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Awards, News & 2023 Reads

The Story Prize announces finalists, including Natural History by Andrea Barrett (Norton), Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (Farrar; LJ starred review), and Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House). 

The Millions releases its “Most Anticipated: The Great 2023A Book Preview.”

The Washington Post previews “What to Read in 2023.”

AARP has “41 of Winter’s Best New Books.”

Tor.com shares “All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in January.”

Vogue lists “The Best—and Most Anticipated—Books of 2023 (So Far).”

National Endowment for the Humanities announces grants. NYT reports.

Reviews

NYT reviews Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas (Norton; LJ starred review): “The prose can be expository at times, but the stories of civilians in the grip of uncertainty make for a haunting account and a daring debut”; The Deluge by Stephen Markley (S. & S.; LJ starred review): “It may endure as a climate-fiction classic, but it’s less than the sum of its parts, undermined by its length and labyrinthine design”; Flora Macdonald, “Pretty Young Rebel” : Her Life and Story by Flora Fraser (Knopf): “In…her well-researched and enthusiastic biography, Flora Fraser recounts Macdonald’s life based on facts culled from published and archival sources on both sides of the Atlantic”; The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-up in Oakland by Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham (Atria): “You cannot accuse these reporters of importing outside narratives to fit this community. Every city contemplating the future of its police force could use a book like this”; and The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer (Riverhead): “For Iyer, this thing that could never be fathomed—the self, the past, one’s ancestors, the world—is also, first and foremost, death. It is everywhere in this book.” NPR also reviews The Half-Known Life: “A mesmerizing collection of essays that vividly recalls sojourns to mostly contentious yet fabled realms, Pico Iyer’s The Half Known Life upends the conventional travel genre by offering a paradoxical investigation of paradise.”

The Washington Post reviews Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan (Agate Midway; LJ starred review): “Although never sanctimonious, [Regan] summons her readers to the forest. She reminds us of nature’s great variety. She calls on us to look with new eyes at what we may once have considered pests (like nettles) or merely part of the scenery (like cedar, which she uses to flavor custard).”

The Guardian reviews Spare by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex (Random House): “Spare is by turns compassion-inducing, frustrating, oddly compelling and absurd.”

Briefly Noted

NYT offers 11 takeaways from Prince Harry’s memoir Spare (Random House). USA Today shares details. The Irish Times has coverage, as do Time and Bustle. NPR’s Morning Edition discusses the book’s release today. 

LA Times talks with Pico Iyer about his book The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise (Riverhead) and how COVID lockdowns influenced its writing.

Deepti Kapoor discusses her new novel, Age of Vice (Riverhead; LJ starred review), with Shondaland.

Electric Lit has a conversation with author Li Zi Shu and translator YZ Chin about Li’s novel The Age of Goodbyes (The Feminist Press at CUNY).

Salon explains a romance writer’s deception: “The strange case of the undead writer.”

Vogue recommends “What to Read and Watch If You’ve Got the January Blues.”

BookRiot highlights new releases for the week, new winter lifestyle books, and eight new queer indie books. 

“Charles Simic, Pulitzer-Winning Poet and U.S. Laureate, Dies at 84.” NYT has an obituary. USA Today also has a remembrance. 

“Naomi Replansky, Poet of Hopeful Struggle, Dies at 104.”

“Jean Paré, Best-Selling ‘Everyday’ Cookbook Author, Dies at 95.” NYT has obituaries.

Authors on Air

PBS Canvas talks with author Jim Popkin about his book Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed (Hanover Square).

NPR’s Fresh Air chats with Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You (MCD; LJ starred review), about growing up “feeling judged—and confused—by race.”

Brad Meltzer, The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot To Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill (Flatiron), will visit The Kelly Clarkson Show tomorrow. 

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