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Canada Reads, Awards & News

Canada Reads 2022 returns for its 21st season. Billed as a "literary Survivor," CBC's annual Battle of the Books features celebrity "champions" who promote their contenders until one book is left standing at the end of the week. Watch yesterday's replay here.

Elaine Midcoh wins the 2022 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.

The 2022 IAFA Awards winners are announced. Locus has details.

NDP Books reports via press release that the “U.S. print book market year-to-date (YTD) performance declined by 6% year to date (YTD) through the week ending March 19, 2022.” The report goes on to say that one of the causes for the decline is the time of year. There is a sales “trough between Valentine’s Day and Easter/Mother’s Day.”

Reviews

NYT reviews Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age by Betsy Prioleau (Abrams): “Prioleau, to her credit, does not let us take the girlboss and leave the racist; her subject is no heroine, no role model, no rebel. For all that, her story sparkles, as intoxicating as a champagne fountain that somebody else is paying for.” And, Out There by Kate Folk (Random): “Folk’s stories have been compared to Shirley Jackson’s, and this is most apparent in the way Folk balances her horror with humor.” Also, A House Between Earth and the Moon by Rebecca Scherm (Viking): “is a thought-provoking and absorbing read. By deftly combining the subjects of big tech and climate change, Scherm has created a world that fully embodies the anxiety and indignity of our times.” And, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins (Knopf; LJ starred review): “When Elkins condemns British imperialism, she must be aware that its single most successful achievement is the United States, a legacy of violence if there ever was one. This has given Americans a perspective they don’t always recognize.” And, Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton (Random): “a literary feat that simultaneously builds and excavates identity, and it’s a blueprint for making something of cultural, intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual and genetic legacies often burdened with messy debris.” Also, Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross (Norton; LJ starred revew): “Gross takes on a herculean task, exploring female anatomy from a medical, social and historical perspective, in eight chapters ranging in topic from the glans clitoris to the egg cell to the vaginal microbiome.” Plus, Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time by Natalie Hodges (Bellevue Literary Pr.): “is an indeed uncommon and genre-defying book probably best shelved under ‘memoir,’ though its essayistic form and intermittently pedagogic style can give one the not-unpleasant feeling of sitting in a lecture or concert hall as someone else’s emotion and erudition washes over you.” Lastly, there are two short reviews of new translations that highlight the scars of Ukraine’s war. 

The Washington Post reviews Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby (Ballantine; LJ starred review): "For a comic critiqued by some misguided souls as not being funny enough, Gadsby sure understands how to get the last laugh." And, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse (Flatiron; LJ starred review): “it’s Krouse’s own persona, with her supernatural powers, her supersize wounds, and her spiritual speedball of courage and vulnerability, that makes this book mesmerizing on every page.” 

Datebook reviews The Candy House by Jennifer Egan (Scribner; LJ starred review): “I could have done without the 50 (!) pages in the form of an email exchange toward the end, which felt more gratuitous than engaging. But that said, this is a beautiful exploration of loss, memory and history, a not too subtle critique of what is lost when we live our lives online.” The Washington Post also reviews: "The music that ran through Goon Squad and gave the novel its melody is far harder to hear in these new chapters. Also, 12 years later, readers are less likely to be awed by literary experimentation. A chapter of tweets earns no ♥ now. A second-person narrator? You shouldn’t have."

Briefly Noted

Roxane Gay Books announces first three titles, due out in 2023. LitHub has details.

Datebook talks with Kate Folk about her “terrifically absurdist debut” story collection, Out There (Random).

The Rumpus has a Q&A with John Elizabeth Stintzi about their novel My Volcano (Two Dollar Radio), which the author describes as “doomscrolling in novel form,” but “with more heart than the algorithm.”

ElectricLit talks with Carley Moore about her forthcoming novel Panpocalypse (Amethyst Editions), due out April 5th, and “transforming the Orpheus myth into a queer narrative about disability during Covid times.”

USA Today interviews Judd Apatow about his new book Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy (Random), “his show-business brood and COVID-era comedy.”

LA Times talks with Grant Ginder about dysfunctional comedy and his new book, Let's Not Do That Again (Henry Holt & Co.).

William Maz, The Bucharest Dossier (Oceanview Publishing), writes about life in “1980s Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu's repressive regime” for CrimeReads.

FoxNews shares a mac and cheese recipe from Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts by Daniel Holzman and Matt Rodbard (Harper Wave).

LitHub has 15 books for the week.

The Millions shares notable new releases.

The Washington Post has 10 noteworthy books for April.

CrimeReads highlights the best new crime nonfiction.

ElectricLit has “what to read when you feel uprooted," and 10 novels about art and artists.

BookRiot shares new releases for the week, “9 nonfiction books about disability by people of marginalized genders,” and 8 books about eugenics in the US.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with Scott Carney about his new book, The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation, written with Jason Miklian (Ecco; LJ starred review), and the cyclone that divided Pakistan.

NPR’s Morning Edition revisits the problem with the Asian fantasy book category.

Nina Millns’s forthcoming darkly satiric debut novel Goddesses (S. & S.), due out in 2023, will be adapted for TV. Deadline reports.

The comic book series "Black," created by Kwanza Osajyefo and Tim Smith, will be adapted for the big screen. Tor has the story.

NPR’s Fresh Air previews HBO Max’s new series Julia, about how legendary author and chef Julia Child started her famous TV cooking series. 

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