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Awards & News

PEN America cancels its 2024 literary awards ceremony, originally set for April 29, after fallout over the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, NYT reports. LitHub, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, and Time also have coverage. 

The LA Times Book Prizes are announced.

Yoko Ono has been honored with the MacDowell Medal in recognition of work across disciplines; Rolling Stone has coverage. Two new books on or by Ono published this month: a revised edition of  Yoko Ono: Everything in the Universe Is Unfinished by the artist (JRP|Editions) and Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, ed. by Juliet Bingham (Yale Univ.).

The 2024 Age Book of the Year Award shortlists are announced. Books + Publishing has details. 

The UK edition of Rebel Wilson’s memoir, Rebel Rising (HarperCollins), will have close to one page redacted, The Bookseller reports. 

Masie Cochran takes the helm as publisher and editorial director of Tin House, PW reports. 

Today is World Book and Copyright Day.

Reviews

NYT reviews Lucky by Jane Smiley (Knopf): “It’s as if Smiley has awakened from a trance and sought to distance herself from everything that’s gone before with a little bad-faith bargain-basement postmodernism (though this does have the fringe benefit of providing some cover for the musical bum notes)”; The Whole Staggering Mystery: A Story of Fathers Lost and Found by Sylvia Brownrigg (Counterpoint): “We turn to the genre, suggests Brownrigg, a touch defensively, to get at what genetics can’t tell us—that is, ‘how it felt.’ It’s an anxious note in an otherwise assured piece of storytelling about which Brownrigg needn’t have worried; her tale is an absolute banger”; Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton (Coffee House): “As any good teacher might, Dutton confronts us with wide-ranging allusions, thoughts and imagery, daring us to be flexible enough to relate to just about anything. But we’re not her students. We want more than hints of what stirs her. We want the real deal”; and The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim: The Woman Who Invented Freud’s Talking Cure by Gabriel Brownstein (PublicAffairs): “This is a memoir nestled in an investigation, hidden inside a mythology. And it’s really about the limits of knowledge: not just about what we know about Pappenheim, but about medicine specifically and about nonfiction in general.”

USA Today reviews Funny Story by Emily Henry (Berkley; LJ starred review): “It's certainly not easy to balance the comfortingly formulaic with the tantalizingly unique. Story might hit the mark best of all of Henry's books so far. It's a funny story, how she does it, actually. You should take a read.”

Washington Post reviews The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters by Susan Page (S. & S.): “Her skill at forging connections with powerful men, shady or not, was critical to her success. Somewhat ironically, that success made her a role model for generations of young women who, inspired by her toughness and resilience, followed her into broadcasting”; and Reboot by Justin Taylor (Pantheon): “Reboot is structured like a TV series—it has a cold open, bottle episodes and three acts—but it simultaneously begs you not to trust those elements, or at least to be more aware of them. Like any streaming network, Taylor wants you to keep watching. But one senses a call to action underneath his entertainment: Watch, as in watch out.”

Briefly Noted

LitHub shares 24 new books for the week. 

BookRiot highlights new releases.

Actor Josh Brolin previews his forthcoming memoir, From Under the Truck (Harper), due out November 19, at People.

People shares details from The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn by Josh Young & Manfred Westphal (Grand Central; LJ starred review). 

Washington Post provides an excerpt from Amy Tan’s new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles (Knopf). 

Shondaland considers “Why We’re All Swooning for Romance Books.”

ElectricLit shares “7 Books About Fictional Technologies with World-Altering Consequences.”

CBC shares 13 Canadian books for32 Earth Day.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with by Ari Berman about his new book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight To Resist It (Farrar).

Emily Henry talks about her new book, Funny Story (Berkley; LJ starred review), casting rumors, and more on GMA. 

Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley will star in the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. The Guardian has the story. 

Al Roker previews his new book, Murder on Demand (Blackstone), on Today.

Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf; LJ starred review) will be adapted for film, Deadline reports. 

Emily P. Freeman, How To Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When To Stay and When To Walk Away (HarperOne; LJ starred review), and Holly Gramazio, The Husbands (Doubleday), will be on Today tomorrow.

Newt Nguyen, Newt: A Cookbook for All (Harvest), will visit GMA tomorrow. 

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