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Awards & Buzzy Book News

Fatimah Asghar wins the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction with When We Were Sisters (One World), CBC Books reports.

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award releases its 2023 longlist.

“Illinois lawmakers greenlight bill requiring libraries in state to adopt anti–book banning policy,” reports Fox News. Book Riot also covers the news.

Banned Book Library, an outdoor art installation in New York City, will draw “attention to crisis of book bans in public schools,” as announced by PEN America.

More news sources dive deep into the Writers Guild of America strike with The Hollywood Reporter discussing a newly released four-page document detailing “Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ [AMPTP] position in ongoing negotiations,” “what writers can work on during the strike,” how the strike might affect the Cannes Film Festival happening in two weeks, and word from the CEO of Paramount on the impact to consumers. Deadline explains the strike in detail, the counterpoints made by the AMPTP, what it looks like inside the strike meetings, and Drew Barrymore withdrawing as host of the MTV Movie & TV Awards in support of the strike. Also, “Studios Push Back on WGA’s ‘Gig Economy’ Claims, Reject TV ‘Hiring Quota,’” according to Variety. Finally, Variety weighs in on what the strike means for on-screen entertainment.

Book Riot announces the “First National Black Authors Day.”

The Seattle Times recommends books to read to celebrate “Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.”

Authors Karin Slaughter, Janice Hallett, and Abir Mukherjee will take part in events during National Crime Reading Month in June, according to The Bookseller. 

The Star Tribune announces Pen Pals’ next season lineup including Abraham Verghese and Geraldine Brooks.

BookNet Canada releases the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2022. LJ has coverage.

Cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch dies at 81. NYT has more.

CrimeReads remembers Peter Robinson, author of recently released Standing in the Shadows (Morrow). 

Page to Screen

May 5:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, based on associated titles. Marvel Studios. Reviews | Trailer

Love Again, based on the book by Sofie Cramer. Sony Screen Gems. No reviews | Trailer

The Eight Mountains, based on the book by Paolo Cognetti. Janus Films. Reviews | Trailer

Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh. Apple TV+. No reviews | Trailer

Silo, based on the book series by Hugh Howey. Apple TV+. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman (Dutton): “The grandly researched portrait of a talent who didn’t get her due, a kind of worst-case study of why this indignity remains a brutally common occurrence”; Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets by Burkhard Bilger (Random): “A personal document, not because it often lapses into reminiscence, but because it doubles as a commentary on its own composition”; Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester (Harper): “Largely a synthesis of Winchester’s extensive but focused reading, amplified with occasional short borrowings from his own magazine articles and earlier writing. Informative and entertaining throughout, it is packed tight with his usual array of striking factoids”; and Blue Skies by T.C. Boyle (Liveright): “It is not at all clear that Boyle shares his characters’ optimism (or is it obliviousness?), but this fiercely honest writer shows us what he sees and invites his readers to draw their own conclusions.”

NYT reviews three historical fiction books: At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf by Tara Ison (Ig Publishing), The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane (Farrar), and Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton (Ecco). 

WSJ reviews The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks, illus. by R. Sikoryak (Knopf): “For better or worse, satire doesn’t seem to be what Mr. Hanks had in mind. With The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece he has composed a valentine to the unsung and the frequently uncredited worker bees of his industry, of, you know, this business of show”; and The Watchmaker’s Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom by Larry Loftis (Morrow): “Corrie ten Boom’s indomitable faith in the face of evil was extraordinary, and The Watchmaker’s Daughter recounts a story that deserves to be remembered.”

Datebook reviews Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming by Ava Chin (Penguin Pr.): “An important read for those interested in learning about the origins of some of today’s most hard-line immigration policy proposals in America.”

NPR reviews Gone to the Wolves by John Wray (Farrar): “a powerful and juicy novel about a particular time, subculture, and the ways people can find themselves in—or can deliberately disappear into—fandom.”

Briefly Noted

The Millions interviews Camille T. Dungy about her latest book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (S. & S.) and “the issues of justice, wilderness, brutality, and neighborliness.”

Hannah Matthews, You or Someone You Love: Reflections from an Abortion Doula (Atria), talks to Vogue about how her book is “an ode to the life-saving, community-building potential of abortion.”

Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View, talks to Salon about how her newly released Summer on Sag Harbor (Morrow) “elevates the beach read with Black stories at the forefront.” Also, Gretchen Rubin, Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World (Crown), on “the path to living a fuller life.”

Essence features a conversation with Kobe Campbell TikTok-famous licensed trauma therapist and author of Why Am I Like This?: How To Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith (Nelson).

Shondaland highlights author interviews with author Christina Wong and illustrator Daniel Innes of Denison Avenue (ECW) on creating “a book that asks who gets left behind by gentrification” and also, Alexandra Auder, Don’t Call Me Home (Viking), on “fame, family, and finding art.”

Datebook talks to Dave Eggers about his newest book, The Eyes and the Impossible (McSweeney’s) and the “animal instincts” it took to write it.

Hugh Howey, the author whose work has been adapted to make Silo, discusses “his new Apple TV+ show, artificial intelligence, and why everyone’s got dystopia fever” in an interview with Wired. 

Helen Oyeyemi, Peaces (Riverhead), explores the “rebel vocabulary” of the newly translated edition of The Illiterate by Ágota Kristóf (New Directions) for Lit Hub.

Tor.com shares an excerpt from Dual Memory by Sue Burke (Tor). 

Lit Hub has a cover reveal for The Fetishist by Katherine Min (Putnam). 

NYT shares 6 paperback books for the week and a selection of 6 royal reads. 

Electric Lit gives “9 Books About Immigrants to the Middle East.”

Tor.com provides “All the New Horror and Genre-Bending Books Arriving in May.”

Authors on Air

Paul Kix, author of You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America (Celadon; LJ starred review), chats about the 1963 Birmingham Campaign on the Keen On podcast. Also, Brendan Ballou expounds on the subject of his book, Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan To Pillage America (PublicAffairs).

NPR interviews Camille T. Dungy about challenging “the norms of gardening stories,” in her new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (S. & S.). 

Jaime Green, The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos (Hanover Square: Harlequin; LJ starred review), talks to The Maris Review podcast about “writing a book about science (with an MFA).”

Priscilla Gilman discusses what it was like growing up as she details in her book The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir (Norton) with Just the Right Book podcast.

Authors B.J. Best, Andrew Ervin, and Brittney Morris converse about “video games, storytelling, and the importance of play” on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast. 

CBC Books highlights book recommendations from their comedy podcast Let’s Not Be Kidding.

Cinema Guild acquired U.S. rights to the documentary, Umberto Eco: A Library of the World, which will have a limited release June 30. Deadline reports. 

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