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Awards News

The 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalists are announced.

The 2021 Odyssey Scholarship Recipients are announced.

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

Vortex by Catherine Coulter (Morrow) spins to No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Her Deadly Touch by Lisa Regan (Bookouture) starts at No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Finding Lexie by Susan Stoker rises to No. 10 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Nonfiction

The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism by Tucker Carlson (Threshold: S. & S.) debuts at No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 6 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP by Mirin Fader (Hachette) scores No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Breathe by Rickson Gracie with Peter Maguire (Dey Street: HarperCollins) starts at No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Reviews

NPR Fresh Air reviews Dream Girl by Laura Lippman (HarperAudio): “Packed with social criticism, satire, ghosts and narrative turns of the screw, Lippman's Dream Girl is indeed a dream of a novel. And all the literary pilferings Lippman herself has committed here are acknowledged, front and center.”

NYT reviews Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman (Viking; LJ starred review): "That said, “Reign of Terror” is not well served by its chronological structure, which is long, dense and packed with extraneous detail. (The book is so prolix it features both an introduction and a prologue, three dedications and three epigraphs.) There’s so much extra story crammed into this story that the familiar parts sometimes overshadow the fresher ones." Also, The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet by Arthur Turrell (Scribner): "It is certainly good that governments haven’t dropped the ball and that start-up companies are pursuing novel approaches, even if evidence of their progress is hard to come by. But the field suffers from hype, obfuscation, empty promises and well-meaning enthusiasts like Turrell who uncritically report what those with vested interests say. What nuclear fusion most needs is a reality check. This book isn’t it."

The Washington Post reviews Center, Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet by James Whiteside (Viking: Penguin): "In “Center Center,” the principal dancer’s new “almost-memoir,” Whiteside has written a thoughtful collection of essays that gives readers insight into what it means to be the kind of creative who can’t be pigeonholed into one genre and is determined to constantly question the status quo." Also, Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina by Georgina Pazcoguin (Holt; LJ starred review): "Georgina Pazcoguin has not only studied with some of the ballet’s best-known teachers; she has also taken courses in butchery. It’s the latter skill that she puts to fine use in her witty, sobering, hell-raising memoir, “Swan Dive.” She exposes more turmoil at New York City Ballet than any fictional ballet melodrama could hope to match. Good luck trying to look away while she eviscerates the institution."

Lit Hub has "5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week."

Briefly Noted

Laurent Binet, author of Civilizations (FSG), “imagines what might have been if the Incas invaded Europe in the 16th century” for NYT. Also, Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner (Riverhead: Random House), reflects on his birthplace of Afghanistan and “the pain and frustration of watching the country from afar”. Plus, a feature piece on Brenda Lozano’s Loop (Charco: Consortium) and how her experimental book goes “round and round in circles.” Additionally, there are several books in an essay about mythical beasts including those in The Penguin Book of Mermaids (Penguin), edited by Christina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown. Also, an interview with William Kent Krueger, Lightning Strike (Atria; LJ starred review) about books that inspire him. Plus, an article on Anthony Veasna So's debut of Afterparties (Ecco) being what "he'd always wanted."

Entertainment Weekly has a first look of Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux: Macmillan). Tor.com has a cover reveal for Joma West’s debut book Face (Tor Books: Macmillan).

Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem (Tor Books: Macmillan), will have his short stories adapted into graphic novels. Tor.com has more.

Meghan McCain discusses her new memoir, Bad Republican, to be released by Audible on Oct 21 as well as her exit from The View, and being a mother with People.

CrimeReads features a conversation with Aya De Leon of A Spy in the Struggle (Dafina: Kensington), Lauren Wilkinson of American Spy (Random House), and Rosalie Knecht of Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery (Tin House: W. W. Norton) discussing the evolution of intersectional espionage fiction.

Poets & Writers features a piece by Lily Meyer on "the responsibilities and pleasures of translation."

Kathryn Davis, The Silk Road (Graywolf: Macmillan), fills out the Book Marks Questionnaire.

Tor.com has “8 SFF Books to Read for an Endless Summer.”

CrimeReads lists "Eight Science Fiction and Fantasy Heist Novels."

Lit Hub provides “When You’re Craving Oddities: 5 Books You May Have Missed in July.”

Authors on Air

Eyal Press, author of Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America (Farrar; LJ starred review), speaks with NPR’s Fresh Air about the importance of getting to know people who do “dirty work” for everyone else.

The Reading Women podcast features a conversation about Aimee Nezhukumatahil’s World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (Milkweed: Ingram), The Way Through the Woods: On Mushrooms and Mourning by Litt Woon Long (Random House), “climate grief and indigenous land and water stewardship.”

Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (West Virginia Univ.) chats with Jordan Kisner about “getting out of a bad marriage, learning to embrace life again, and doing it all while putting together a short story collection” on the Thresholds podcast.

Defne Suman, The Silence of Scheherazade (Head of Zeus), reads from her book for Damian Barr’s Literary Salon. 

Shadow and Act interviews the cast of Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the book by Liane Moriarty, including Regina Hall, Manny Jacinto, Bobby Cannavale, Samara Weaving, and Melvin Gregg.

William L. Silber, The Power of Nothing to Lose: The Hail Mary Effect in Politics, War, and Business (Morrow: HarperCollins), chats about "the phenomenon in which situations with a big upside and limited downside trigger gambling behavior like a Hail Mary" with the Keen On podcast.

Vanessa Zoltan, author of Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice (TarcherPerigree; LJ starreed review), discusses what "drew her to attend divinity school despire being a devout atheist" on the Book Dreams podcast.

AudioFile features on episode on Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood by Kwame Mbalia (Delacorte: Random House) with an "outstanding ensemble of Black male and non-binary writers together in the a captivating audio anthology."

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