Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Awards & News

The $165,000 Windham-Campbell Prizes for writers are announced. LitHub has a story on poetry winner Wong May and Publishing Perspectives explains: "This is not a book award."

Oprah Winfrey to receive honorary PEN/Faulkner award. USA Today has coverage.

Graywolf Press publisher Fiona McCrae wins the Kay Sexton Award. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

HarperCollins India wins top Publishing Next 2021 industry honor. Publishing Perspectives has details. 

Philip Pullman steps down as Society of Authors (SoA) president. Locus reports.

LGBTQIA+ romance is booming reports NYT. Publishers Weekly reported earlier this week that LGBTQIA+ books had been removed from Target.com. 

Reviews

NPR reviews Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton (Random): “Building from the backbone of her Harper's article, Ancestor Trouble represents decades of research into genealogic records, genetic science, and the cultural history of "ancestor hunger" and reverence — as well as Newton's own coming to terms with how to face and honor her family history.” And, Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Atlantic Monthly; LJ starred review): “Young Mungo, like its predecessor, is a nuanced and gorgeous heartbreaker of a novel. Reading it is like peering into the apartment of yet another broken family whose Glasgow tenement might be down the road from Shuggie Bain’s."

NYT reviews The Candy House by Jennifer Egan (Scribner; LJ starred review): “Egan has a zonking sense of control; she knows where she’s going and the polyphonic effects she wants to achieve, and she achieves them, as if she were writing on a type of MacBook that won’t exist for another decade.” And, Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf): “Mandel offers one of her finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet, but it is her ability to convincingly inhabit the ordinary, and her ability to project a sustaining acknowledgment of beauty, that sets the novel apart.”

LA Times reviews Out There by Kate Folk (Random): “Fans of the story won’t be disappointed by the collection, which also explores a gendered territory somewhere in the borderlands of magical realism, weird horror, sci-fi and literary fiction about jaded relationships.”

The Guardian reviews Companion Piece by Ali Smith (Pantheon): “Companion Piece is shapely, but not conclusive. It doesn’t feel like a coda to the Four Seasons tetralogy, rather an addition to a book sequence for all seasons, with no end in sight.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam), the buzziest book of the week.

The Millions talks with Nick Ripatrazone, Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan's Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age (Fortress Pr.), about “mass media as a form of mass.”

Time has an interview with Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review), about grieving his mother’s death and “writing for himself.”

Elaine Hsieh Chou talks to Vogue about her new book, Disorientation (Penguin Pr.), and the "cathartic possibilities of anger."

Autostraddle talks with Jean Chen Ho, Fiona and Jane (Viking), about mother-daughter relationships and female friendship.

NYT features the book Faith Ringgold: Politics / Power by Faith Ringgold with text by Michele Wallace and Kirsten Weiss (Weiss Publications), a book of the artist’s work between 1967 and 1981.

Marie Kondo announces her forthcoming release, Marie Kondo's Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life (Ten Speed Press), due out in November.

Dani Shapiro shares a cover reveal and excerpt of her forthcoming novel, Signal Fires (Knopf) with People.

Julia Fox teases unfinished “masterpiece,” Vulture reports.

Popsugar recommends Susan Rigetti's debut novel, Cover Story (Morrow), due out next week.

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl turns 10. People celebrates with a never-before-seen passage from the book.

The Atlantic samples "the 12 most unforgettable descriptions of food in literature."

LA Times highlights three forthcoming novels featuring deaf culture: True Biz by Sara Novic (Random), The Sign for Home by Blair Fell (Atria/Emily Bestler Books), and The Dolphin House by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions).

NYT shares notable newly published books.

CrimeReads has the best books out in paperback for spring.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with surgeon and author Ira Rutkow about his new book, Empire of the Scalpel: The History of Surgery (Scribner). 

Maud Newton talks to NPR’s All Things Considered about her new book, Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation (Random), that “explores her family history of racist violence.”

Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter (Crown), will be adapted as a nine-episode limited series at Apple TV+. Tor has details.

An It prequel series, based on the book by Stephen King, is in development at HBO Max. Variety reports.

Vick Hope will host the new season of the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, which kicks off tomorrow. The Bookseller has details. 

Hannah Gadsby, Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation (Ballantine; LJ starred review) visits The View today. Judd Apatow, Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy (Random), will visit The View and The Tonight Show tomorrow.

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.