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Book Clubs & Awards

Oprah picks Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Norton; LJ starred review) for her book club. 

The MacArthur Foundation announces the 2021 MacArthur Fellows, including writers Hanif Abdurraqib, Ibram Kendi, Don Mee Choi, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Caroline Day wins the Joan Hessayon Award, presented by The Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).

The Center for Fiction announces its shortlist for the 2021 First Novel Prize.

The Portico Prize announces its longlist. Publishing Perspectives has details. 

The 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award Shortlist is announced. Locus has details.

Reviews

NPR reviews Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (Scribner; LJ starred review): “The book is a puzzle. The greatest joy in it comes from watching the pieces snap into place. It is an epic of the quietest kind, whispering across 600 years in a voice no louder than a librarian’s."  And, A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris (Little, Brown): "A Calling for Charlie Barnes wears its metafictional heart on its sleeve, but as smart as it is, Ferris never shows any signs of falling in love with his own cleverness. Literary experiments without warmth tend to fall flat for most readers, but Ferris' novel is — remarkably, given its flawed subject — full of heart." Plus, reviews of three books in translation. 

The NYT reviews Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker (Viking): “Pinker writes as if he’s part of an embattled minority, valiantly making the case that ‘the ability to use knowledge to attain goals’ is so underappreciated these days that the reading public needs a new book (by Pinker) “to lay out rational arguments for rationality itself.” And, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change by Thor Hanson (Basic; LJ starred review): "One of the core lessons here is that our climate emergency affects not just individual species but, inevitably, interspecies relationships."

LA Times reviews Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (Scribner; LJ starred review): “Ultimately, Doerr seeks to remind us of the many ways we are tied to that natural world, for good and ill.”

The Washington Post reviews Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm: Poems and Essays by Yu Xiuhua, trans. by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (Astra House): "Yu imagines herself as a shadow, and her favorite time, she writes, is dusk, when, in the uncertainty of darkness, she can take on expansive new forms. Love, one of Yu’s central themes, is never a question of fulfillment. The heart grows as it takes in the world."

The Wall Street Journal reviews Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (Scribner; LJ starred review): “perhaps not entirely knowingly, this great novel also raises disquieting questions: What happens when the stories are no longer enough to allow us to “slip the trap”? When we are flooding in some places, burning in others, and a friend’s virus-laden laugh might kill us? …We say that we tell ourselves stories in order to live, but maybe that resonant axiom is the most desperately needed story of all.” Also, Rogues’ Gallery: The Birth of Modern Policing and Organized Crime in Gilded Age New York by John Oller (Dutton): “provides useful context for today’s continuing conversation about the importance and limits of policing—and even what constitutes a crime. Reformers, including Roosevelt, regarded saloonkeepers who opened their doors on Sunday as criminals—though the elites had access to Sunday drinks at their private clubs. Meanwhile, cops sympathized with the saloonkeepers and were happy to look the other way—for a price. Hypocrisy fostered corruption. Another meaningful lesson for today.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr (Scribner; LJ starred review), this week’s buzziest book.

Doerr shares elements of inspiration for Cloud Cuckoo Land (Scribner; LJ starred review) with Entertainment Weekly’s literary mood board. 

The October Loan Stars list is out, featuring #1 pick, The Last Guest by Tess Little (Ballantine). 

USA Today has a Q&A with Stevie Van Zandt about his memoir, Unrequited Infatuations (Hachette), and his loyalty to Springstein.

Kat Dennings talks with Entertainment Weekly about voicing Death for the Audible release of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman ACT II, also out on Audio CD.

Bustle has a Q&A with Anita Hill, Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey To End Gender Violence (Viking), about "leaving Capitol Hill, students who doubted her, and the moving goal posts of justice."

Variety has an interview with Amanda Gorman, Change Sings: A Children's Anthem (Viking Books for Young Readers), on"building up joy and embodying who you are."

Slate profiles Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar; LJ starred review), saying it "does everything a great novel should do."

The Millions profiles Jay Caspian Kang and his forthcoming book, The Loneliest Americans (Crown), which comes out October 12, “during what could be called ‘a moment’ in Asian American publishing.”

FoxNews reveals details from Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever (Ecco).

NPR picks 5 books for October.

NYT suggests 14 new books coming in October.

The Washington Post has 10 books to read in October. And, 7 books about books. 

Buzzfeed has 10 books by Latinx authors.

LitHub has "September’s Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies."

Vogue shares "The Five Books That Changed Amanda Peet’s Life."

T&C has "The Top 20 Scary Movies on HBO Max" and "The Best Halloween Movies on Netflix Right Now", just in time for Halloween displays.

CrimeReads suggests 8 books that exemplify the “rise of domestic gothic.” And, also asks “Do Bookless Libraries Signal The End of The Printed Word?”

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Anita Hill, Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey To End Gender Violence (Viking), about sexual harassment.

Karl Ove Knausgaard features on NPR's All Things Considered, discussing his latest book, The Morning Star (Penguin Pr.).

NPR’s Book of the Day talks with Harlem Shuffle author Colson Whitehead (Doubleday; LJ starred review), about his book’s protagonist.

Salon writes about Ta-Nehisi Coates' interview about banned books on CBS's Monday Morning. Watch the interview here. 

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (Harper; LJ starred review) will be adapted into a film at Netflix. Variety reports. 

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