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Awards News

Ronald J. Deibert wins the 2021 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing with Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (House of Anansi).

Ani Gjika wins the 2021 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing with forthcoming book, By Its Right Name (Restless Books). Lit Hub reports.

Two winners are named for the 2021 Narrative Prizes: Morgan Talty and Tryphena L. Yeboah. 

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

The Jailhouse Lawyer by James Patterson and Nancy Allen (Little, Brown) opens at No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Change Sings: A Children's Anthem by Amanda Gorman (Viking Books for Young Readers) hums at No. 2 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune (Tor) opens at No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 14 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Legacy by Elle Kennedy (Sourcebooks) starts at No. 6 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Norton; LJ starred review) debuts at No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson (Viking) shines at No. 7 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (S. & S.) climbs to No. 1 on both the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (HarperCollins) lifts to No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson (Hachette) slices to No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Uncontrolled Spread by Scott Gottlieb (HarperCollins) reaches No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg (Knopf; LJ starred review) graces No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Crazy Faith by Michael Todd (Random House) debuts at No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Women, Food, and Hormones by Sara Gottfried (Houghton Mifflin) tastes No. 13 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy by Lynette Rice (St. Martin's: Macmillan) cuts to No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews Please Don't Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson (Tiny Reparations: Random House; LJ starred review): “Phoebe Robinson’s “Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes” is everything, in both the “Girl, that outfit is everything!” sense and also in the fact that the free-flowing essay collection fits seamlessly into so many categories: earnest pandemic memoir, no-nonsense business guide, lovingly profane commentary on relationships, sex and race and unabashed celebration of Black culture, particularly Black women.”

NYT reviews I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House by Stephanie Grisham (HarperCollins): “Part giddy travelogue, part belated apologia, part petty payback, all personal-therapy session, her book is titled “I’ll Take Your Questions Now” — which might invite the retort: “Now you’ll take our questions?””Also, The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar (Liveright; LJ starred review): “The book is a treasure trove of examples in search of an argument. In the epilogue, when the reader hopes to find some synthesis of what’s come before, Tatar is still introducing new material on a hodgepodge of subjects: Cassandra, cave paintings, the Inquisition, Florence Nightingale.” Plus, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott (Random; LJ starred review): "The reporting has an intimate, almost limitless feel to it, the firsthand observations backed up by some 14,000 pages of official documents, from report cards to drug tests to city records secured through Freedom of Information Law requests. The result of this unflinching, tenacious reporting is a rare and powerful work whose stories will live inside you long after you’ve read them."

Locus Magazine reviews Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest (Atria): “Grave Reservations, a detective romp with a supernatural twist, shows Priest stretching in a new direction. Where her previous work tended toward the spooky and moody, Grave Reserva­tions is brisk and fun without being so lightweight it simply floats away. It’s the perfect book for a harrowing week/month/year because it only wants to entertain you.”

CrimeReads has "The Best Reviewed Crime Books of the Month: September 2021."

Lit Hub gives "September's Best Reviewed Science, Technology and Nature Books."

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

Briefly Noted

Joshua Ferris, author of A Calling for Charlie Barnes (Little, Brown), speaks with Entertainment Weekly about “writing humor into the darkest of times.”

Katie Couric, Going There (Little, Brown & Co.: Hachette), “recalls feeling threatened by Ashleigh Banfield at NBC” in a feature by People.

Maya Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson, chats with Lit Hub about the new award named in his mother’s honor.

Allen C. Guelzo speaks to The Los Angeles Times about his book Robert E. Lee: A Life (Knopf: LJ starred review) and why he’d rather leave statues of Lee up. 

NYT interviews Kelefa Sanneh about how he "hopes to start some arguments with his new book" Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review). The paper also features Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, author of My Monticello (Henry Holt: Macmillan), who published her first book at the age of 50 and already has a Netflix deal. And, a profile of new crime and mystery forthcoming books including the debut of Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel V. Reyes (Crooked Lane; LJ starred review).

Lucy Ellmann, Things Are Against Us (Biblioasis), takes the Lit Hub Questionnaire.

Fox News reports on updates to Robert Lacey’s Battle of Brothers: William and Harry - The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult (HarperCollins). 

Entertainment Weekly has an excerpt of All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris (William Morrow: HarperCollins). Tor.com provides an excerpt of The Seventh Queen by Greta Kelly (Harper Voyager) and an exploration of the illustrations for Spear by Nicola Griffith (Tor.com: Macmillan). CrimeReads shares an excerpt of The Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front by Charles R. Gallagher (Harvard University).

Tor.com celebrates “the librarians of SFF.”

The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda shares seven of his current favorite books and "4 new books [that] offer advice on raising decent humans in our topsy-turvy world."

Lit Hub has “The 13 Best Book Covers of September,” “13 new books to look forward to this week,” lists “book-based organizations that work with incarcerated folks," "17 Great Titles That Come Out in Paperback This October," and "New and Noteworthy Nonfiction to Read This October."

NYT lists “Newly Published, From the AIDS Crisis to Anthony Bourdain" and “4 New Audiobooks to Listen To This Week."

Authors on Air

Andrew Martin, author of Cool for America (Macmillan), discusses “the fine line between autofiction and autobiographical fiction” with Jordan Kisner on the Thresholds podcast.

Tarana Burke, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement (Flatiron; LJ starred review), speaks to NPR’s Fresh Air about how “black girls’ trauma shouldn’t be ignored.”

Lauren Groff chats about “the complexities of faith in her new book” Matrix (Riverhead) on the Reading Women podcast.

Phoebe Robinson, Please Don't Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes (Tiny Reparations: Random House; LJ starred review), will be a guest on the Drew Barrymore show on Friday.

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