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Awards & Buzzy Book News

Arinze Ifeakandu wins the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize with God’s Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories (A Public Space). Publishing Perspectives also covers the news.

The 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist is announced.

Chris Turner wins the 2023 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing with How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World (Random House Canada). CBC Books also has details.

The 2023 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize longlist is announced.

The 2023 Orwell Prizes shortlists are announced. 

“Calling Attention to Banned Books Lifts Them Up,” according to PublishersLunch. 

“K-Pop Stars BTS Will Release a Book Telling Their Own Story in July,” NYT reports.

There is continued coverage on the WGA strike including a piece from Variety on “What Writers and Studios Must Iron Out to Settle on AI” and a list of all of the television shows and films that are being affected by the strike. Deadline also shares an affected list and explores how “unscripted TV community fears strike impact.” The Hollywood Reporter attempts to answer the question “How Much Can a Director Change a Script During the Writers Strike?”

Jezebel covers the rumors around a Taylor Swift biography to allegedly come out in July.

Urban historian Fred Siegel has died at 78. NYT has more on his life.

Page to Screen

May 12:

Knights of the Zodiac, based on the manga Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada. Sony Pictures. No reviews | Trailer

BlackBerry, based on the book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNich and Sean Silcoff. IFC Films. Reviews | Trailer

City on Fire, based on the book by Garth Risk Hallberg. Apple TV+. No reviews | Trailer

May 14:

Fear the Walking Dead, based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. AMC. Reviews | Trailer

May 16:

The Tower, based on the “Post Mortem” book series by Kate London. BritBox. Reviews | Trailer

May 18:

XO, Kitty, based on the “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” book trilogy by Jenny Han. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune, based on the novel series by Carlo Zen. Netflix. No reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews Blue Skies by T.C. Boyle (Liveright): “less a novel about what might be done about the climate crisis and more an accomplished family drama with a climate-crisis setting.”

The Washington Post reviews How Not To Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind by Clancy Martin (Pantheon): “a blend of genres: part memoir, part self-help, part philosophical and literary exploration. I would even suggest it is part novel. All of this makes the book odd, as it constantly doubles back on itself to interrogate the very things that it is doing and saying.”

Datebook reviews What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World by Dorothy Lazard (Heyday): “the constant wonder of “What You Don’t Know” is that Lazard almost never resorts to bitterness, vengefulness or despair as she seeks tools for pushing ahead. Her yearning to know, learn, understand and become remains powerful and creative, often against spectacular odds.”

Tor.com reviews The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton (MCD x FSG Originals): “a creepy, sprawling novel that offers a master class in atmosphere while making readers feel like they’re standing on ambiguous terrain.”

Gizmodo reviews The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire; LJ starred review): “This short, sharp novella flays its characters open—often literally—in order to perform a surgical, queer satire of happy endings. Cassandra Khaw’s writing is masterful, and her horror is gruesome and gleeful, rendered in prose so grisly, you have to pick it out from between your teeth.”

The Chicago Tribune reviews Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revivalby Mark Guarino (University of Chicago): “will thrill any music fan but it is something more than that. It gives readers a greater appreciation of the heart and resilience and creativity of this city and its ability to sustain and nurture those talented to persevere.”

Book Marks has the best reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

Rachel Cargle, author of A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining (Ballantine), talks to Time about her “insistence that joy and pleasure are as essential as equity and justice in the making of a better world.”

Tembe Denton-Hurst has a conversation with Shondaland about her new book, Homebodies (Harper), as it “examines speaking truth to power.”

The Root’s It’s Lit interviews Sunny Hostin about how her new book, Summer on Sag Harbor (Morrow), “opens the door to a real Black beach community.”

Lisa Brideau, Adrift (Sourcebooks Landmark), considers how she wrote “a climate change thriller with realism and hope” in an article for CrimeReads.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony discusses revelations from his new book, Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, with People pertaining to “JFK’s infidelities.”

Author Charles Yu reflects on a new edition of Jeff VanderMeer’s book, Veniss Underground (MCD), for Lit Hub. 

Soon-to-be-released Bob Dylan biography, Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine, ed. by Mark Davidson (Callaway), will “rare photos, essays,” Fox News reports. Also, “UK island that inspired mystery novelist Agatha Christie is up for sale.”

Entertainment Weekly provides an excerpt of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (Morrow). 

Lit Hub reveals the cover of Kaveh Akbar’s forthcoming book Martyr! to come out early next year.

CBC Books gives a first look at debut novel And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott (Dutton). 

Tor.com has a first look at The Judas Blossom: Book I of The Nightingale and the Falcon by Stephen Aryan (Angry Robot). 

Sci-fi thriller writer Victor Manibo will come out with a new book early next year titled Escape Velocity (Erewhon), according to Gizmodo.

CrimeReads shares several reading lists including: “Whodunnits With a Killer Twist,” “Six Novels Exploring the Underbelly Privileged Enclaves,” "8 Taut Thrillers Set Over Three Days Or Less," “Terrible Mothers in Horror,” and "May's Best Psychological Thrillers."

Autostraddle gives a list of “10 Books to Read in the Bathtub.”

Hannah Halperin, author of I Could Live Here Forever (Viking), provides “9 Novels About Characters Looking to Be Transformed by Sex or Love” for Electric Lit.

NYT recommends “Romance Novels We’re Loving In 2023” and “9 new books.”

Authors on Air

Christina Sharpe chats on the The Maris Review podcast about “the importance of regard” and her new book, Ordinary Notes (Farrar).

Popsugar has a conversation with Judy Blume about celebrating her new documentary and on why “teaching puberty is a good thing.”

Kerri Arsenault, Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains (St. Martin’s), discusses “the pervasive and ongoing risks of dioxin” as it pertains to the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast.

Isabella Hammad talks about “finding inspiration in Hamlet” for her new book, Enter Ghost (Grove) on the Otherppl podcast.

Stephen Marche, who co-wrote a book with AI titled Death of the Author, explains “why technologies like ChatGPT will make creators more valuable than ever” on the Keen On podcast. Also, Felix Salmon, The Phoenix Economy: Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal (Harper Business), considers “work, life and the price of lobster rolls in the new “not normal” in an interview. 

Chelene Knight's book Junie (Book*hug Pr.) will be adapted for television, as reported by CBC Books. 

Killers Films will be producing a star-studded biopic on “the life and loves of Patricia Highsmith” titled The Murderous Miss Highsmith, according to Deadline. 

Netflix has begun filming on an adaption of Juan Rulfo’s 1958 novella, Pedro Páramo, Lit Hub reports. Book Riot also covers the news.

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