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Awards & News

2021 Arthur C. Clarke Foundation Awards are announced, with Samuel R. Delany and Michio Kaku receiving special awards. 

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand announces the 2021 Sir Julius Vogel Awards Winners.

Key findings of the July NPD Book Scan indicate that sales momentum is slowing – beyond what is expected for the normal summer lull. Publishing Perspectives has more. 

Overdrive announces plan and timeline to sunset the legacy OverDrive app to focus on Libby. Plus, LJ reports on new AI collection managment tool, Readtelligence, unveiled at the company’s Digipalooza conference.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Breathe by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco): “As a portrait of the wobbly unreality of existence that comes with a loved one’s death, “Breathe” can be effective and harrowing.” And, Savage Tongues by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (Mariner Books): “Arezu, a 37-year-old Iranian British American woman, goes back to Spain, where 20 years earlier she’d conducted an affair with a much older man. Except that she didn’t conduct the affair. It was something done to her.”

The NYT reviews Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove (Norton): “You sense the books of many poets of Dove’s generation slipping to the back of the bookcase. Not hers.” And, The Republic of False Truths by Alaa Al Aswany, translated by S. R. Fellowes (Knopf): “Rather than the messy, unscripted drama of fallible characters colliding with one another in the midst of a historical crisis, we have a soap opera — in Egyptian terms, a Ramadan musalsal — in which a monolithic state apparatus batters its noble and self-sacrificing youth.” Also, Mrs. March by Virginia Feito (Liveright: Norton): “Feito explores issues of autonomy, insecurity and madness, all wrapped up in the domestic life of a housewife whose whole being has been shaped and molded by how she believes others view her." And, American Estrangement by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh (Norton): “a second book of stories that exceeds and expands upon the promise of the first, confirming the writer as a major, committed practitioner of a difficult form.” Also, In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani (Penguin): “In the first installment of a planned trilogy loosely based on the lives of Slimani’s grandparents, the character of Mathilde lays bare women’s intimate, lacerating experience of war and its consequent trauma.” And, Ramadan Ramsey by Louis Edwards (Amistad): “As the plot rips along, Edwards plays the characters straight, rather than for laughs, and in the process, he presents characters who are often able to overcome their pain or mistrust of others and do the right thing.” And, Run: Book One by John Lewis & Andrew Aydin (Abrams ComicArts): “There’s a timeliness to Run, a reminder that the efforts to keep prospective voters from casting their ballots that are so much in the headlines these days are nothing new.” Also, The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction by Julie Klam (Riverhead): “is very much a research-driven book, but what elevates it beyond a glorified fact-checking assignment is Klam’s palpable yearning — she wants to know who these women were, what they went through, how it shaped them. It is biography as an expression of love.” And, The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal—and How To Set Them Right by Adam Harris (Ecco; LJ starred review): “a must-read, detailing the complex dynamics that both reflect our nation’s dark history and show us the way toward a more equitable future.” And, Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism by Paul Sabin (Norton): “an elegantly argued and meticulously documented attempt to place Nader within the liberal tradition." Plus, “The Shortlist” features international fiction.

The Atlantic reviews Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney (FSG): “There’s something a little 18th-century about Beautiful World, with its philosophical tone and its abstractly conceived characters who can’t stop talking about how to reconcile romantic liberty with love’s responsibilities.”

NPR reviews The Prisoner by Hwang Sok-yong, trans. by Sora Kim-Russell and Anton Hur (Verso): “Cinematic, riveting, elegiac, The Prisoner captures the dialectical tensions in Hwang's life and career in a manner reminiscent of Jacob wrestling with an angel, or the haunting films of South Korean director Lee Chang-dong.”

Briefly Noted

ElectricLit talks with YZ Chin, Edge Case (Ecco), about "the tyranny of immigration paperwork and what it means to become Asian American."

Observer has an interview with Kate Zambreno, To Write as if Already Dead (Columbia Univ. Pr.), about motherhood and capitalism.

Emily Oster, The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years (Penguin Pr.), offers tips for encouraging children's independence at Parade. 

Time highlights author extortion scams and review bombing on Goodreads..

Entertainment Weekly previews Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen (FSG), due out in October with an exclusive clip of the audiobook, read by David Pittu.

CrimeReads notes the rise of Welsh crime fiction.

Essence gathers "13 books to celebrate National Book Lovers Day."

CBC lists "14 Canadian sci-fi and fantasy books to check out in summer 2021."

Tor has “Must-Read Speculative Short Fiction.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune picks "5 comic books that celebrate the LGBTQ community."

BookRiot offers "10 More Audiobooks for Women in Translation Month."

ElectricLit suggests "7 Short Stories About the Inner Lives of Athletes."

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Cecily Strong about her new memoir This Will All Be Over Soon (S. & S.).

NPR’s Morning Edition speaks with Louis Edwards about his new novel, Ramadan Ramsey (Amistad).

The First Draft: A Dialogue of Writing podcast has an interview with Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi about the process of writing Savage Tongues (Mariner Books). LitHub has the transcript and sample audio.

The Guardian reports on comics creators struggling for fair payment for adaptations from DC and Marvel Comics.

The Jack Kerouac estate is working with Dave Wedge and Casey Sherman to produce new podcasts based on his work. Deadline has details.

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) will be adapted into a feature film. Deadline reports.

According to a a press release, graphic novel Gun Honey by Charles Ardai (Titan Comics Hard Case Crime) is being developed for television.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine (Drawn and Quarterly) will become an animated series for television. Variety has details.

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