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Book News & Awards

David Baldacci has been named the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion to recognize “a lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers.”

The 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations are out. The best novel nominees are Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke (Grove Atlantic), All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron), The Madwomen of Paris by Jennifer Cody Epstein (Ballantine), Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (S. & S.), An Honest Man by Michael Koryta (Mulholland), The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger (Atria), and Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday). 

The shortlist is announced for the Wingate Literary Prize for the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.

A Texas law requiring books to be rated for sexual content has been blocked by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; Publishing Perspectives has coverage.

The Association of American Publishers announces its support for Fairly Trained, a nonprofit that certifies generative AI providers for training without copyright infringement, Publishing Perspectives reports.

New Title Best Sellers 

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books 

Fiction

Sanctuary of the Shadow by Aurora Ascher (Entangled) powers its way to No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list and No. 5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Holmes, Marple & Poe: The Greatest Crime-Solving Team of the Twenty-First Century by James Patterson & Brian Sitts (Little, Brown) solves the case at No. 6 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake (Tor) claims No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

Nonfiction

Venture Meets Mission: Aligning People, Purpose, and Profit to Innovate and Transform Society by Arun Gupta, Gerard George, and Thomas Fewer (Stanford Business Books) takes No. 11 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Aednan: An Epic by Linnea Axelsson (Knopf), tr. by Saskia Vogel: “Generations unfold across the book’s often incantatory, alternating first-person sections, forming a chorus that unites Sámi herders living in tents in 1913 with their latter-day counterparts…. Like the best epics, Aednan is a story not just of a people but also of people, full of sonorous power yet shot through with an undeniable intimacy”; True North by Andrew J. Graff (Ecco): “Given the paucity of hope and happiness in contemporary literary fiction, those feelings must be a lot harder to produce than irony and despair. If you’re looking for a story that lets grace finally wash over its characters, come on down”; The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (S.& S./Marysue Rucci): “Less interested in probing the geopolitical and moral questions arising from colonialism than in humanizing the effects of oppression on a few individuals”; and The Making of a King: King Charles III and the Modern Monarchy by Robert Hardman (Pegasus): “Hardman, who had access to royal records, friends and staff, has assembled an impressive account of recent events in the House of Windsor. It’s also decidedly pro-establishment.”

NPR’s Fresh Air reviews You Only Call When You're in Trouble by Stephen McCauley (Holt): “It offers readers not only the expansive gift of laughter but, also, a more expansive image of what family can be.”

NYT reviews four “saucy” January romance novels.

Briefly Noted

NYT’s “Inside the Best-Seller List” covers First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (Pamela Dorman: Viking).

Janice Y.K. Lee, author of the Amazon-adapted The Expatriates (Viking; LJ starred review), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

In Entertainment Weekly, Alex Michaelides explains how therapy and Greece inspired his novel The Fury (Celadon; LJ starred review), the top holds title of the week.

The Millions interviews Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive (Grove Atlantic; LJ starred review).

CrimeReads recommends “9 great speculative whodunnits” and recent crime novels by AAPI authors.

Publishers Weekly has six new books on the Holocaust, World War II, and wartime leadership.

Tor.com lists five books that illustrate the Peter Principle (“every employee tends to rise to the level of his incompetence”).

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air speaks to Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture (Doubleday).

Warner Bros is acquiring Kristin Hannah’s forthcoming historical novel The Women (St. Martin’s), due out in February, for adaptation. Deadline has the news.

An Anthony Kiedis biopic is in the works, based on the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman’s memoir Scar Tissue (Hachette), reports Deadline.

Chandler Baker’s short story “Big Bad” (Amazon) is being acquired for adaptation by Lionsgate, Deadline says.

Shelf Awareness rounds up the schedule for this weekend’s Book TV on C-SPAN2.

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