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Buzzy Book News & Awards

Viking will publish His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, in May 2022. The authors are prize-winning Washington Post reporters.

Barnes & Noble releases their Best Books of 2021.

Richard Osman wins the top Books Are My Bag Readers award for The Thursday Murder Club (Pamela Dorman: Viking; LJ starred review). The Shields Gazette has the story, plus the full list of winners.  

The 2021 Whiting Creative Nonfiction grants are announced. LitHub has the news.  

The sf-Lit Award 2021 Shortlist is announced. Locus has details.

Bestselling author Anna Todd launches Frayed Pages x Wattpad Books, and will publish three of her forthcoming titles, including AFTER: The Graphic Novel (Volume One), in May, 2022 under the new imprint.    

Reviews

NPR reviews Passing by Nella Larsen (Penguin): “Larsen shows how intimate choices are bound up in social forces while endowing her characters with indelible specificity. As her last published novel, that is quite a legacy.”

The Washington Post reviews Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood by Lana Wood (Dey Street Books): "Discovering the truth seems an impossible task even now. Ultimately, Natalie Wood’s death resembles a Rashomon for the #MeToo era — multiple people telling the same story, with no consensus as to what actually happened."  And, The Pessimists by Bethany Ball (Grove): “In The Pessimists, a few subplots are left hanging, a few ideas undeveloped — but the novel’s bite and loose structure promise excellent social satire to come from its author.” Also, The War of Jenkins' Ear: The Forgotten Struggle for North and South America: 1739-1742 by Robert Gaudi (Pegasus): "a superb example of what the French call haute vulgarisation, that is, a serious nonfiction work designed to be read for pleasure. In this case, however, that pleasure has been slightly marred by inattentive proofreading, resulting in some dropped words, a few missing quotation marks and various other minor blemishes...Still, Gaudi writes so vividly that even these are just minor bumps in a thrilling ride."

NYT reviews Will by Will Smith (Penguin Random House): “Smith is a workaholic, and a win-aholic, those most virtuous and therefore invisible of vices. Writing a book that will probably blow up the charts, and publicizing it, may not be good for his recovery. But one day at a time.”

USA Today reviews  Led Zeppelin: The Biography by Bob Spitz (Penguin Pr.), giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: "Hovering above all the parties and all the jams and the richly detailed accounts of creating each album is an abundance of abominable behavior that only grew worse as Zeppelin’s fame exploded. Blame the drugs and the alcohol and the enabling if you wish, but this is one group portrait that doesn’t flatter." 

Briefly Noted

Publishing Perspectives previews two forthcoming books from the 1619 Project, including The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story ed. by Nikole Hannah-Jones & the New York Times Magazine (One World; LJ starred review), as "American publishing explores its place in the nation’s political fray."

Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Emily Ratajkowski about her new book of essays, My Body (Metropolitan: Macmillan), and her search for wholeness. Ratajkowski also talks with People about her parents and self image. The author discusses her "ever-evolving feminism, her advice to young models, and her commitment to telling her own story," at Esquire. The book is also featured on Bustle's Book Club. Plus, she tells USA Today, that "being a sex symbol is 'empowering' and 'complicated'."

Shondaland talks with Kim-Joy about her new book, Celebrate with Kim-Joy: Cute Cakes and Bakes to Make Every Occasion Joyful (Quadrille), and what she learned from The Great British Baking Show. 

ElectricLit speaks with Jung Yun about her new novel, O Beautiful (St. Martin’s; LJ starred review),“corporate colonialism and the perils of being a woman in a hypermasculine environment.”

BOMB talks with Kyle Lucia Wu about her book, Win Me Something (Tin House: Norton), and “experiences that are pushed to the margins.”

The LA Review of Books has an interview with Amitav Ghosh about his book, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (Univ. of Chicago Pr.), and writing about empire and the climate crisis.

T&C talks with Julia Quinn about the just-published The Wit and Wisdom of Bridgerton: Lady Whistledown’s Official Guide (Avon), and other new projects.

NYT shares an interview with Thandiwe Newton, who has voiced a new Audible recording of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Entertainment Weekly shares details from Will Smith’s book, Will (Penguin Random House), including when Smith says Fresh Prince ‘jumped the shark.’ FoxNews also shares coverage on Smith’s new book. Plus, USA Today provides 5 takeaways from tje book.

People shares an exclusive first-look at Jamie Lynn Spears’ forthcoming memoir, Things I Should Have Said: Family, Fame, and Figuring it Out (Worthy Books), due out in January.

Louise Erdrich, The Sentence  (Harper), takes Elle's shelf life literary survey.

NYT has a feature on John E. Sarno’s 1991 release, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (Grand Central Life & Style: Hachette), and how pain and the brain are interconnected.

NYT features 4 newly published books.

LitHub has 19 books to get to know this week.

ElectricLit suggests 7 novels that grapple with illness.

The Seattle Times recommends six “audiobooks with symphonic storytelling.”

The Guardian shares the top 10 epics in fiction.

BookRiot offers reading pathways for fans of romance novelist Jackie Lau, and suggests terrible ideas for how to read less. Plus, side-quests to gamify your reading.

Authors On Air

Will Smith talks with Good Morning America about his newly published memoir, Will (Penguin Random House), his childhood trauma and unconventional marriage. 

NPR’s Book of the Day features Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group (Berkley; LJ starred review). 

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America (St. Martin’s: Macmillan) will visit The Real tomorrow. Emily Ratajkowski, My Body (Metropolitan: Macmillan), will be on Watch What Happens Live, and Will Smith, Will (Penguin Random House), visits The Daily Show.

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