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Awards & News

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Catapult) wins Barnes and Noble’s 2023 Discover Prize. Peters talks about her book on B&N’s Poured Over podcast. Shondaland also has an interview with the author.

The World Fantasy Awards winners are announced. 

The shortlist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is announced. The Bookseller has details. 

The 2022 Australian Shadows Awards are announced.

“KKR Closes Deal to Buy Simon & Schuster,” NYT reports. Publishers Lunch also has coverage.

Reviews

NPR reviews Absolution by Alice McDermott (Farrar): “It’s futile to predict where a great writer’s boundless imagination will take us and, as Absolution affirms, McDermott is a great writer.”

NYT reviews The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore (Scribner): “This isn’t a Hannibal Lecter story; it’s a riff on Frankenstein”; The Race To Be Myself: A Memoir by Caster Semenya (Norton; LJ starred review): “In raw, sometimes unpolished prose, Semenya breaks her long silence, calling out her critics and asserting her right to be celebrated for her natural gifts, as other athletes are, rather than punished for them”; and The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead): “You don’t have to follow her all the way, and start digging the novel’s grave, to sense that she is onto something. It has always been true: Being told about life, by a perceptive writer, can be as good as, if not better than, being told a story.” Datebook also reviews: “There are quotable, thought-provoking lines on every page of this book, which is not merely a ‘pandemic book,’ but a novel that cracks open windows and offers a reassuring breeze, reminding us that it’s OK—and perhaps even necessary—to need each other; it’s only human.”

Washington Post reviews The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (Gallery/Saga; LJ starred review): “Robert and Gloria form this tale’s beating heart, fictional characters as captivating and alive as any I’ve encountered in a long time.”

The Guardian reviews Erotic Vagrancy: Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor by Roger Lewis (Mobius): “At times I couldn’t quite remember my life before I was reading this book. But let us concede at least that Lewis has put in the hours, compiled all the anecdotes and panned them for gold.”

LA Times reviews Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land (Atria: One Signal): “Class excels at pulling the reader into the story in visceral prose; where it falters is in processing that experience from the point of view of someone older, wiser and—let’s face it—a bestselling author and a producer of her own Netflix adaptation. Older Land has little room for any critique of her younger self.”

The Rumpus reviews a new edition of The Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector, tr. by Benjamin Moser (New Directions): “Despite the challenges presented by this novel’s wandering nature, Lispector’s stylistic feats enchant through to the end, and offer a compelling perspective on the wild magic of her voice. Though thin of plot, the book does have an arc, and its ending will leave readers breathless.”

Briefly Noted

Henry Winkler, Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond (Celadon), shares how the popularity of the Fonz affected his friendship with Ron Howard, at FoxNews.

Bri Luna discusses her new book, Blood Sex Magic: Everyday Magic for the Modern Mystic (HarperOne), at Shondaland. 

Washington Post gets a tour through Stephen King’s personal library.

Essence talks with Minaa B. about her new book, Owning Our Struggles: A Path to Healing and Finding Community in a Broken World (TarcherPerigee).

Washington Post interviews Schuyler Bailar about his new book, He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters (Hachette Go). 

NYT previews 16 books for November. 

LitHub highlights 22 new books for the week. 

CBC recommends “13 eerily good books to read this Halloween.”

ElectricLit shares “7 Spooky Short Story Collections by Latina Writers.”

Shondaland has “9 Books to Keep You Up This Halloween.”

The Root’s It’s Lit highlights Black horror books. 

BookRiot shares new horror books publishing in November. 

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Tanisha Ford, author of Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement (Amistad), about Black socialite Mollie Moon.

Donald Bogle talks about his new book, Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed (Running Pr.; LJ starred review), with NPR’s Morning Edition.

Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger talks about his new book, Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country, written with Michael D’Antonio (The Open Field), with NPR’s All Things Considered.

A TV show based on Rebecca Yarros’s best-selling book, Fourth Wing, and its forthcoming sequel, is in the works at Amazon. Variety reports. 

Nautilus, inspired by Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea finds a new home at AMC. Tor reports.

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