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Awards, News & Events

Lauren Groff, Matrix (Riverhead; LJ starred review), wins the 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, which “honors a mid-career author of fiction who has earned a distinguished reputation and the widespread praise of readers and reviewers."

CBC Poetry Prize juror Megan Gail Coles talks about her poetry collection, Satched (House of Anansi Pr.), and “what she will be looking for from a CBC Poetry Prize poem.”

LA Times Festival of Books kicks off this weekend with a full slate of events.

Hillary Clinton will appear as a speaker at the Hay Festival's "Women & Power" series. The Guardian reports.

Eater pays homage to Martha Stewart Living magazine, whose final issue will publish in May. 

Reviews

USA Today reviews The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe (Harper Voyager; LJ starred review), giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: “By reframing aspects of social life and identity, which can often feel convoluted and heavy, in a heightened, dystopian context, Monáe reveals the simplicity of our shared humanity.”

NYT reviews Happy for You by Claire Stanford (Viking): “Anyone who has resisted fitting neatly into an algorithm will find a companion in Evelyn, and in this book.” And, Maradona: The Boy. The Rebel. The God. by Guillem Balague (Weidenfeld & Nicolson): “As Balagué writes, the narratives of soccer’s heroes and villains, often defined in the span of mere seconds, are 'built on quicksand.' Maradona’s legacy rests on firm ground, but there’s a sense that it is only now fully unraveling.” And, A Brief History of Equality by Thomas Piketty and Steven Rendall (Belknap Pr.): “Piketty writes as a citizen of the world, suspicious of nationalism, but his thinking strikes this American reader as noticeably European — indeed, specifically French.” Plus, short reviews of new mysteries, including The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus).

LA Times reviews End of the World House by Adrienne Celt (S. & S.): “Celt is a smart, convincing novelist, and her ambitious tweaks of the concept are fascinating and fun to grapple with. But the novel works best when it foregrounds the dynamic between Kate and Bertie as they navigate the loss of a friendship, the kind of pain that can feel like the end of the world.” And, Search by Michelle Huneven (Penguin Pr.): “Though thick with satirical moments, it is not quite a satire, since Huneven has too much respect for all her seekers. She stops just short of reducing them to stereotypes and regards their search as earnest, despite all the bruised egos, dead ends and outright silliness.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Dream Town by David Baldacci (Grand Central), the buzziest book of the week.

Shondaland talks with Louisa Lim about her new book, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong (Riverhead; LJ starred review), and the complex history and identity of Hong Kong.

Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating (HarperVia; LJ starred review), discusses “vampirism as a metaphor for colonialism, consumerism, and mixed-race identity,” at ElectricLit.

Vogue talks with award-winning chef Reem Assil about her new cookbook, Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora (Ten Speed Pr.), which she calls “a love letter to my people.”

Entertainment Weekly has a preview and cover reveal for Betty Gilpin’s forthcoming memoir, All the Women in My Brain: And Other Concerns (Flatiron), which publishes September 6th. EW also shares the cover and details from Alan Moore’s first short-story collection, Illuminations (Bloomsbury), due out October 11.

FoxNews highlights and shares Rebekah Koffler’s foreward from the new book, Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero Who Defied Putin and United the World by Andrew L. Urban and Chris McLeod (Regnery).

OprahDaily shares Jhumpa Lahiri’s afterword of her forthcoming book, Translating Myself and Others (Princeton Univ. Pr.), due out May 17.

The Atlantic has 8 books on social change.

BookRiot lists “The Great Millenial Novels (So Far).”

Samantha Jayne Allen, Pay Dirt Road (Minotaur: St. Martin’s; LJ starred review), recommends 7 books of crime and coming-of-age, at CrimeReads.

USA Today compiles juicy revelations from the current class of celebrity memoirs, and rounds up the best reviewed rom-coms for April.

The Millions has a booklist featuring “Ten Essential Fictional Frenemies.”

The Guardian has the top 10 books on gardening.

Authors On Air

NPR’s All Things Considered talks with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about his new book, Searching for Peace: A Memoir of Israel (Brookings Institution Pr.).

T&C rounds up details on the forthcoming Regency-era romance film, Mr. Malcolm's List, based on the book by Suzanne Allain. A Movie Tie-in edition (Berkley) publishes June 21.

Andy Serkis will direct an animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Deadline reports. 

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