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Awards & News

Time releases its 2023 TIME100 list, which includes Judy Blume, Suzan Lori-Parks, Neil Gaiman, Colleen Hoover, Salman Rushdie, and librarian Tracy D. Hall. USA Today has coverage. 

The May LibraryReads list is out, featuring #1 pick The Ferryman by Justin Cronin (Ballantine; LJ starred review). 

Story Circle announces the winners of the 2022 Sarton and Gilda Women's Book Awards.

The International Booker Shortlist is announced at the London Book Fair. NYT has coverage. The Guardian also covers the “‘very cool and very sexy” shortlist.

Biographers International Organization names finalists for the 2023 Plutarch Award.

Finalists for the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Awards are announced. Locus has details.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announces new grants. NYT reports.

Publishing Perspectives reports on threats to copyright from the London Book Fair.

Reviews

NYT reviews Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor): “Slocumb’s writing is invigorating, and the detail in his character work makes the main characters in both time periods easy to root for”; The One by Julia Argy (Putnam): “Argy has a keen and often funny eye for detail—one woman has ‘skin like the skin of a regal baby in a painting’—and evokes the fetid coziness-meets-eroticism of female friendship with aplomb”; Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America by Julia Lee (Holt): “Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America examines this process, and in particular the forging of her identity as a Korean American woman in a country that still operates under a racial hierarchy”; Kantika by Elizabeth Graver (Metropolitan; LJ starred review): “Far from being a Pollyannaish tale of New World success, Kantika is a meticulous endeavor to preserve the memories of a family, an elegy and a celebration both”; and Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey by Robert Mack McCormick (Smithsonian; LJ starred review): “McCormick’s book is no longer unseen, nor is it a masterpiece. But, reading it, you feel as though you’ve met a real writer, one who had a lot going for himself and let it all slip away.” Plus, there are short reviews of novels featuring family ties. 

The Washington Post reviews For You and Only You by Caroline Kepnes (Random): “Joe is an addictively charming antihero and after four books, he still feels fresh and original. The Shoddies would be so jealous.”

NPR reviews The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel (Riverhead): “Splicing wit and wisdom, The Last Animal is a bright-eyed meditation on what animates us, biologically as well as emotionally—but most of all, familially”; and There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll (Putnam): “There Will Be Fire reads like a political thriller, with deep dives into the backgrounds of the IRA operatives and extensive accounts of investigations by detectives and explosives experts from Scotland Yard and other government agencies.”

LA Times reviews Greek Lessons by Han Kang, trans. by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won (Hogarth): “Kang’s latest isn’t a page-turner, and reading it can feel like being suspended in time, or sitting through a very long class, despite the book’s slimness. But that’s the effect of writing into discomfort. It’s important for the reader to feel it in their own body, a reminder that language is connected to the corporeal.”

Briefly Noted

CrimeReads interviews author Don Winslow about retiring as a novelist once his latest trilogy is complete and what comes next. Book two, City of Dreams (Morrow), comes out today. 

USA Today talks with Rupert Holmes about his new book, Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide (Avid Reader; LJ starred review). 

Atria will publish a new memoir by Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai. No release date has been announced. AP reports. 

Hanif Kureishi will publish a memoir in 2024 called Shattered, about the accident that left him paralyzed. The Guardian reports. 

Savannah Chrisley announces a forthcoming memoir about her life “from the beginning to the now.” People has the story. 

Virginia Sole-Smith, author of the forthcoming Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture (Holt), pens an essay for Time about “How Doctors Inadvertently Fat-Shame Kids.”

LitHub shares 24 new books for the week. 

OprahDaily shares 8 new mysteries to die for. 

Tor has March’s must read speculative fiction. 

“Michael Denneny, Editor of And the Band Played On, Dead at 80.” Publishers Weekly has more on his life and career in publishing.

Authors On Air

GMA speaks with Rob Schwartz, who edited his father’s writing into a new book, The Wisdom of Morrie: Living and Aging Creatively and Joyfully by Morrie Schwartz (Blackstone). People also covers the story.

Yahoo News chief national correspondent Jon Ward discusses his new memoir, Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation (Brazos Pr.), with NPR’s Morning Edition. 

ALA’s Call Number podcast chats with Barbara Alvarez, The Library’s Guide to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information (ALA Editions), about how libraries can improve reproductive health with resources and services.

Olivia Wilde will direct TV adaptations of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House. Deadline reports. 

Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times (Crown; LJ starred review), will visit Tonight Show tomorrow. 

Jena Friedman, Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera (Atria/One Signal), will visit with Stephen Colbert.

Questlove, The Rhythm of Time (Putnam Books for Young Readers), will visit The View.

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