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Awards & News

Oprah picks Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful (Dial) as her 100th book club pick.

Napolitano discussed her book, along with Jenny Jackson, Pineapple Street (Pamela Dorman Books), on B&N’s Poured Over podcast. 

The 2023 International Booker Prize longlist is announced. The Guardian has coverage.

London Review Bookshop launches Martha Mills prize, a new award for young writers. The Guardian reports. 

Becca Rothfeld is the new nonfiction book critic at The Washington Post . 

Reviews

NYT reviews Heart Sutra by Yan Lianke, trans. by Carlos Rojas (Grove): “Heart Sutra, as an idea and premise, and also as explained in engaging afterwords by Yan and his translator, Carlos Rojas, is darkly exhilarating and daring”; Walking Practice by Dolki Min, trans. by Victoria Caudle (HarperVia): “When Mumu is in human drag, the book combines arch social commentary with slapstick humor”; The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery by Adam Gopnik (Liveright): “The Real Work may not seem like a critic’s book about art, but its conclusion hints at a way of resolving the apparent tension between critics and artists”; The Lost Americans by Christopher Bollen (Harper): “As the story accelerates toward its finale, it veers into uncharted territory, picking up momentum and emotional power, culminating in a series of rapidly escalating revelations and dramatic reversals that are gripping and genuinely moving”; Y/N by Esther Yi (Astra House): “All that writing, that global “content,” is now so ubiquitous, so endless, so cheap—ChatGPT, bonjour — it comes to seem like a toxic cloud, against which a well-formed novel like this counteracts, a blast of cleansing heat”; Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice by Judith Lewis Herman (Basic): “Acknowledgment, apology and amends. Over the course of this extraordinary book, in which she interviews survivors of trauma and surveys innovative programs of community justice and healing, Herman, a psychiatrist, resolutely rings this bell”; How To Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How To Love the Life of the Mind by Regan Penaluna (Grove): “More than a resuscitation of early modern philosophers who have been unjustly excised from the canon because of their sex. It’s also an indictment of sexism in contemporary academic philosophy, as well as a memoir”; The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie (Penguin Pr.): “If you can bear with it through these high jinks, the heart of the book concerns Penny’s parents, who disappeared on a trip to Mount Isa in the Australian outback”; and Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and The Far Right by Mary Jo McConahay (Melville House): “Journalist Mary Jo McConahay, herself a liberal Catholic, aims to show the extreme conservatism of a handful of American Catholic bishops and connect them, directly or indirectly, to the Trump-adjacent far right.”

The Washington Post reviews The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery by Adam Gopnik (Liveright): “Like the magicians he is so taken with, he sometimes employs a touch of sly misdirection, but without ever quite arriving at an aha moment.”

NPR reviews Old Babes in the Wood: Stories by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday): “These tales show Atwood's characteristic insight and intellect while also putting on full display her ability to make us laugh, her chronicler's eye for detail, and her unparalleled imagination.”

Datebook reviews Dust Child by Que Mai Phan Nguyen (Algonquin; LJ starred review): “The well-researched Dust Child is a worthy and affecting story that is long overdue.”

LA Times reviews Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History by Bill Janovitz (Hachette): “Quotes, musings and reminiscences abound, leaving the impression that Leon Russell might have worked better as a straight oral biography.”

“NBCC Board Members Review This Year’s NBCC Award Finalists,” at LitHub. 

Briefly Noted

FoxNews highlights interviews with Benjamin Hall about his new memoir, Saved: A War Reporter’s Mission To Make It Home (Harper), as it hits #1 on the Amazon Best Sellers list. 

NYT features anthropologist Alexa Hagerty, and her new book, Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains (Crown). 

Claire Jimenez discusses her new book, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central), and how she “fought to tell the stories of Puerto Rican women,” at Shondaland. Plus, Margaret Atwood talks about her new story collection, Old Babes in the Wood: Stories (Doubleday).

Former CIA analyst and author Alma Katsu, Red London (Putnam), explains “why the Russian oligarchy in the UK remains a threat,” at CrimeReads. 

BBC highlights a new English language translation of the 1952 novel, Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes, trans. By Ann Goldstein (Astra House).

USA Today shares 20 books for spring.

LitHub has 16 new books for the week.

Tor highlights “Indie Press Speculative Fiction for March and April 2023.”

BookRiot shares new releases for the week, 10 must-read Native American authors, and 12 books by under the radar Black authors. 

Vulture suggests “7 Sporror Books,” for post-The Last of Us viewing and LitHub shares 9 must-reads for fans of the show, which THR reports, "surpassed House of the Dragon in full-season viewers."

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Karen Fine, author of the new memoir, The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality (Anchor; LJ starred review), about love and grief.

NPR’s Morning Edition chats with Laurel Braitman about her new memoir, What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love (S. & S.). 

NPR’s Short Wave celebrates Pi Day with the help of Eugenia Cheng, author of How To Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics (Basic Books).

PBS Canvas remembers Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, who died at age 88.

Paris Hilton, Paris: The Memoir (Dey Street), visits The View today. 

Sarah Ferguson, A Most Intriguing Lady (Avon), appears on The Kelly Clarkson Show. 

Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want To Be (Harper Wave) visits Live with Kelly and Ryan tomorrow.

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