance Is Mine by Marie Ndiaye, tr. by Jordan Stump (Knopf): “NDiaye deals in impressions and captures a particular kind of emotional delirium in Vengeance”; short story collections by Chloe Aridjis, Ghassan Zeinnedine, and Megan Kamalei Kakimoto; new SF/fantasy by Malon Edwards, Melinda Taub, and Karen Lord; and audiobook of the week The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Books on Tape).

Washington Post reviews Family Meal by Bryan Washington (Riverhead; LJ starred review): “Washington’s is not a grand novel of ideas that declares itself with showy prose or pulsating ambition. It’s told in close-ups and set in a lived-in world of gay bars, bedrooms and dinner tables across Texas, Japan and California”; Tremor by Teju Cole (Random; LJ starred review): “The eclectic structure may be challenging, but, given the continuity of Cole’s vision, it’s never baffling”; and The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie (Knopf): “Again and again, The Dictionary People emphatically demonstrates that even seemingly dry-as-dust scholars weren’t that at all.” NYT also reviews the latter: “Now Sarah Ogilvie has provided a sprightly, elegant tribute to the ordinary readers—the ‘word nerds’—who made up the bulk of the O.E.D.’s work force, largely unpaid and unsung.”

NPR reviews A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove): “Cocky and riveting—self-consciously constructed as if written for a standup audience”; and The Children’s Bach and This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial, both by Helen Garner (both Pantheon): “She’s not out to wow us with a fancy style; rather, her elegantly direct prose is always wrestling with that essential feminist concern: the politics of domestic life.”

LA Times reviews Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir by Sly Stone (AUWA): “There are insider tidbits like this sprinkled throughout, but Stone never really digs too deep into his life or art; he’s content to skim over the surface.”

LitHub rounds up the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

NYT speaks with National Book Award finalist Aaliyah Bilal, author of Temple Folk (S. & S.).

CrimeReads has Q&A’s with contributors to Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, ed. by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams (Random; LJ starred review).

Kirkus interviews Ayana Mathis, author of The Unsettled (Knopf; LJ starred review).

Washington Post talks to Jason Reynolds about his first picture book and libraries, “places for dancing and for self-expression.”

NYT Magazine has a feature on “How Jesmyn Ward Is Reimagining Southern Literature.”

Deadline talks to Patrick Stewart, author of Making It So: A Memoir (Gallery) about hitting the NYT Best Seller List. Stewart will also be interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air today.

CrimeReads hosts a conversation between Melissa Adelman, author of What the Neighbors Saw (Minotaur: St. Martin’s), and Nora Murphy, author of The New Mother (Minotaur: St. Martin’s).

Scottish author John Niven answers The Guardian’s “The Books of My Life” questionnaire.

In an interview with Tim O’Brien, America Fantastica (Mariner), LA Times learns why his first novel in 20 years is about “America’s ‘mythomania.’”

Hollywood Reporter picks “The 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time” and asks four industry heavyweights to recommend a film book that they love.

NYT highlights “9 New Books We Recommend This Week.”

The NYPL blog lists “Bewitching Romance Books for Spooky Season” and explains where to start with Italo Calvino.

CrimeReads selects “nine demon and possession novels to lose yourself in this spooky season.”

Tor.com identifies “Classic SF Set on Ocean Planets.”

Electric Lit has “8 South Asian Novels About Falling in Love.”

People shares revelations from Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds by sports agent Rich Paul, written with Jesse Washington (Roc Lit 101).

Hollywood Reporter publishes an excerpt from Donald Bogle’s Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed (Running Pr.; LJ starred review).

Superhero-comic creator Keith Giffen dies at 70; Entertainment Weekly and The Guardian have obituaries.

Authors on Air

Nadine Farid Johnson, the managing director of PEN America Washington, talks to USA Today’s 5 Things podcast about book bans.

NPR interviews Daniel Clowes, author of Monica (Fantagraphics; LJ starred review); Martin Baron, author of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post (Flatiron); and self-published novelist Quan Millz.

LitHub’s Just the Right Book podcast speaks with Jacques Pépin, author of Cooking My Way: Recipes and Techniques for Economical Cooking (Harvest); Fiction/Non/Fiction speaks with Rebecca Makkai, author of I Have Some Questions for You (Viking; LJ starred review); and Keen On speaks with Vincent Schiraldi, author of Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion of Safety and Freedom (New Pr.).

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.