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Awards & News

NYT reexamines J.D. Vance’s bestselling book 2016, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (Harper), after its author is announced as Donald Trump’s running mate. Washington Post republishes its original review. AP, Entertainment Weekly, People, Today, Vulture, and Vanity Fair also take a new look at the memoir and its 2020 film adaptation.

The Sturgeon Award finalists are announced. Locus has details. 

Annette Danek-Akey will join B&N as chief supply chain officer. Publishers Lunch reports.

Audible announces a new royalties model for authors and publishers.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (Viking; LJ starred review): “Grossman, who is best known for his ‘The Magicians’ series, is at the top of his game with The Bright Sword, which is full of enviable ideas and execution. Few authors could accomplish what he has, grounding such an ambitious novel in so much tradition and history while still making it accessible and deeply affecting”; The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA by Jesse Katz (Astra House): “If its subtitle promises ‘redemption,’ the book itself delivers something more honest: stories about people broken by powers larger than they are and who nonetheless find the will to fight on”; Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler (Random): “While not necessarily the first in the category of the millennial midlife novel, Banal Nightmare may be one of the most essential. It does for this generation what movies like The Big Chill and A Woman Under the Influence did for previous ones”; and Bright Objects by Ruby Todd (S. & S.): “Bright Objects is not a rapid-fire page-turner or a wild freak-fest: It is instead a slow-burn meditation on grief, hope, mortality and what Joseph promises are ‘the laws of cosmic synchronicity.’” Plus, there is a paired review of The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox (Random) and The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld by Dan Slater (Little, Brown). 

Washington Post reviews Come to the Window by Howard Norman (Norton): “Window might be among the best COVID novels that’s emerged because everything Norman observes is suffused with an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.”

Briefly Noted

LitHub highlights 23 new books for the week.

Parade has notable new releases for the week. 

Time lists the 36 best celebrity memoirs. 

Reactor shares “Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds.”

LitHub counters NYT’s big list from last week with “What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Century.”

Kathie Lee Gifford talks to People about recovery from hip replacement surgery, amid this week’s publication of her new book, Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior (Thomas Nelson).

Deborah Harkness, The Black Bird Oracle (Ballantine; LJ starred review), discusses becoming an “accidental novelist” and the future of her ‘All Souls’ series, with Elle.

Electric Lit talks with Halle Butler about her third novel, Banal Nightmare (Random), along with “social paranoia, the fallacy of careerism, and how the obscure can serve a narrative.”

Madiba K. Dennie discusses her book The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back (Random) with Salon. 

Esquire examines “The Second Coming of the Sports Novel.”

People shares how coauthors Allison Gilbert & Pierre Lehu will publish the late Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer’s forthcoming The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways To Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life (Rodale) on September 3.

Authors on Air

Liz Moore discusses her book, The God of the Woods (Riverhead; LJ starred review), on B&N’s Poured Over podcast.

NPR’s It’s Been A Minute shares summer reading recommendations.

Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, based on the book by Elin Hilderbrand, gets a new trailer.

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