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

News & Best of the Year

Bloomsbury Publishing has purchased ABC-CLIO for a reported $22.3 million, according to Publishers Weekly. 

Booklist releases “Editors' Choice: Adult Books, 2021.” 

Electric Lit has “Favorite Novels of 2021.”

Time gives a sneak peek with “The 21 Most Anticipated Books of 2022.”

HipLatina provides “15 Books by Latinx Authors Coming Out in 2022 You Need to Read.”

Book Riot gives readers “2022 Comics and Graphic Novels to Add to Your TBR.”

CrimeReads shares “The Best Noir Fiction of 2021.”

NYT shows “The Best Book Covers of 2021.”

Page to Screen

December 17:

The Lost Daughter, based on the book by Elena Ferrante. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

Nightmare Alley, based on the book by William Lindsay Gresham. Searchlight Pictures. Reviews | Trailer

Schemes in Antiques, based on the book Antique Bureau Central Bureau by Ma Bo Young. Well Go USA. No reviews | Trailer

Spider-Man: No Way Home, based on associated titles. Sony Pictures. Reviews | Trailer

The Tender Bar, based on the book by J. R. Moehringer. Amazon Studios. Reviews | Trailer

The Witcher, based on the book by Andrzej Sapkowski. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

December 18:

When Hope Calls, based on the Canadian West by Janette Oke. GAC Family. No reviews | Trailer

December 22:

The King’s Man, based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. 20th Century Studios. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Locus Magazine reviews The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (Erewhon; LJ starred review): “An explosive, lyrical, foul-mouthed science fiction novel in which tech­nological advances fail to silence the most basic human emotions, The All-Consuming World is an interstellar trip full of violence, anger, broken friendships, and secret agendas that proves Khaw is exactly what readers of their shorter work have known for a long time: Khaw is one of the most exciting voices in contemporary genre fiction.” Also, Galaxias by Stephen Baxter (Hachette): “Stephen Baxter’s latest novel is a mind-expanding trip into an unpredictable but scientifically rigorous future—in other words, one of his patented Hard SF wonderworks.”

Autostraddle reviews Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis (St. Martin’s): “Ellis creates a world parallel to our own, borrowing elements from our reality such as our political institutions and media outlets. The author does so in such a way that it allows us to relate to the main characters and imagine ourselves in this version of the world.”

The Seattle Times reviews White on White by Aysegül Savas (Random): “The many correlations between that “thin film” and the “pleasingly thin” Agnes, so desperate to have someone slip inside her skin and understand her, make Savas’ lyrically spare gem shimmer with richly complex insights on communication, family, love and friendship.”

NPR reviews Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion (S. & S.): “The reader is in for straight-up horror, with plenty of scares and blood.”

Lit Hub shares “The Best Reviewed Literature in Translation of 2021” and “The Best Reviews Graphic Literature of 2021.”

Briefly Noted

Ayana Contreras, Energy Never Dies (University of Illinois), discusses her “cultural biography of Black Chicago” in an interview with The Chicago Tribune.

Entertainment Weekly interviews Jami Attenberg, I Came All This Way To Meet You (Ecco; LJ starred review), and Bernardine Evaristo, Manifesto (Ingram), about “chronicling the grit behind their glamorous careers.”

Wendy J. Fox, author of What If We Were Somewhere Else (Santa Fe Writer’s Project), chats with The Rumpus about the evolution of her book from creation to completion.

Yiyun Li, Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace with Yiyun Li (Public Space: Ingram), discusses why she loves Tolstoy’s War and Peace with The Millions. 

Electric Lit speaks to “7 literary translators on how they became translators.”

NYT shares “New in Paperback” with Reid Mitenbuler’s Wild Minds (Atlantic) and People From My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami (Soft Skull), among others. Plus, 9 new recommended books. And, newly published titles. Also, 4 audiobooks on “What to Listen To.”

The Millions continues their series on A Year in Reading with Marlowe Granados, author of Happy Hour (Verso Fiction).

Lisa B. Thompson remembers bell hooks in a piece for NPR’s Arts & Life. People shares more remembrances about hooks. The Washington Post also has a piece on hooks.

Michael Patrick Hearn writes a piece about how “Alex Haley taught America about race” for NYT. 

Book Riot shares “8 seriously creepy or unsettling book covers.”

Lifehacker suggests “Get Rid of These Books You No Longer Need (so You Can Make Room for More).”

Popsugar lists “7 Books You Should Read to Honor bell hooks’ Legacy.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s Book of the Day considers two books about “the lies we tell ourselves” with Danielle Evans’ The Office of Historical Corrections (Riverhead: Penguin; LJ starred review) and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (Riverhead: Penguin). Also, “explores the family behind Purdue Pharma” with Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday; LJ starred review).

Deadline reports on the adaptation of Dr. Nicholas Barratt’s The Lost Voices From The Titanic and Sony’s purchase of the rights to The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Hachette).

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