Book Pulse

NYT chooses the best book covers of 2024, CrimeReads selects the year’s best espionage fiction, and CBC names the year’s best Canadian nonfiction. The Bookseller analyzes over 900 titles named in the media’s best books lists this year and finds that Percival Everett’s James features most prominently. The longlists for the Porchlight Business Book Awards are revealed. Sourcebooks launches an in-house audiobook program. Plus Page to Screen and interviews with Kristin Hannah, the Colberts, and Patrick Radden Keefe.

Joseph Earl Thomas’s God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer wins the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Poets & Writers shares its 20th annual look at debut poets. Tessa Hull’s Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir and Leela Corman’s Victory Parade top Publishers Weekly’s 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll. CrimeReads selects the best horror novels of 2024. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Bryce Stevenson and S.E. Hinton.

Parmy Olson’s Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World is named Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year. Yan F Zhang’s short story “Fleeting Marrow” wins the 4thWrite Prize. The 2024 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipients are announced. Best-of-2024 lists arrive from NPR’s Maureen Corrigan, Time, Reactor, CBC, Seattle Times, BookRiot, and CrimeReads. LitHub shares the best-reviewed books of the year. Phaidon Press appoints Bob Miller as new CEO. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title What the Wife Knew by Darby Kane. Sarah J. Maas teases a new ACOTAR book, along with new audiobook recordings for spring. Plus, Clare Mulley’s The Woman Who Saved the Children will be adapted for film.

Poet Nikki Giovanni, a star of the Black Arts Movement, has died at the age of 81. Ariel Lawhon wins the Nero award for The Frozen River. Best-of-2024 lists arrive from CrimeReads, LA Times, and Slate, while The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing” writes in defense of best-of-the-year lists. The Booker Prize judges are announced, including Sarah Jessica Parker and Roddy Doyle. The Goodreads account of the suspect in the United Healthcare CEO shooting is under scrutiny for a review of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's manifesto. The Golden Globes nominations features several adaptations. Actor Jeremy Renner is finishing up a memoir about his snow-plow accident and recovery. New Jersey becomes the latest state to prohibit bans on books in school and public libraries.

What the Wife Knew by Darby Kane leads holds this week. January’s Indie Next Preview is out, featuring #1 pick Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. Best of 2024 lists arrive from People, Time, ElectricLit, and Vox. USA Today covers librarians’ efforts to stand up for freedom to read in a number of states, while librarian and author Amanda Jones files a new defamation suit. Caleb Azumah Nelson will adapt his novel Open Water for television. Plus, “romantasy” loses out to “brat” as Collins Dictionary’s word of the year.

Winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards and shortlists for the Nero Book Awards are revealed. NYT releases its selections for the year’s best graphic novels and SFF. CrimeReads shares its picks for the best psychological thrillers of 2024. The Internet Archive has decided not to appeal its copyright case to the Supreme Court. Plus, Page to Screen and an interview with Jacqueline Woodson.

Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits wins the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. The winners of the Christianity Today Book Awards and the longlist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize are revealed. Susannah Dickey’s ISDAL wins the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize for poetry published in the UK or Ireland. Spotify Wrapped now includes audiobook listens; Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses was the most-streamed audiobook of 2024. Audiofile shares its lists of the best audiobooks of the year.

Oprah selects Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These for her book club and launches a new podcast. Read with Jenna picks Mary Oliver’s Devotions. Joya Chatterji wins the Wolfson History Prize for Shadows at Noon. Best of 2024 booklists arrive from The Atlantic, The Guardian, NYT, LitHub, Bill Gates and ELLE. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson. Netflix nabs film rights to Callie Hart’s fantasy romance Quicksilver, and Alan Moore’s The Great When will be adapted for television.

The NYT announces the 10 best books of 2024. Reese Witherspoon selects City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim for her December book club. The Last One by Rachel Howzell Hall is GMA’s pick. Target’s pick is Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet by Samantha Allen. Liza Minnelli’s forthcoming memoir, due out in 2026, will be adapted for television. Peter Mackay has been named Scotland’s national poet, and Kate Beaton wins the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Marian Keyes’s “Walsh Sisters” books will be adapted for TV in Ireland and the UK. Plus, Oxford University Press selects “brain rot” as its word of the year.