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Awards, News & Banned Books

U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón is appointed to a historic second two-year term. USA Today has coverage. 

The 2023 Gotham Book Prize announces two winners. Sidik Fofana, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs (Scribner; LJ starred review), and John Wood Sweet, The Sewing Girl’s Tale (Holt; LJ starred review), will split the $70,000 prize. LitHub has the story. NYT has coverage. 

The 2023 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction winners are announced. LitHub has commentary from Lauren Groff. 

The winners of the 2023–2024 Rome Prize in literature are announced, including Elif Batuman, Erica Hunt, Katie Kitamura, and Shruti Swamy. 

The German Nonfiction Prize announces its 2023 shortlist. Publishing Perspectives reports.

NPR’s All Things Considered talks with ALA President Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada about the 40% increase in the number of unique book titles challenged in 2022.

USA Today reports on ALA’s list of the 13 most challenged books of 2022. The Guardian also has coverage, as do NYT and Publishers Weekly. PBS Canvas shares a map of attempted book bans.

Joan Baez talks book bans and activism at the LA Times Festival of Books. Authors and panelists George M. Johnson and Angie Thomas expressed optimism in the face of censorship. 

Orbit launches a new imprint called Orbit Works, publishing Science Fiction and Fantasy in digital formats.

Reviews

NYT reviews Ascension by Nicholas Binge (Riverhead): “For fans of well-wrought science fiction and cosmic horror scares, Ascension is worth the climb”; Affinities: On Art and Fascination by Brian Dillon (NYRB): “In this engaging and exhilarating Wunderkammer of a book, he offers us the world—in this case, the visual world—as he experiences it: his way of seeing, and of being, in a web of thrilling, sometimes unexpected, connection”; Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans (Holt): “When wealthy celebrities unravel, they do not need sycophants. It is an ugly story. There is plenty of blame to go around”; and Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (Knopf): “This is a book that looks boldly down the cliff at the roiling waters below and jumps right in, splashes around playfully, isn’t afraid to get wet. How refreshing.”  The Millions also offers a reflection on Dederer’s message. 

The Washington Post reviews Lessons from the Covid War: An Investigative Report by Covid Crisis Group (PublicAffairs): “A book billed as the most comprehensive look yet at the pandemic response feels, definitionally, like only a partial retelling of the fight against a virus that continues to kill hundreds of Americans daily.”

LA Times reviews Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Harper; LJ starred review): “It’s a worthy coda to a literary career built on cramped streets filled with unreliable women and men, each trying to find balance in a world of cops and criminals and a town in which you can’t always tell them apart.”

Briefly Noted

LA Times has an interview with Claire Dederer about her new book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (Knopf), and “her sympathy for fans of the canceled.” Dederer also reflects on “Doris Lessing and the Divided Mother,” for LitHub. 

CrimeReads talks with Dennis Lehane about his new book, Small Mercies (Harper; LJ starred review), “Boston, busing, and the summer of ’74.”

Vulture profiles Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose new book, Chain-Gang All-Stars (Pantheon), arrives May 2.

The Atlantic explores “The Ongoing Adventures of David Grann.”

NPR highlights a new book, Money Out Loud: All the Financial Stuff No One Taught Us by Berna Anat, illus. by Monique Sterling (Quill Tree). 

Tor shares an excerpt of Martha Wells’s forthcoming Witch King (Tor.com), due out May 30. 

LitHub lists 17 new books for the week.

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

B&N recommends cozy sci-fi/fantasy books for spring. 

PopSugar shares “16 Books You’ll Want to Devour After Reading Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane.”

Authors On Air

Judy Blume discusses her career, book banning, and the new adaptation of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, on NPR’s Fresh Air. Salon discusses Blume’s fury over book bans and moral panics with the directors of the documentary Judy Blume Forever. 

Rainn Wilson discusses his new book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution (Hachette Go), with NPR’s Morning Edition. 

Jack Carr, Only the Dead (Atria/Emily Bestler), reflects on a personal hero, novelist David Morrell, on FoxNews. 

 J.D. Barker’s forthcoming erotic thriller novel Behind a Closed Door will be adapted for film. Deadline reports. 

NPR’s All Things Considered celebrates Mo Willems’s “The Pigeon” in his operatic debut at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

Apple TV+ releases a first-look trailer for Lessons in Chemistry, based on the novel by Bonnie Garmus. 

Madison Beer, The Half of It: A Memoir (Harper), visits with Drew Barrymore today. Beer also answered fan questions about her memoir on GMA. 

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