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Awards & News

Rebecca Campbell’s novella Arboreality (Stelliform) wins the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. Tor.com has coverage.

The shortlist is announced for Scotland’s National Book Awards. The Bookseller has the news.

Newsweek writes about the TikTok theory that Taylor Swift is behind the pseudonym Elly Conway, whose spy novel Argylle (which is already being made into a film) will be published by Bantam in January. Vanity Fair investigates the claims and concludes that Swift is not Elly Conway.

Speaking at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Salman Rushdie says that if authors are only allowed to write characters similar to themselves and their own experiences, “the art of the novel ceases to exist”; The Guardian has reporting.

Page to Screen

October 27

Pain Hustlers, based on Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup by Evan Hughes (originally published as The Hard Sell). Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

Sight, based on the memoir From Darkness to Sight: A Journey from Hardship to Healing by Ming Wang. Briarcliff. Reviews | Trailer

November 2

All the Light We Cannot See, based on the novel by Anthony Doerr. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream by David Leonhardt (Random): “It’s a chronicle of almost a century of American economic life, rich with historical details and resonant narratives. It also makes a subtle but pointed argument about the present, offering a diagnosis of our current maladies and suggestions about the shape solutions could take”; and Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature by Dan Sinykin (Columbia Univ.): “Many academics are clinical prose stylists, but Sinykin writes with verve and narrative flair as he documents the consolidation of the major publishing houses—and, along the way, overturns the myth of ‘the romantic author,’ that lone genius unfettered by social circumstances or material constraints.”

NYT reviews The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (Gallery/Saga; LJ starred review): “It combines current concerns about race and justice for young Black men with an intensely readable, immersive story with decisive paranormal features”; and Absolution by Alice McDermott (Farrar): “The debacle of America’s involvement in Vietnam might easily have overdetermined McDermott’s story, and it is a measure of her skill that Absolution maintains an oblique relationship to the war.”

Vulture reviews Malarkoi by Alex Pheby (Tor): “While Pheby is writing fantasy, it’s clear that his interests are political…. These are books about the social dimension of madness, and they feel mad, too, with feverish descriptions of physical injury and terror.”

NPR reviews Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia by Nora Krug (Ten Speed Graphic): “With Diaries of War Krug incorporates her careful research and observation skills alongside attentive and thoughtful design and illustration to tell a multilayered story of the many emotional and psychic ravages of war.”

LitHub rounds up the best-reviewed books of the month, including the best-reviewed fiction and the best-reviewed nonfiction.

Briefly Noted

Tor.com announces the acquisition of two new novels by Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Adrian Tchaikovsky. The first, Service Model, is forthcoming from Tor.com Publishing in June 2024, with the second book to follow in 2026.

Actor Tom Selleck will publish a memoir, You Never Know, due out from Dey Street in May 2024, Kirkus reports.

The entire collection of Geoffrey Chaucer’s manuscripts held by the British Library is being made available in digital format, The Guardian reports. The British Library’s blog has more info about accessing the images.

NYT covers Britney Spears’s unique book tour: “No TV, No Podcasts, Lots of Instagram.”

K-Ming Chang, author of Organ Meats (One World), answers LitHub’s “Annotated Nightstand” questionnaire. Shondaland also talks to Chang.

Electric Lit interviews Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions (Avid Reader/S. & S.).

Curtis Chin, author of Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir (Little, Brown), speaks to Seattle Times.

Actor and novelist Richard Armitage, author of Geneva (Pegasus), answers The Guardian’s “The Books of My Life” questionnaire.

USA Today talks to Patrick Stewart, author of Making It So: A Memoir (Gallery).

The Guardian asks writers and readers to share the books they enjoyed in October.

Washington Post shares “suggestions for an evening of spooky reading.”

NYPL’s blog recommends “Thrilling Retellings of Classic Horror and Gothic Tales.”

NYT highlights “9 New Books We Recommend This Week,” “The Books That Explain California,” and six paperbacks to read this week.

CrimeReads rounds up 16 spooky novellas by women and nonbinary authors and the best debut novels of October.

Tor.com selects “5 Books That Explore the Drawbacks of a Superpowered Life.”

Elle recommends the “15 best fall books for cozy season.”

BookRiot finds “20 must-read historical fiction books set in France.”

Biographer Anthony Holden, a chronicler of the British royal family “who ruffled the palace,” dies at 76; NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

M.R. O’Connor, author of Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World (Bold Type), talks to LitHub’s Keen On podcast; Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel (Ecco), talks to Fiction/NonFiction; and Molly McGhee, author of Jonathan Abernathy, You Are Kind (Astra House), talks to The Maris Review.

Safiya Sinclair stops by the Today show to discuss her memoir, How To Say Babylon (S. & S.); Kirkus summarizes.

PBS NewsHour speaks with NYT columnist David Brooks about his new book, How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random).

Rumaan Alam talks to Hollywood Reporter about the film adaptation of his novel Leave the World Behind (Ecco).

Taron Egerton will star in a film adaptation of Jordan Harper’s Edgar Award–winning thriller She Rides Shotgun (Ecco), Variety reports.

FX is developing a TV series based on the debut satirical thriller All the Other Mothers Hate Me by journalist Sarah Harman, which is not due to be published until 2025, though it recently won the 2023 Lucy Cavendish Prize. Variety has coverage.

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