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Awards, News & October Booklists

The T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist is announced. The Guardian has coverage. 

The Polari Prizes shortlist is announced, The Bookseller reports. The Guardian also has coverage. 

The Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction finalists are announced. 

Jenna Bush Hager selects Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red (Harper; LJ starred review) for her October book club.

Amazon editors select the best books of October. 

LA Times shares 10 books to add to your reading list in October. 

LitHub previews 27 paperback releases in October.

BookRiot highlights the best books for the month and new queer books of October.

StokerCon 2025 announces guests of honor including Scott Edelman, Paula Guran, Adam L.G. Nevill, Joyce Carol Oates, Gaby Triana, and Tim Waggoner. Locus has details. 

It’s Stephen Graham Jones Day #SGJday, according to a group of readers, booksellers, podcasters, and book influencers. LJ’s Review of the Day is Jones’s I Was a Teenage Slasher (S. & S./Saga; LJ starred review).

Reviews

NYT reviews Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner (Grove): “The prose is controlled, but neither virtuosic nor spare; the plot, enticing but neither Dickensian nor minimalist. Decidedly un-trendy, crescendo-less and restrained, this tragicomic family saga is a Bach prelude to the Rachmaninoff of a writer like Jonathan Franzen.” Washington Post also reviews: “Its bright, clean, gallivanting story rewards an open mind and heart with crisp prose, fresh plot turns and dimensional, dishy portraits we can instantly recognize.”

NYT reviews The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon): “It’s a thrill to follow her on this dark quest. Her mind is twisted but clear; her opinions uncompromising. And through her Korelitz dispenses another dose of biting morsels that satirize contemporary literary life”; Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera (Graywolf): “And so it is a testament to Yuri Herrera’s virtuosic talents that his new novel, Season of the Swamp, manages to breathe new life into a character who had long become a wax figure”; and The Third Realm by Karl Ove Knausgaard, tr. by Martin Aitken (Penguin Pr.): “The central theme—more overt than in The Morning Star—is the limit of the human mind.”

Washington Post reviews Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham (Ecco): “Graham’s account is well-researched and scrupulously footnoted, but she also writes with a pulpy panache that turns the book into a well-paced thriller”; and Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism by Sebastian Smee (Norton): “As pioneers of this ‘new way of painting,’ Morisot and Manet are the stars of Smee’s narrative, supported by a colorful cast of French writers (Charles Baudelaire, Edmond de Goncourt), politicians (Adolphe Thiers, Léon Gambetta) and above all, artists (Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley).”

Briefly Noted

LitHub highlights 27 new books for the week.

Author Brandon Sanderson reveals plan to build a bookstore, Shelf Awareness reports.

Journalist Trey Yingst talks with People about his new book, Black Saturday: An Unfiltered Account of the October 7th Attack on Israel and the War in Gaza (Harper Influence).

Esquire asks: “Who Pays for the Arts?”

People shares an excerpt from Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood by Barry Sonnenfeld (Hachette).

Parade looks at a new buzzy BookTok favorite, Wild Eyes by Elsie Silver (Bloom). 

CrimeReads highlights mysteries set during COVID. 

Star Tribune delves into the appeal of the senior sleuth. 

Reactor lists “Five Books Featuring Horrific Family Inheritances.”

AARP shares “10 Historical Novels NOT Set During World War II.”

ElectricLit has “7 Fun Novels That Reimagine the Afterlife.”

Authors on Air

Louise Erdrich discusses her new novel, The Mighty Red (Harper; LJ starred review), with B&N’s Poured Over podcast. 

Ina Garten chats with NPR’s Fresh Air about her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens (Crown), and shares “her secret for a great dinner party.”

BookRiot highlights 7 new adaptations arriving in October.

A new Reacher spinoff series, based on characters by Lee Child, is coming to Prime Video, Variety reports.

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