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Hugo Awards & News

The 2023 Hugo Awards are announced. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (Tor; LJ starred review) wins best novel. Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com; LJ starred review) wins best novella.

Salman Rushdie accepts German Peace Prize while speaking out against attacks on free expression. USA Today has the story. 

Big Books of the Week

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears (Gallery) leads holds this week.

Other titles in demand include:

The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Delacorte)

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner; LJ starred review)

If You Would Have Told Me by John Stamos (Holt)

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant (Viking)

These books and others publishing the week of October 23, 2023, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Four LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week:

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner; LJ starred review)

“On the long treacherous journey to the New Orleans slave markets, Annis turns inward, speaking to her lost mother and revisiting the stories of her African warrior grandmother. Ward’s fluid prose assists the reader to travel alongside Annis, flowing between hell on earth and the comfort of memory. For fans of She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore.”—KC Davis, LibraryReads Ambassador, CT

It is also the #1 Indie Next pick:

“Jesmyn Ward is one of the most important writers of our time. This may be her best to date. Heartbreaking and gorgeous, Annis carries us through her story of loss and brutal enslavement—a story of strength, love, enduring, and finding a way.”—Jeanne Costello, Maria’s Bookshop, Durango, CO

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman (Knopf)

“In this twist on the trope of a locked room mystery, a private eye is trapped in an exclusive hunting cabin in the Adirondacks during a major storm with three dead bodies, while finding he is as much a suspect as the rest of the elite set of guests. A great original debut!”— Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library. NJ

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“A fun locked-room murder mystery in the spirit of our favorite detective stories like Murder, She Wrote. West Heart Kill puts a new spin on the genre. Dann McDorman’s debut arrives at the whodunit delightfully. I eagerly await his next one.”—Rebekah Rine, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS

The notable nonfiction pick, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl (Spiegel & Grau), is also an Indie Next pick:

“Oh what a lovely world to live in—every night I looked forward to sinking in. Set up like a devotional following the seasons, Renkl brings hope to our chances to make a difference as climate news only gets worse. Gift yourself this treasure.”—Gee Gee Rosell, Buxton Village Books, Buxton, NC

Hall of Fame pick Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake (Berkley) is also an Indie Next pick:

“A funny, hot queer romance that tackles real issues! Iris Kelly is happy without a relationship. So why won’t her friends and family stop trying to change her? When she meets adorably awkward Stevie Scott, fake dating leads to real feelings.”—Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books, Okemos, MI

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

America Fantastica by Tim O’Brien (Mariner)

“A brilliant romp across the continent. Boyd Halverson feels the urge to shake things up. So, he gets up from his Kiwanis Club brunch, strolls across the street to a bank with a .38 revolver, robs it, and takes Angie Banks, the teller, hostage. Away we go!”—Deon Stonehouse, Sunriver Books & Music, Sunriver, OR

I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury; LJ starred review)

“I Must Be Dreaming delighted me from beginning to end. Chast’s illustrations are imbued with zany charm as she relays both wild and mundane dreams, giving us a peek into the subconscious of one of our most beloved cartoonists.”—Rose Heithoff, Back Cove Books, Portland, ME

In the Media

People’s book of the week is Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are Black Friend by Ziwe Fumudoh (Abrams Image) and I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury; LJ starred review). A “New in Crime & Suspense” section highlights Distant Sons by Tim Johnston (Algonquin), Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar (Crooked Lane), and Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead (Sourcebooks Landmark; LJ starred review). 

The “Picks” section spotlights Killers of the Flower Moon, based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann; Apple original film The Pigeon Tunnel, about the life of spy novelist John Le Carré, a.k.a. David Cornwell; and Amazon Prime’s The Burial, based on Jonathan Harr’s New Yorker article “The Burial.”

The cover feature offers insight into Britney Spears’s life and new memoir, The Woman in Me (Gallery). Also, John Stamos recounts being a survivor of child sexual abuse, as revealed in his new memoir, If You Would Have Told Me (Holt), and there is a remembrance for Suzanne Somers. People Online has more on Stamos. Plus, Tiffani Thiessen, Here We Go Again: Recipes and Inspiration To Level Up Your Leftovers, written with Rachel Holtzman (Worthy Books), shares a recipe.

Reviews

NYT reviews Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods by Sarah Lohman (Norton): “Lohman is more like your smart, affable friend who forgets to take enough warm clothes for a canoe trip to harvest native wild rice or shows up to help net salmon in tennis shoes and yoga capri pants”; Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass (Knopf): “Though Bass’s book does not stint on historical analysis, it is written with the panache of a journalist who knows how to pace a scene”; and Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography by Staci Robinson (Crown): “Her writing radiates admiration, and at times she even speaks on Tupac’s behalf. Even so, this is far from hagiography. At its best, the book feels like a plea to re-examine the world that made Tupac Shakur so angry.” There are short reviews of three story collections: This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara (Norton), Company: Stories by Shannon Sanders (Graywolf), and Holler, Child: Stories by LaToya Watkins (Tiny Reparations).

NYT also reviews Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer (Putnam): “While Singer quotes liberally from their onscreen tiffs, I missed a better sense of their insights into movies. They were good sparring partners; were they also good critics?” Washington Post also reviews: “Everybody’s a critic now, and if that’s what Singer means by “changing movies forever,” I wonder if it’s the legacy that Siskel and Ebert had in mind”; and LA Times weighs in: “Siskel and Ebert bustled into the world at a time when movie critics mattered more, before the culture fragmented into a million voices and “influencers,” and they ruled that world with iron thumbs. In this sense Singer’s book is a time capsule of a bygone era every bit as irreplicable as the partnership at its core.”

Washington Post reviews three books about the global economy: Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy by Henry Farrell & Abraham Newman (Holt), Economic War by Maximilian Hess (Hurst), and Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests by Agathe Demarais (Columbia Univ.). 

The Guardian reviews Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner; LJ starred review): “And yet in the final hundred pages Ward does stretch the reader more and the results are far more impressive.”

Briefly Noted

A new Jack Reacher book, The Secret (Delacorte), publishes this week as Lee Child passes the baton to his brother Andrew. Washington Post has an interview with the pair. 

James Patterson talks about the art of collaboration with USA Today, and teases a new writing project with “wonderful actor who everyone loves.”

NPR highlights a new graphic novel version of Richard Adams’s Watership Down, adapted by James Sturm, illus. by  Joe Sutphin.

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week.

Authors on Air

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles recommends new books for the week on CBS Sunday Morning.

PBS Canvas remembers Louise Glück’s “devastating poetic voice.”

Killers of the Flower Moon, based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, is out now. USA Today fact-checks the movie. Deadline writes how the film’s “attention could help a tribe reclaim land and fortunes.”

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