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News & Awards

Scribner pulls Alice Sebold's memoir, Lucky, following Anthony Broadwater's exoneration; Sebold apologizes. The Guardian, NYT and Forbes report. The LA Times and USA Today also cover the story.

ALA releases a statement opposing widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. schools and libraries.

Scotland's National Book Awards 2021 Winners are announced.  

AudioFile releases its Best Audiobooks of 2021 list, along with the December 2021 Earphones Award Winners.

Reviews

USA Today reviews Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult by Faith Jones (Morrow; LJ starred review), giving it 4 out of 4 stars: “Jones brilliantly articulates not just the Family's shortcomings in terms of personal freedom but expands on society's as a whole. Are we the true owners of our own bodies and our own selves?”

The NYT reviews Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove; LJ starred review): "Keegan’s prose, as she describes this trapped-in-amber world, is both nostalgic and practical: The scope of village life may be small, but its texture is rich."  And, Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles by Lydia Davis (FSG): "Davis’s essays are packed with these windows of opportunity to think more deeply — or at all — about many subjects. Others include paving stones, Gascon folk tales, parataxis, punctuation, cognates, medieval architecture and sheepdogs."  And, Magritte: A Life by Alex Danchev (Pantheon): “As a whole, the book is accessible, factually reliable and, at 439 pages, free of the inflated heft of so many recent biographies.” Also, Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness by Elizabeth D Samet (Farrar): “Of course, there is nobility in celebrating the U.S. victory in a just war and honoring those who served. Samet reaffirms that truth while forcing our attention on a more complicated reality.” Plus, short reviews of three novels.

The Washington Post reviews The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, trans. by Adriana Hunter (Other Pr.:PRH): “In these clever stories and a handful of others, Le Tellier dares us to wonder if we could stand meeting the figure in the mirror. It’s what makes The Anomaly a flight of imagination you’ll be rolling over in your mind long after deplaning." And, Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There by Marc Myers (Grove): "Myers brings his interview-based approach to a topic so sprawling that it had the potential to breach the barriers like the crowds at Woodstock. Clearly the author had to make some rules: He steers away from sex and drugs, favors mainstream rock and ends the show in 1985." Plus, The City of Mist: Stories by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Harper): "Readers will encounter new characters but also find familiar names, offering fresh perspectives on fictional lives we already know so well. He revisits many of his signature themes, such as desperate youthful love and its consequences, as well as class prejudice." Lastly, short reviews of "7 beautiful books that transport you to the worlds of Bond, Tolkien, Spider-Man and beyond."

LA Times reviews White on White by Aysegül Savas (Riverhead): “It’s difficult to read Ayşegül Savaş’ second novel, White on White, without thinking of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy. Both authors employ narrators who come across as deceptively submissive, listening while other characters unspool or paint swaths of their lives in vivid detail. Often nameless, these protagonists become receptacles for the experiences of others.”

The Guardian reviews All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks (Ballantine; LJ starred review): “Unless you’re a Brooks obsessive, or aching for a couple of transcripts of his very droll The 2000 Year Old Man ad libs with Carl Reiner, this is not the most gratifying read. Go back to his best movies instead: they’re sometimes uncomfortably dated, in places as creaky as Brooks’s knees must be. But you’d have to be Hedy Lamarr not to find them funny.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine), the buzziest book of the week. Popsugar also gives it a strong recommendation.  

The buyer’s pick in the December issue of Costco Connection is Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte) and the assistant buyer’s pick is Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine).

The Millions kicks off its annual A Year in Reading: 2021 feature. It runs through December 23rd. 

LA Times talks with novelist Ian Williams about why he shifted to essay writing for his new book, Disorientation: Being Black in The World (Europa Compass).

CrimeReads interviews Faith Jones, Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult (Morrow; LJ starred review), about her childhood and eventual escape from the Children of God cult.

LitHub has a Q&A with Meg Waite Clayton about her new book, The Postmistress of Paris (Harper; LJ starred review).

People highlights Alessandra Ambrosio's forthcoming coffee table book, Alessandra by Stewart Shining. 

NYT recommends 4 new illustrated books.

The Washington Post has 10 books to read in December.

NPR recommends 12 books surprising books for 2021.

The Millions previews new titles for December.

CrimeReads shares “10 Novels You Should Read in December.”

Tordotcom previews “All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in December!”

An overdue book is returned after 110 years. NYT reports. FoxNews also picks up the story.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Weekend Edition talks with Jodi Picoult about writing about the pandemic in Wish You Were Here, (Ballantine), the buzziest book of the week. 

NPR’s Book of the Day features the National Book Award nonfiction winning, All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (Penguin Random House; LJ starred review).

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly recommends Miranda Cowley Heller's The Paper Palace (Riverhead) on All Things Considered.

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews filmmaker Rebecca Hall about her personal connection to her adaptation, Passing, based on the book by Nella Larsen, now on Netflix.

Jason Reynolds, Stuntboy, in the Meantime, illus. by Raúl the Third (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dloughy Books), will visit with Stephen Colbert tomorrow. 

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