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Awards & Book Clubs

Oprah picks Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper) for her book club.

LA Times talks with Kingsolver about the book and the “big questions” that drive her plots.  

Datebook reviews: “It’s a book that demands we start paying attention to—and embracing—a long-ignored community and its people, not because of our collective shortcomings or failings, but in spite of them.” The Star Tribune also reviews: “Kingsolver has some of Mark Twain in her, along with 21st-century gifts of her own. More than ever, she is our literary mirror and window. May this novel be widely read and championed.”

Esi Edugyan wins $5K Victoria Book Prize for Massey Lectures book Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling (House of Anansi Pr.). CBC reports.

Ruth DeFries wins the 2022 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award for What Would Nature Do?: A Guide for Our Uncertain Times.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Last Chairlift by John Irving (S. & S.): “Preachy and tauntingly bawdy in patches, The Last Chairlift does have pleasurable stretches, when the air is clear and the terrain smooth.” The Guardian also reviews: “This novel is not for those without readerly stamina. At 912 pages, you are going to have to love John Irving dearly, or have a passion for reading novels come hell or high water.” Plus, there are reviews of three military history titles and six crime and mystery books.

The Washington Post reviews The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf): “Unlike the cerebral novels of Richard Powers, which create the illusion that you might actually understand neuropsychology, genetics or artificial intelligence, The Passenger casts readers into a black hole of ignorance.” And Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, tr. by Megan McDowell (Riverhead): “The Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin has straddled a subtly supernatural line at times, but her newest collection may be her most unsettling, and there is nothing unnatural about it.” Also README.txt: A Memoir by Chelsea Manning (Farrar): “Manning’s memoir decompresses the false equivalences that have been required of her and reconstructs the epiphanies that cemented her political convictions.” And Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind by Robert Draper (Penguin Pr.): “Fighting falsehood is all that matters if democracy is to survive, and Draper comes with the fiercest weapon yet: the truth.” Plus, The Cashless Revolution: China’s Reinvention of Money and the End of America’s Domination of Finance and Technology by Martin Chorzempa (Public Affairs: Hachette): “Despite the hyperbolic subtitle, the book is an authoritative, comprehensive and thoughtful account of a remarkable episode in technology and finance that offers lessons for the United States as it seeks to encourage innovation in finance without putting consumer or financial stability at risk.”

NPR reviews In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press by Katherine Corcoran (Bloomsbury): “In gripping detail, the book documents the existential gaslight that passes for institutional credibility in Mexico and the U.S.: the serial cover-ups, criminal bureaucrats, red tape, torture, the money trail to U.S. banks and race tracks, the deadly sweet spot where the private sector, the state and organized crime intersect.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for It Starts with Us, by Colleen Hoover (Atria), the top holds title of the week.

People has an interview with actor Matthew Perry and a preview of his forthcoming memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (Flatiron), due out November 1.

Simon & Schuster Audio will release The Trump Tapes, with over 8 hours of conversations between Donald Trump and Bob Woodward, on October 25. Publishers Lunch reports.

Shondaland speaks with Amber Tamblyn about the new anthology she edited, Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition (Park Row: Harlequin). Also, Joanna Quinn talks about The Whalebone Theatre (Knopf) and her writing process. Plus, Ralph Macchio reflects on his career and family in Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me (Dutton).

AARP shares “7 surprising takeaways” from Paul Newman’s memoir The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man (Knopf; LJ starred review).

NYT shares new releases for the week.

Mia Mercado, author of She’s Nice Though: Essays on Being Bad at Being Good, recommends “8 books for the recovering nice girl,” at ElectricLit.

BookRiot has lists of Halloween books for adults, witchy romances, and contemporary Jewish fiction.

Imogen Wes-Knights reflects on her strange trip down the Danube on the Gone Girl Cruise, for Slate.

Authors On Air

NPR’s All Things Considered talks with George Saunders about his new collection, Liberation Day: Stories (Random House).

The upcoming Netflix fantasy film Damsel will get a screen-to-page adaptation by Evelyn Skye, published by Random House. No release date has been announced. Tor.com reports.

William Shatner, author of Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, written with Joshua Brandon (Atria; LJ starred review), discusses his new book and weird journeys on Q with Tom Power.

April Ryan, author of Black Women Will Save the World: An Anthem (Amistad; LJ starred review), visits The View today.

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