Finalists for National Book Critics Circle Awards Are Announced | Book Pulse

The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize are revealed. Mick Herron wins the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement. Novelists are wondering if their careers will survive without BookTok. Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a strategic partnership with OpenAI. Plus, Page to Screen and new spring titles from Martha Stewart, Jeremy Renner, and the Dalai Lama.

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Awards & Book News

The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards are announced.

The longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is revealed.

Mick Herron wins the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement, The Guardian reports.

Washington Post reports that novelists are wondering if their careers will survive without BookTok.

Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a strategic partnership with OpenAI to use ChatGPT within the company as well as to develop “new products and services”; Publishers Weekly has coverage.

Page to Screen

January 24

The Performance, based on the short story by Arthur Miller. GVN Releasing. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su (Harper): “To say more would spoil the dark fun of this book. Suffice it to say that Blob isn’t a horror novel, and Bob isn’t the only one who evolves from a disagreeable lump into someone willing to accept who and what they are. In Su’s affecting Frankenstein story, the monster’s transformation is the least surprising one.”

LA Times reviews The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin (Yale Univ.): “The Many Lives of Anne Frank is not the kind of book that uses historical grievance as a cudgel against present-day sensibilities. Franklin writes with a rare combination of lightness and equanimity, with little sanctimony or finger-wagging.”

The Guardian reviews House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou (Portfolio): “Dou makes us better equipped to consider questions including: is this a regular company, or an extension of the Chinese state? How safe should other countries feel about using Huawei equipment? Is China’s exploitation of its technology sector really that different to the way the US authorities exploited Google, Facebook and others, as revealed by Edward Snowden?

LitHub gathers the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

NYT reports that the Dalai Lama’s new book will share thoughts on China and the future. Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People is due out from Morrow on Mar. 11.

Martha Stewart announces Martha Stewart’s Gardening Handbook: The Essential Guide to Designing, Planting, and Growing, which will be published by HarperCollins’s Harvest imprint on Mar. 18, People reports.

Actor Jeremy Renner has written a memoir about his near-fatal 2023 snowplow accident; My Next Breath will be published by Flatiron on Apr. 29, People reports.

CrimeReads talks to Rick Childers, author of Turkeyfoot (Shotgun Honey), about writing an Appalachian rural noir “with a sense of love.”

Kirkus interviews Grady Hendrix, author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls Hendrix (Berkley; LJ starred review).

NYT talks to Clay McLeod Chapman about his new horror novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (Quirk; LJ starred review).

Scott Turow, author of Presumed Guilty (Grand Central), tells NYT why he brought back his most famous character, the now 77-year-old lawyer Rusty Sabich.

NYT has “8 New Books We Recommend This Week.”

CrimeReads offers “25 Horror Novels To Look Out For in 2025.”

Reactor suggests “Five Books About Very Real Gods Causing Very Real Trouble.”

Northern Irish poet Michael Longley has died at age 85; The Guardian has an obituary.

Authors on Air

Sarah S. Grossman, author of A Fire So Wild (Harper Perennial), talks to LitHub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast.

Fox News interviews Lyndsy Spence, author of Where Madness Lies: The Double Life of Vivien Leigh (Pegasus).

Shelf Awareness rounds up the schedule for this weekend’s Book TV on C-SPAN 2.

Literary adaptations got multiple Oscar nominations yesterday, Kirkus reports. Shelf Awareness lists Oscar nominations by the book.

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