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Awards & Buzzy Book News

2023's Mythopoeic Awards finalists are announced.

The 2023 Eisner Awards nominees are announced.

“Hong Kong neck-and-neck with Florida in bookbanning competition,” reports Lit Hub. Also, Neil Gaiman joins the Writers’ strike.

Salman Rushdie makes an appearance at PEN Gala. LA Times and NPR have coverage. 

“The Republican plan to take over school boards may be backfiring,” posits Vox. 

“Actors threaten to strike alongside writers.” PBS News Hour has more.

Photos from Madonna’s Sex book will be auctioned for the 30th anniversary celebration of the book’s publication, according to People. 

Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Elon Musk will arrive September 12, S.& S. announced. 

The Los Angeles Times offers two reading lists for AAPI Heritage Month including authors who have written “hula tales to literary scandals” and “6 new books to check out.”

HipLatina shares “13 Asian Latinx Writers You Should Know for AAPI Heritage Month.”

Page to Screen

May 19:

The Night of the 12th, based on the book Une année a la PJ by Pauline Guéna. Film Movement. Reviews | Trailer

Robots, based on the book The Robot Who Looked Like Me by Robert Sheckley. VOD. No reviews | Trailer

May 24:

The Clearing, based on the book In the Clearing by J.P. Pomare. Hulu. No reviews | Trailer

American Born Chinese, based on the graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. Disney+. Reviews | Trailer

Popsugar lists “17 Books Becoming TV Shows in 2023.”

Reviews

NYT reviews Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda (MCD; LJ starred review): “Pochoda is gutsy enough to tell us the cross streets of the final confrontation on the second page. When the big showdown arrives, it is as brutal and beautiful as the landscape in which it unfolds. There’s a fire in this novel that its flaws can’t extinguish”; American Childhood: A Photographic History by Todd Brewster (Scribner): “With the more than 200 images collected in this book, culled from flea markets and library archives across the country, the journalist and documentarian attempts to capture the experiences of the youngest members of our society, from the Civil War to today”; and For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell (Univ. of Chicago): “To his credit, Shindell persuasively argues that Mars is most instructive when it sheds light on how we see ourselves.”

The Washington Post reviews Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy by Carl Sferrazza Anthony (Gallery; LJ starred review): “Anthony sees her as a photographer, and his tunnel vision, which sometimes thwarts his narrative, leaves future scholars with gaps to fill.Anthony has written a good book. With a bit more vision, diligence and energy, he could have written a great one”; Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs by Josh Hawley (Regnery): “Hawley’s quest to obviate existential uncertainty is animated by a desire that seems to undergird much of contemporary conservatism, with its mania for conventions and guardrails: a desire for an eternal parent to tell you exactly when and how to clean your room”; and Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature by Sarah Hart (Flatiron): “Her prose throughout is clear, direct and jokey, a near necessity given some of the more ferocious mathematical arcana in Once Upon a Prime.” 

Slate also reviews Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs by Josh Hawley (Regnery): “Full of dense Bible stories, sentimental tales about Hawley’s Midwestern childhood, and potted right-wing histories of the French Revolution.”

Tor.com reviews The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager): “There’s nothing better than a swashbuckling tale that takes place on the high seas. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is one of those tales, and one well worth reading if this type of story is your cup of tea.”

Bookmarks shares “The Best Reviewed Books of the Week.”

Briefly Noted

Shondaland interviews Nicole Cuffy, author of Dances (One World), about “the impact family has on your career, impostor syndrome, and what it means to be a muse.” Plus, Emma Cline, The Guest (Random), on “being an outsider in an insular community, and investigating the edges of human behavior through fiction.” And Brittany Snow talks about how “her own mental health journey helped shape her new book,” September Letters: Finding Strength and Connection in Sharing Our Stories (Harper). Lastly, R.F. Kuang on how her new novel, Yellowface (Morrow), “dissects all the publishing industry’s flaws through June Hayward, a morally bankrupt and unethical writer.” Kuang also shares with Bustle “how she deals with internalized criticism, discusses highlander syndrome, and advocates for the stability of loving what you do in the face of unstable systems.”

Jenny Fran Davis, author of Dykette (Holt), talks to The Millions about “her time at the Iowa workshop, writing about place from a distance, and the performance that is inherent to all narrative.” Davis also speaks to Electric Lit about exploring “domesticity, camp antics, social media celebrity, and generational clashes” in her book.

Author Julia Quinn has a conversation with Popsugar about her new book, Queen Charlotte (Avon), co-written with Shonda Rhimes. 

Poets&Wrtiters has a Q&A with Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water (Grove; LJ starred review). 

CrimeReads has an excerpt from Edison’s Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History’s Greatest Geniuses by Katie Spalding (Little, Brown). Also, a piece revisiting “all the monsters in Jane Eyre.” 

Fantasy writer Patrick Rothfuss to come out with a new novella, The Narrow Road Between Desires, this November. Tor.com has more. Also, there is an excerpt of CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly (Tor Nightfire). And, an exploration of Tove Jansson’s novels and short stories. 

CBC Books gives a first look at Gull Island by Anna Porter (S. & S.). 

Gizmodo provides a full chapter from Brandon Sanderson’s new graphic novel Dark One (Vault Comics). 

The Trigun manga series will get a reprint after being out of print for 15 years, Kotaku reports.

A collection of Johnny Cash’s lyrics will be released in November into the book Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics (Voracious: Hachette), according to The Guardian. 

Book Riot provides multiple reading lists featuring: “10 Middle-Aged Protagonists in SFF,” “10 Existential Horror Novels,” and Appalachian memoirs.

Electric Lit shares “10 Novels About the Drama of Working for the Family Business.”

NYT recommends 9 new books.

NPR has a list of “5 new fantasy novels.”

The Guardian rounds up the best crime and thrillers.

Authors on Air

Samantha Irby, author of Quietly Hostile: Essays (Vintage), talks to The Maris Review podcast about her television writing.

Lit Hub shares a trailer for the film adaption of Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.

NPR’s Morning Edition talks with award-winning romance author Kennedy Ryan, Before I Let Go (Forever; LJ starred review), about the indignation that inspires her stories. Five of Ryan’s previously self-published novels will be released by Bloom Books later this month.

Benedict Cumberbatch will star in the adaptation of Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Deadline reports.

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