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The Edgar Awards

The Edgar Award winners are announced. Best Novel goes to Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka (Morrow; LJ starred review), the Best First Novel is Don’t Know Tough by Eli Cranor (Soho), Best Fact Crime goes to Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse (Flatiron; LJ starred review), Best Critical/Biographical goes to The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators by Martin Edwards (Collins Crime Club; LJ starred review), and Best TV Episode is “Episode 1” of Magpie Murders, written by Anthony Horowitz (Masterpiece/PBS).

Reviews

The Washington Post reviews City of Dreams by Don Winslow (Morrow) “masterfully executed with class.” Also, The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green (Hanover Square Press: Harlequin; LJ starred review) “teaching us that when we look beyond the gravity well of Earth, we are ultimately looking back at ourselves.” The Age of Guilt: The Super-Ego in the Online World by Mark Edmundson (Yale): “examines the psychological dimensions of today’s judgmentalism through a Freudian lens…insightful.” A joint review of Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth by Jennifer Banks (Norton) and Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington (Seal Press: Hachette), “Both Banks and Heffington make plain that what we need is not more babies…give us more resources and more social support for would-be parents.” Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd (Grand Central), "it is a great Hollywood book; the passages about the acting process are fascinating."

The New York Times reviews A History of Burning by Janika Oza (Grand Central: Hachette): “The author opens things up for her readers. More life, more joy and more love amid a shifting and layered landscape of unspeakable loss.” Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Pantheon), “You can’t applaud [this] thrilling debut…without getting blood on your hands.” Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester (Harper), “The book may not, in the end, propound a new argument for the value of acquiring knowledge. But like all of Winchester’s books, it is one.” The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption by Katy Kelleher (S.&S.) “writes about the extreme and sometimes hideous lengths that people have gone to in order to obtain coveted objects of beauty: ruining their health, wrecking the planet, inflicting suffering on others.” There is also a Shortlist feature on short story collections featuring society that lets “Individuals Down Again and Again.”

Book Marks picks “The Best Reviewed Books of the Week.”

Briefly Noted

Ebony highlights “5 Black Male Poets Whose Words Enthrall Us.”

The NYT romance column is out, noting “Sometimes, the balance in a romance is a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. With enough power behind it, this movement gives you the same swooping thrill as a good roller coaster. And the biggest swoop of this column comes from Erin Langston’s marvelous Regency, Forever Your Rogue (self-published).

CrimeReads hosts “The State of The Crime Novel, Part 2: A Roundtable Discussion with The Edgar Nominees.”

Publishers Weekly reports on the new efforts to pass the Right to Read Act. Publishing Perspectives has “The Freedom To Write Index: 311 Imprisoned Worldwide.” Nora Robert faces censorship in Florida. The Washington Post reports.

The NYT writes “Why ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Still Matters” and reviews the film adaptation of the novel.

The NYT suggests nine books for the week. Also in the paper, a look inside the best-seller list with Jeff Benedict, author of LeBron (Avid Reader: S.&S.).

LitHub offers “The Vietnam War, 50 Years On: A Reading List” and “Literary Lovers: A Sapphic Reading List for Every Mood.”

CrimeReads gathers “Five Great Novels Inspired by Real-Life Crimes”

Book Riot posts “10 of the Best New Books in Translation out Spring 2023,” “8 Interstellar Books Like The Expanse,” and “Wedding Mysteries and Thrillers.” Also, an introduction to Junji Ito.

Lit Hub picks the best book covers of April.

Vulture has an excerpt from Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer (Knopf).

Entertainment Weekly has a cover reveal of Patrick Stewart’s forthcoming memoir, Making It So (S.&S.).

Page to Screen

April 28:

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., based on the book by Judy Blume. Lionsgate. Reviews | Trailer

The Eight Mountains, based on the book by Paolo Cognetti. Janus Films. Reviews | Trailer

Peter Pan & Wendy, based on the play “Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” by J. M. Barrie. Disney+. No reviews | Trailer

Frog and Toad, based on the books by Arnold Lobel. Apple TV+. No reviews | Trailer

One True Loves, based on the book by Taylor Jenkins Reid. VOD. Reviews | Trailer

April 30:

Tom Jones, based on the book The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding. PBS. No reviews | Trailer

May 1: 

White House Plumbers, based on the book Integrity by Egil Krogh and Matthew Krogh. HBO. No reviews | Trailer

May 3:

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, based on the book The Phantom Price: My Life with Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

May 4:

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, based on the book series by Julia Quinn. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Star Wars: Visions, based on associated titles. Disney+. Reviews | Trailer

Authors On Air

Killers of the Flower Moon and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes get first looks at CinemaCon. Variety has details and some movie stills.

A.A. Milne’s Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh are getting turned into an R-rated TV show. Deadline has details.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan is getting optioned for a TV series. Deadline has the news. Also, more information on Netflix’s adaptation of The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the animated Justice League: Warworld.

Camille T. Dungy, author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (S. & S.), is scheduled to be on All Things Considered today. Read LJ's interview with her here. 

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