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Awards & News

John Vaillant wins the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf).

The Minnesota Book Awards are announced.

Marina Endicott wins book of the year at the 2024 Saskatchewan Book Awards. CBC has the story.

The Trillium Book Awards shortlists are announced. CBC has details. 

IBPA Benjamin Franklin Book Awards announces a rebrand, Publishers Weekly reports.

The May Loanstars list is out, featuring top pick This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune (Berkley). 

Earlyword’s May GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now.

LitHub explains what happened at a disastrous Denver book festival.

Hachette announces leadership and structural changes in the UK and USA. Publishing Perspectives has details. 

May Book Clubs

Long Island by Colm Toíbín (Scribner) is the Oprah book club pick; CBS has an excerpt and a readers’ guide.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong (Knopf) is the May selection for Read with Jenna, PBS Books Readers Club, and B&N Book Club. 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader/S. & S.) is the new GMA book club pick. Esquire reflects on “Why We Love Time Travel Stories.”

How To End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang (Avon; LJ starred review) is Reese Witherspoon’s pick.

Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung (Berkley) is the Target book club pick. 

Reviews

NPR reviews Long Island by Colm Toíbín (Scribner): “Long Island, Colm Tóibín's heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, is the rare instance in which a sequel is every bit as good as the original.”

NYT has short reviews of three science fiction and fantasy titles: The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke (Erewhon), The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey: Ballantine; LJ starred review), and Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson (Del Rey: Ballantine; LJ starred review).

Washington Post reviews American Abductions by Mauro Javier Cardenas (Dalkey Archive): “No simple narrative of injury and restoration, American Abductions threads together a vast psychic web—a shared imaginary, shaped by both grand policy and petty malice, a pain that seeps into our collective unconscious, haunting even our dreams.”

Slate reviews The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger (Harper): “The Light Eaters is one of those science books in which the author travels to richly described locales to interview assorted researchers at work and to vividly describe their discoveries for a general audience.”

The Guardian reviews Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson (Grove): “At a time when institutional life is collapsing, when the pandemic privileged family over friends, when work expands in ways that leave many too exhausted to socialise, Nelson demonstrates what it means to dedicate yourself to a cohort with seriousness and strenuousness.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune (Berkley), the top holds title of the week.

LJ has new prepub alerts. 

Bustle has “7 Books That Expanded My View Of The World.”

ElectricLit shares “7 Heart-Wrenching Chinese Family Sagas.”

This month’s Costco Connection highlights Long Island by Colm Toíbín (Scribner).

People announces that director George A. Romero will posthumously publish a new book, Pay the Piper, written with Daniel Kraus (Union Square & Co.), next year.

NYT highlights The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness by Kenn Kaufman (Avid Reader/S. & S.).

Ebony previews Sunny Hostin’s third “Summer Beach” book, Summer on Highland Beach (Morrow), and other books by Black authors to read in May. 

Kathleen Hanna talks about her new memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk (Ecco: HarperCollins; LJ starred review), with Time. 

Ellen Van Neerven discusses their new book, Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity (Two Dollar Radio), with ElectricLit. 

Emily Halnon talks with PopSugar about her new memoir, To the Gorge: Running, Grief, and Resilience & 460 Miles on the Pacific Crest Trail (Pegasus). 

Entertainment Weekly shares details from Whoopi Goldberg’s memoir Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me (Blackstone). 

Jen Psaki, Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World (Scribner), takes Elle’s “Shelf Life” literary survey.

Authors on Air

Rainn Wilson,  Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution (Hachette Go), visits CBS Mornings tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, Kandi Wiens, Burnout Immunity: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work (Harper Business), will visit Tamron Hall.

Susan Page, The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters (S. & S.), will appear on The View.

Luis A. Miranda Jr., Relentless: My Story of the Latino Spirit That Is Transforming America (Hachette), will be on the Kelly Clarkson Show.

Tiffany Haddish, I Curse You with Joy (Diversion), will visit Late Night with Seth Meyers tomorrow night.

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