Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Award News & Buzzy Books News

Michelle Obama will publish a new book this fall.  Due out November 15 from Crown, The Light We Carry will offer readers “a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress.”

The 2022 World Fantasy Awards finalists are announced. Tordotcom has details.

The shortlist for the Waterstones debut fiction prize is announced, including Sequoia Nagamatsu, Eloghosa Osunde, Tara M Stringfellow, Bonnie Garmus, Tess Gunty and Louise Kennedy. The Guardian has coverage.

The 2022 Furphy Literary Award shortlist is announced. Books + Publishing reports.

CrimeReads lists the best crime fiction books of the year (so far).

Stephen King, Andrew Solomon, and more are set to testify in the PRH antitrust trial. LitHub reports. 

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci (Grand Central) boards the No. 1 spot on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware (Scout; LJ starred review) sparkles at No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 8 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Upgrade by Blake Crouch (Ballantine) starts at No. 6 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

The Best Is Yet to Come by Debbie Macomber (Ballantine) debuts at No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Tanqueray by Brandon Stanton and Stephanie Johnson (St. Martin’s) takes No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 11 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission by Mark Leibovich (Penguin Pr.) performs at No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

They Want to Kill All Americans by Malcolm Nance (St. Martin’s) begins at No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The Washington Post has a snapshot of its hardcover bestsellers. 

Reviews

NYT reviews Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda trans. by Alison Watts (Bittler Lemon Pr.): “Fish Swimming doesn’t lack for originality, but its substance is less compelling than its form. The fish are hard to pin down, sure, and there’s some pleasure to be had in watching them. This is not quite enough, though, to sustain a suspense novel.” Plus, paired reviews of Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor (Flatiron), and Wake by Shelley Burr (Morrow): “we have two politically savvy, cleverly plotted murder mysteries — the kinds of books that invite the ravenous language of binge reading: compulsive, propulsive, addictive.”

LA Times reviews Reward System: Stories by Jem Calder (Farrar): “Throughout these half-dozen stories, the young British debut author masters a kind of maximal minimalism, piling on details and allusions while stripping away illusions. Imagine a slightly less coy Sally Rooney paired with a highly perceptive alien, with strangely illuminating results.”

Book Marks picks “5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Laura Chinn chats about childhood trauma and what led her to write the new memoir, Acne (Hachette), with OprahDaily.

ElectricLit talks with Elvia Wilk, Death by Landscape (Soft Skull), about “living and writing in a time of planetary extinction.”

Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review), talks with NPR’s Andrew Limbong about her latest novel, and her “year of death and internet clout.”

Ruth Ware, The It Girl (Scout; LJ starred review), answers the NYT’s By the Book questionnaire.

NYT features the new project from OED and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research to publish a new Oxford Dictionary of African American English, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

LA Times talks with poet Safia Elhillo about her new collection, Girls That Never Die (One World).

NYT’s "Inside the Best-Seller List" looks at Gabrielle Zevin’s approach to social media in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Knopf; LJ starred review).

The Guardian suggests “Where to start with: Toni Morrison.”

OprahDaily ranks the best Game of Thrones books by George R. R. Martin in anticipation of the Aug. 21 premiere of House of the Dragon on HBO.

CrimeReads suggests private-school thrillers that adults will love, and considers why so many long-running series are thriving. Plus, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Del Rey; LJ starred review), writes about “eugenics, racism, and creation gone awry.”

BookRiot recommends 10 full-cast audiobooks, “11 books with magic and mischief-making,” and 8 books that spoil the mystery up front. Plus, a list of suggested online book clubs.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks to Lindsey Fitzharris about her new book, The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I (Farrar), and the legacy of Dr. Harold Gillies.

NPR’s Morning Edition discusses U.S. Quidditch and Major League Quidditch’sdecision to rebrand as quadball in an effort to distance itself from author J.K. Rowling.

HBO’s GOT prequel series House of the Dragon, based on the books by George R. R. Martin, gets a trailer.

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.