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Buzzy Books, News & Awards

Jenna Bush Hagar picks Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine) for her February Read with Jenna book club. NYT’s GroupText also suggests the title for book clubs, and offers discussion questions and read-alikes.

The Dublin Literary Award announces its longlist. The shortlist will be announced March 22nd, and a winner will be named May 19th, 2022.

The Wingate Prize shortlist is announced. 

The UK’s Parliamentary Book Awards’ shortlist is announced.

The February Amazon Editor’s Picks are out out with spotlight on The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (Morrow), due out February 22, and debut pick, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo (Ballantine; LJ starred review).

The buyers’ picks in February’s Costco Connection are The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan (Harper) and The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart (Kensington).

The Maus ban makes it a bestseller. The LA Times reports. NPR also covers the story.

Kate Clanchy’s controversial memoir will be reissued by a new publisher, Swift Press. The Guardian reports.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. by Jennifer Croft (Riverhead): "In terms of its scope and ambition, The Books of Jacob is beyond anything else I’ve ever read. Even its voluminous subtitle is a witty expression of Tokarczuk’s irrepressible, omnivorous reach."

NYT reviews The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby (Penguin Pr.): "Mallaby’s main argument is that venture capital funds disruption, and disruption is usually to the good. Innovation begets more innovation, delivering us from a stagnant status quo." And, Other People's Clothes by Calla Henkel (Doubleday): "The truly monstrous delights of Other People’s Clothes come from Zoe and Hailey’s twisted friendship and Hailey’s mantra that ‘art is what you can get away with’." Also, Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au (New Directions): "The way that Au injects matter-of-fact descriptions with existential angst reminds me of no writer so much as Albert Camus." And, What's Good: Notes on Rap and Language by Daniel Levin Becker (City Lights): "Levin Becker puts all of his accumulated knowledge to work in What’s Good, an often hilarious, surprisingly moving and always joyful paean to rap’s relationship to words." Also, The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor): "Slocumb isn’t too different from his protagonist: a natural. He easily conjures the thrill of mastering a tough musical passage and the tinnitus-like torture of everyday racism." And, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel (Penguin Pr.): "The two stories, the humbling of Hollywood and the swelling of Chinese soft power, twist and combine across  Schwartzel’s masterfully organized book." And, Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh (Ecco): "it’s the characters themselves who have been working overtime, their entire lives, to arrive where they land. Haigh isn’t manipulating them, just paying close attention to their choices, large and small. That’s not artifice, it’s art. And I was gobsmacked." And, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (Avid Reader Press: S. & S.): "a witty dance with the ghost of Nabokov and a razor-edged commentary on academia at our current fraught moment." Plus, In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado (Henry Holt & Co.): "It is an adventure saga of her ascent of Everest; a vulnerable meditation on her childhood in Peru; and the tale of an immigrant’s journey to the United States. Above all, the book is Vasquez-Lavado’s reclamation of the truth behind the stories and secrets she had to learn to bear early." Lastly, reviews of three new books about fathers and sons hit the Shortlist.

LA Times reviews Free Love by Tessa Hadley (Harper): "Throughout this deceptively straightforward story, an undercurrent of mixed emotions tears at the reader. Personal liberation is not a victimless exercise, but Hadley creates space to see the larger motion of history at the end of an empire — and at the beginning of a freer but more complicated era."

Briefly Noted

Shondaland talks with Eliza Jane Brazier about her new book, Good Rich People (Berkley), and how she came up with her cast of characters.

ElectricLit talks with activist and author, Jessica Gaitán Johannesson about "connections between language, migration, and climate justice" in her new novel, How We Are Translated (Scribe US).

Randall Munroe previews his forthcoming follow-up, What If? 2 , due out September 13th for Entertainment Weekly. The Verge also covers the announcement.

Time features two dark academia novels, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (Avid Reader Press: S. & S.), and the forthcoming Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou (Penguin Pr.), due out March 22.

CrimeReads looks at "V.C. Andrews and the battle against school censorship."

BookRiot has an article on the "bookish life of Betty White."

The Washington Post has 10 noteworthy books for February, 5 great thrillers, and the 18 best-reviewed books in January.

Time has 10 new books for this month.

Entertainment Weekly has 10 must-reads for February.

The Millions previews new releases for the week.

ElectricLit has a booklist featuring family curses.

CrimeReads shares the best new crime releases for February.

Parade lists the "110 Best Thriller, Crime and Suspense Novels of All Time."

Authors On Air

NPR’s Life Kit podcast explores Erin Cech’s new research for her book, The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (Univ. of California. Pr.).

Heather Moday, MD, The Immunotype Breakthrough: Your Personalized Plan to Balance Your Immune System, Optimize Health, and Build Lifelong Resilience (Little, Brown Spark), will visit Live with Ryan and Kelly tomorrow.

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