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Awards, News & Buzzy Books

Vogue lists “The Best Books of 2024 So Far.”

The 2024 Indie Book Awards shortlists are announced. Books + Publishing has details. 

Canada Reads 2024 names this year’s contenders. CBC has the story.

The African American Film Critics Association announces the winners of the 15th Annual AAFCA Awards, including several literary adaptations: Killers of the Flower Moon, based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann; American Fiction, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett; Oppenheimer, based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird; Stamped from the Beginning, based on the book by Ibram X. Kendi; and The Color Purple, based on the book by Alice Walker. 

StokerCon 2024 announces new Guests of Honor Justina Ireland and Nisi Shawl. Locus has details.

The Internet asks: “Who is Elly Conway?” People, Vulture, Vanity Fair, Variety, and Washington Post all weigh in on the identity of the Argylle (Bantam) author, amid the resurgence of a debunked rumor that Taylor Swift is involved. 

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka (Doubleday): “There’s a persistent ahistoricity in Filterworld, a deification of the past that ultimately weakens an otherwise persuasive argument.” NPR also reviews: “Chayka is so successful in documenting this frustrating aspect of modern life that his overarching argument—that readers should depend more on word-of-mouth recommendations and cultivate their sense of personal taste through time and effort—feels unhelpful, like a band-aid on a larger problem.” The Atlantic also weighs in: “The book is a work of explanatory criticism, offering an in-depth consideration of the invisible forces people invoke when talking about ‘the algorithm.’ Filterworld, in that, does the near impossible: It makes algorithms, those dull formulas of inputs and outputs, fascinating.”

NYT reviews The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History by Manjula Martin (Pantheon): “The paradox of fire is just one of a number she explores in the book. She works through her own contradictory experiences and confusions”; and Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle (Random): “Maybe because it is the only piece of a vast universe that most of us will ever get to experience: All you have to do is look up. Or, of course, look down into Boyle’s new book, which makes the moon feel closer than ever.”

The Guardian reviews Piglet by Lottie Hazell (Holt): “Piglet is an easy novel to pass a Sunday afternoon with, but Hazell’s chosen points of interest are valiantly inflammatory ones, and one wishes they were interrogated less politely. Perhaps next time, they might be.”

The Rumpus reviews Molly by Blake Butler (powerHouse Books): “But even before that revelation, the memoir feels like the clash of two competing impulses: the need for Butler to grieve for someone he clearly loved deeply, and his urge to make sense of who she was—and why she hurt him in the ways she did.”

Seattle Times reviews The Fetishist by Katherine Min (Putnam): “There’s hardly a sentence in this book—feverish and funny and razor-sharp—that does not merit quoting.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for The Fury by Alex Michaelides (Celadon; LJ starred review), the top holds title of the week.

LJ has new prepub alerts.

Buzz Books 2024: Spring/Summer from Publishers Lunch is available now on Edelweiss and Netgalley. A virtual Buzz Editors and Authors Panel will be held on January 24. 

Abbott Kahler talks about the creative process of writing her debut novel, Where You End (Holt), with Shondaland.

The Rumpus has an interview with Julie Myerson about her new novel, Nonfiction (Tin House).

NYT previews a new musical based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, coming to Broadway in March. LitHub asks: “Do we really need another adaptation of The Great Gatsby?”

People shares details and an excerpt from gymnast Maggie Nichols’s new memoir, Unstoppable!: My Journey from World Champion to Athlete A to 8-Time NCAA National Gymnastics Champion and Beyond (Roaring Brook)

ElectricLit talks with Annie Liontas about their new memoir, Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery (Scribner).

John Kanell announces his second cookbook, Preppy Kitchen Super Easy: 100 Simple and Versatile Recipes (S. & S.: Simon Element), due out in August. People has the story.

Vogue highlights 10 vegan cookbooks.

NYT recommends 4 new romance books.

CrimeReads previews “The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2024.”

Shondaland recommends “Five Reads Perfect for Chilly Days.”

BookRiot suggests “The Best Book Club Books for 2024.”

Authors on Air

Benjamin Breen discusses his new book, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science (Grand Central), with NPR’s Fresh Air. 

PBS Canvas talks with Cat Bohannon about her book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution (Knopf).

ALA’s Call Number podcast says “Good Morning, Baltimore!” ahead of this weekend’s LibLearnX conference.

Bustle writes about AMC’s Monsieur Spade, based on characters by Dashiell Hammett.

Isabela Ferrer and Alex Neustaedter are cast in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, Deadline reports.

Netflix’s Spaceman, based on Jaroslav Kalfař’s novel Spaceman of Bohemia (Back Bay), gets a new trailer.

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