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Awards & Buzzy Book News

Simon Jimenez wins the 2023 International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts Crawford Award for The Spear Cuts Through Water (Del Rey). 

The 2023 longlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is announced.

PEN Translates announces its winners.

Publishers Lunch covers the effect that the Harper Union strike is having on the non-union employees.

Barbra Streisand will come out with a new memoir, My Name is Barbra (Viking), this fall. The Seattle Times and Dateline have the news.

NYT recognizes Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a well-known 19th century Black poet and Suffragist.

February’s EarlyWord GalleyChat spreadsheet is released.

The Washington Post's Book Club newletter shares findings on "what readers hate most in books."

Authors Charles Silverstein has died at 87 and Ted Bell has died at 76. NYT has more on their lives and work.

Reviews

NYT reviews When Trying to Return Home by Jennifer Maritza McCauley (Counterpoint): “Within a crowded field of collections that explore family, motherhood and identity, this debut makes the case for one more.” Also, Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl (Spiegel & Grau): “Seeing such personal and national sorrows side by side, the reader appreciates how any kind of loss is ultimately made up of everyday, nameable parts.” Plus, Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal, trans. by Jessica Moore (Archipelago): “vividly evokes the Russian military’s disorder and brutality and the desperation of the men who have been forced to serve in it.” Fourthly, My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig (Grove): “The most compelling moments occur when the reader is prompted to scrutinize the narrator’s point of view and, by extension, the occlusions of the memoir form.” And, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (FSG): “In this graceful novel, the game of squash becomes a way into Gopi’s grief and her attempts to process it. Only on the court does she have space to grieve alone, independent of her sisters, to submit to the void and find her footing within it.” Fifthly, The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets by Matthew Connelly (Pantheon): "makes the case that the culture of secrecy diminishes democracy. And it has now become a culture of destruction as well." Finally, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical by Laurie Winer (Yale Univ.): "a handsome, sobersided production from Yale University Press, and it displays a reasoned and discerning tone throughout. Yet there’s no mistaking, underneath, an author drunk on Broadway’s blazonry."

The Washington Post reviews The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson (S. & S.): “an affecting and arresting exploration of young Black womanhood and motherhood in the mid-20th century.” Also, The Faraway World: Stories by Patricia Engel (Avid Reader: S. & S.): "what makes Engel’s story collection so rich and compelling is that the Colombian American author places her tales in the context of universal themes: the compromises we make for love, the lies we tell ourselves and others, betrayal, paranoia, grief, joy, acceptance."

NPR reviews Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon (Knopf; LJ starred review): “a novel about showbiz strivers and a certain slice of gay life in mid-to-late 20th-century America.” Also, Brutes by Dizz Tate (Catapult): “makes for an original and stylistically ambitious take on the well-trodden subject matter of girls in peril.”

The Rumpus reviews Central Places by Delia Cai (Ballantine): “vulnerable, sharply observant, and compelling.”

Vogue reviews Victory City by Salman Rushdie (Random House): “a myth, an epic, a polemic parable, a real-world historical landscape flattened into a fable and embellished by fantasy. It is not, however, subtle in its messaging; it is a firm stand against the right-wing religious fanaticism of the day.”

Datebook reviews I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (Viking): “Part #MeToo manifesto, part true-crime page-turner, part campus coming-of-age, the novel serves up compelling insights about the fallibility of memory and the slippery nature of truth, the all too common pairing of racial prejudice and white privilege, and society’s flawed understanding of predatory behavior and our complicated relationship with exacting justice.”

Locus Magazine reviews Invisible Things by Mat Johnson (One World): “Satirical in nature, there’s plenty of dry humor and wry observations about human life without teetering too close to arrogant as­suredness.”

Tor.com reviews Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones (Gallery: Saga Pr.; LJ starred review): “Stephen Graham Jones has given readers a book that is at once a gory and terrifying page-turner; a clever meta riff on “new” slasher cycle genre tropes; and a thoughtful treatise on communities, relationships, and trauma survival.”

The Millions shares a list of new and notable books that are being released this week with short reviews from Publishers Weekly including: Where I'm Coming From by Barbara Brandon-Croft (Drawn and Quarterly); Brutes by Dizz Tate (Catapult); The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris (Gallery: Saga; LJ starred review); Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (Scribner); Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner (Norton); and Couplets, by Maggie Millner (Farrar).

Briefly Noted

Jessica George talks to Shondaland about “embracing her voice” in an interview about her new book, Maame (St. Martin’s). Also, Cherie Dimaline discusses how her book VenCo (Morrow) is “rooted in feminist thought.” Plus, a conversation with Tiffany McDaniel on reimagining “a tragedy through twin sisters” in her book, On the Savage Side (Knopf; LJ starred review).

Matthew Salesses chats with The Rumpus about how he depicts a world of K-drama in his book The Sense of Wonder (Little, Brown). 

Stephen Graham Jones talks to Gizmodo about his newly released book, Don't Fear the Reaper (Gallery/Saga Pr.).

Marisa Crane “examines the weight of parenthood and queer resistance” in an interview about their debut novel, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself (Catapult; LJ  starred review).

Pamela Anderson expounds on her memoir, Love, Pamela (Dey Street) to Bustle and being “a hopeless romantic.” Plus, Delia Cai reflects on her book, Central Places (Ballantine). 

Essence speaks with De’Shawn Charles Winslow, about his “completely unconventional path to writing” and his book, Decent People (Bloomsbury).

Lit Hub engages "two of the best translators in the business," Jennifer Croft and Boris Bralyuk, who are married and nominated for the same award, in a conversation about their lives together.

The New York Times Magazine highlights the work and ambitions of Mieko Kawakami, author of All the Lovers in the Night, trans. by Sam Bett and David Boyd (Europa Editions).

The Atlantic examines A Giant Win: Inside the New York Giants' Historic Upset over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII by Tom Coughlin and Greg Hanlon (Grand Central) as “a human counterbalance to the heroics and chest-thumping of the Super Bowl.”

The Drift explores Salman Rushdie’s Victory City (Random House), "after the Fatwa."

Amy Chua, (sometimes known as “Tiger Mom”) has a new book this fall, The Golden Gate (Minotaur), as announced by Datebook. 

Co-star of HGTV’s Home Town, Erin Napier, will release her third book, Heirloom Rooms: Soulful Stories of Home (Gallery: S. & S.) in October of this year. People has more.

Electric Lit considers Sofia Samatar’s The White Mosque: A Memoir (Catapult; LJ starred review), and “how we enter the stories of others.”

NYT gives readers “the essential Colette” for those interested in her work.

The Seattle Times shares “5 romantic audiobooks perfect for your Valentine’s Day playlist.”

CrimeReads explores books from the “Florida crime fiction tradition.”

Book Riot releases multiple recommended books lists including: “curated queer TBR,” new releases for the week, “8 Gorgeous Generational Family Fictions by Asian Authors,” “8 Steamy Fantasy Romance Novels,” 12 new mysteries and thrillers, new horror books, and “10 Tense Survival Romance Books.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s All Things Considered delves into the success of Salman Rushdie’s Victory City (Random House), in light of and “independent of the Chautauqua attack” in which he was injured.

Charmaine Craig talks about “”working in miniature” and the value of concision” in her new book, My Nemesis (Grove) on the Otherppl podcast.

Farah Obaidullah, editor of The Ocean and Us (Springer), discusses the importance healthy oceans play in human lives with the Keen On podcast. Also, Sonali Kolhatkar, author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights), explains “why Americans want a government run health system.”

Ann Napolitano shares her thoughts on Dear Edward, an Apple TV+ television adaptation based on her book of the same name with Lit Hub. Also, Mira Jacob, Good Talk (One World), will take on hosting duties for the literary podcast Thresholds.

Dame Helen Mirren will star in a play adaptation of an “imagined biopic” of writer Patricia Highsmith’s life, according to Lit Hub.

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