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Award & Buzzy Book News

Damon Galgut wins the Booker Prize for The Promise (Europa Editions). NPR reports.

NYT also reports on this announcement as does The Guardian.

The National Book Critics Circle will offer a new prize in 2022, the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize.

Paul Bogaards, Executive Vice President, Executive Director of Publicity, Promotion and Media Relations Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, leaves after 32 years. The announcement came via email, with letters from Bogaards and Reagan Arthur, Executive Vice-President and Publisher of Knopf, Pantheon, and Schocken.

New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Big Shot by Jeff Kenney (Abrams) launches to No. 1 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Better Off Dead by Lee Child & Andrew Child (Delacorte Press) debuts at No. 2 on both the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: MinaLima Edition by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic) locks in No. 7 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Forgiving Paris by Karen Kingsbury (Atria: S. & S.) starts at No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Going There by Katie Couric (Little, Brown, & Co.) arrives at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Renegades: Born in the USA by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen (Crown) rocks No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 11 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek by Daniel and Eugene Levy (Black Dog & Leventhal) greets No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 12 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons by Wizards RPG Team (Penguin Random House) sizzles at No. 6 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter (Portfolio) rises to No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Shattering: America in the 1960s by Kevin Boyle (Norton; LJ starred review): “Boyle elegantly narrates the ’60s through his three lenses — race, militarism and sexuality — and “The Shattering” wears its scholarship lightly.”

The Washington Post reviews The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World by Claire Tomalin (Penguin Random House): “Three excellent full-length biographies — by Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, David C. Smith and Michael Sherborne — chronicle Wells’s colorful life in full. But for a compact overview of this endlessly fascinating man and writer, Tomalin’s “The Young H.G. Wells” is hard to beat, being friendly, astute and a pleasure to read.” Also, a list of short reviews of The Bloodless Boy by Robert J. Lloyd (Melville House), The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly (Hachette), Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey (Macmillan), The Night Will Be Long by Santiago Gamboa (Europa), and The Pledge by Kathleen Kent (Hachette).

NPR reviews The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself by Yrsa Daley-Ward (Penguin Random House): “"The How"is a metaphor for how we can undo this social conditioning and trace our way back to who we truly are. It's a book for the present moment, in our global state of healing, when many of us have become more honest about our fear and uncertainty, are learning to prioritize our well-being, and feel open to moving beyond performances.”

Locus Magazine reviews Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry (47North: Amazon): “The atmosphere and worldbuild­ing crackle with energy and the characters are captivating in unique ways. Veronica G. Henry deftly weaves early twentieth century Black history together with West African mythology.”

Tor.com reviews The Brides of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire (Morrow): “Maguire, after all these years, is still thinking about evil, though of a very different stripe. Sharp and wry, funny and pointed, he writes in Brides with a certainty and a sort of world-sized elegance, creating something new from scraps of the cloth he worked for years. He remains a master of a specific sense of intimacy amid scale, able to craft precise moments of fallibility, of humans picking our way through our lives, against the fate of nations and the endless sea.”

Book Marks has "5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week."

Briefly Noted

People shares several articles related to Will Smith’s new memoir Will (Penguin Random House) including how he “once contemplated killing his father to ‘avenge’ his mother,” “his biggest regrets as a dad,” and that “he ‘fell in love’ with Stockard Channing during his first marriage.” Also, an interview with Kal Penn, You Can't Be Serious (Gallery), about “his childhood, racism (and progress) in Hollywood and Obama’s ‘uplifting’ White House.”

The Hollywood Reporter talks to Tom Ford about his new book Tom Ford 002 (Rizzoli: Penguin Random House) and “an inside look at the past 15 years of filmmaking, fatherhood, dressing stars like Beyoncé and Timothée Chalamet, and overcoming substance abuse.” 

NYT interviews John Banville, "the contemporary novelist who avoids contemporary novels."

The late Paul Newman’s untitled memoir will be released by Knopf next fall. Deadline reports. NYT also covers this story.

NYT’s features A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick by Cathy Curtis (W. W. Norton), from a genre that Hardwick often criticised harshly. Also, Inside the Best-Seller List with Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek by Daniel and Eugene Levy (Black Dog & Leventhal) as it makes its debut on the best seller list.

Kyle Lucia Wu, Win Me Something (Tin House: Norton), fills out the Book Marks Questionnaire.

Tor.com shares an excerpt from The Perishing by Natashia Deón (Counterpoint). 

Fox News gives a first look at The President and the Freedom Fighter by Brian Kilmeade (Sentinel: Penguin Random House).

Lit Hub provides a reading list on "Defiant Women and Defiant Books."

Book Marks lists “Every Booker Prize Winner of the 21st Century.”

CrimeReads lists “10 Novels You Should Read This November.”

Tor.com gives “5 SFF Books Where Magic Has a Steep Cost.”

Entertainment Weekly shares “The best comics from October.”

NYT provides “4 New Coffee Table Books” and “Newly Published, From Elie Wiesel to The Loneliest Americans.” 

The Washington Post releases it’s “Holiday Gift Guide: Books Edition.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Britni de la Cretaz, co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League (Bold Type), about “how sexism and homophobia sidelined the NWFL.”

Tor.com shares a teaser for the adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (Knopf: Random House).

Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway (Viking), reads from his book for the Literary Salon podcast.

Ha Jin, author of A Song Everlasting (Pantheon), discusses "the importance of writing lasting literature" on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast. 

Ash Davidson, Damnation Spring (Scribner; LJ starred review) and Maris Kreizman have a conversation about "learning the language of logging" on The Maris Review podcast.

The Contagion Next Time (Oxford University Press) author Sandro Galea discusses “preventing the next pandemic” on the Keen On podcast.

Susan Orlean talks about “getting over her own skepticism” on the Thresholds podcast.

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