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Awards

Omar El Akkad wins the $100K Scotiabank Giller Prize for What Strange Paradise (Knopf). CBC has the story.

Brooklyn Public Library Announces its 2021 Literary Prize winners, including New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time by Craig Taylor (Norton) for Nonfiction, and The Wild Fox of Yemen: Poems by Threa Almontaser (Graywolf; LJ starred review), for Fiction/Poetry.

The 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals shortlist is announced. Winners will be announced during ALA’s first annual LibLearnX on Sunday, January 23rd at 4:30 p.m. Central.

John Agard becomes the first poet to win the BookTrust lifetime achievement award. The Guardian has the story.

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) announces its 2022 Book Awards shortlist.

Reviews

The NYT reviews Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King (Grove; LJ starred review): “In our time of anxiety and isolation, King writes stories to curl up in, by which I mean they afford us something rarely celebrated in literature: comfort.”  And, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Harper): “there are books, like this one, that while they may not resolve the mysteries of the human heart, go a long way toward shedding light on our predicaments. In the case of The Sentence, that’s plenty.” Also, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones (Viking): “It provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style.” And, Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court by Linda Greenhouse (Random): “If some or all of this drama occurs in the months and years ahead, one can only be comforted by the knowledge that Linda Greenhouse will be here to write about it. Justice on the Brink will have been prologue. The action — terrifying in its prospect — lies ahead.”  Plus, Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks 1941–1995 (Liveright; LJ starred review): “The whole book is excellent. Highsmith is pointed and dry about herself and everything else. But the early chapters are special. They comprise one of the most observant and ecstatic accounts I’ve read — and it’s a crowded field! — about being young and alive in New York City.”

USA Today reviews Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution by H. W Brands (Doubleday; LJ starred review), giving it 2 out of 4 stars: “what Brands doesn’t do is delve deeply, or in any great detail, into the civil war that he has set up as his book’s errand. Loyalists and their contribution to the British cause appear infrequently throughout, almost on the order of a footnote to the narrative on America’s drift toward radicalization and the war.”

LA Times reviews Trust by Domenico Starnone, tr. by Jhumpa Lahiri (Europa Editions): “a short, sharp novel that cuts like a scalpel to the core of its characters.”

The Washington Post reviews Never by Ken Follett (Viking): “Follett has always been an accomplished storyteller, but his latest reflects a sense of urgency that lifts it well above typical apocalyptic thrillers. Never is first-rate entertainment that has something important to say. It deserves the popular success it will almost certainly achieve.” And, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Harper): “Moving at its own peculiar rhythm with a scope that feels somehow both cloistered and expansive, “The Sentence” captures a traumatic year in the history of a nation struggling to appreciate its own diversity.” Plus, My Body by Emily Ratajkowski (Metropolitan: Macmillan): "a book that neglects to mention its subject’s context or long history, a savvy but myopic collection about its author’s individual body: the crimes enacted against it; the life afforded by it; and its limitations, too."

Entertainment Weekly reviews The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Harper), giving it a B: “Tookie's voice is genuine and humorous, her perspective rich with history, literacy, and quietly simmering fury. Erdrich's fictional account of Tookie's pandemic experience, as singular and as universal as anyone's, resonates with strange and familiar detail…but doesn't blend consistently with her tale of the phantom Flora.”

Briefly Noted

NYT has a Q&A with Josh Ritter about his book, The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All (Hanover Square: Harlequin; LJ starred review).

USA Today has an interview with Emily Ratajkowski about her new book, My Body (Metropolitan: Macmillan), and the cost of fame. Ratajkowski also shares the five books that changed her life at Vogue.  

Vanity Fair has a feature and excerpt from Going There by Katie Couric (Little, Brown, & Co.).

USA Today has a feature on Little Sister: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood by Lana Wood (Dey Street Books), and how the author is fighting for the truth.  

NYT’s "Group Text" suggests O Beautiful by Jung Yun (St. Martin’s; LJ starred review) for book clubs and offers discussion questions.  

People shares details from Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl (Dutton), due out next week.

Senator Joe Manchin is reportedly pursuing a book deal. Mother Jones reports.

CrimeReads shares an excerpt of Hokuloa Road by Shirley Jackson Award-winner, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland Books), due out July, 2022.

LitHub previews new Helen DeWitt novel(la), The English Understand Wool (New Directions), which publishes July, 2022.

Five authors take this month’s Lit Hub Author Questionnaire.

The Atlantic asks "How Self-Reliant Was Emerson?"

The CrimeReads author roundtable discusses crime fiction.  

The Millions highlights new books out this week. 

Tor shares must-read speculative short fiction.

LitHub details “8 of the best sunsets in literature.”

Writer Catherine M. Morrison, 52, died September 25, 2021, and SF writer, fan, and award administrator Jim Fiscus, 76, died November 7, 2021. Locus has obituaries.

Authors On Air

Scottie Pippen talks with Good Morning America about his newly published memoir, Unguarded, written with Michael Arkush (Atria), and what he really thought about The Last Dance. 

NPR's Morning Edition talks with Anne Helen Petersen, author of the forthcoming Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home, written with Charlie Warzel (Knopf), due out December 7th. 

NPR’s Book of the Day features World War C: Lessons from the Pandemic and How To Prepare for the Next One by Sanjay Gupta (S. & S).

Vulcan's Hammer by Philip K. Dick will be adapted for a feature film. The Hollywood Reporter has the story.

Popsugar has "What to Know About Elphaba," now that the character has been cast in the movie adaptation of Wicked, based on the books by Gregory Maguire.

Emily Ratajkowski, My Body (Metropolitan: Macmillan), will visit Drew Barrymore tomorrow, and  Jamie Foxx, Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me, written with Nick Chiles (Grand Central), will chat with Ellen. David Copperfield, David Copperfield’s History of Magic (S. & S.), will visit Seth Meyers, and Bruce Springsteen, Renegades: Born in the USA written with Barack Obama (Crown), will be on with Stephen Colbert.  

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