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Awards & Book News

Winners of the Pacific Northwest Book Awards are announced.

The shortlists for the Westminster Book Awards, for political books and books by UK parliamentarians, are revealed; Publishing Perspectives has coverage.

Jenna Bush Hager, host of the Read with Jenna book club, is starting her own publishing venture with Penguin Random House, the New York Times reports.

New Title Bestsellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers | USA Today Bestselling Books

There are no new title bestsellers this week.

Reviews

The Guardian reviews Islamesque: The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe’s Medieval Monuments by Diana Darke (Hurst): “Islamesque doesn’t need to be ‘revolutionary’; it offers an enjoyable and eye-opening reminder that Europe’s heritage has far more diverse roots than we assume”; and The Bright Side: How Optimists Change the World, and How You Can Be One by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Scribner): “What initially feels like it might be a self-help book turns into an eye-opening history of the idea of optimism, before exploring its potential to help us address social and ecological challenges. The tension in our relationship to optimism, between its motivating and its delusional possibilities, is present throughout.”

The Millions reviews Context Collapse: A Poem Containing a History of Poetry by Ryan Ruby (Seven Stories): “This is a poem which, for all of its erudition and verbosity, contains an adamant thrill toward its subjects, where Ruby’s fragmentary stanzas are able to dip into the slipstream of poetry’s history, evoking eccentric and hermetic worlds.”

LA Times reviews Good Girl by Aria Aber (Hogarth): “Once in a blue moon a debut novel comes along, announcing a voice quite unlike any other, with a layered story and sentences that crackle and pop, begging to be read aloud. Aria Aber’s splendid Good Girl introduces just such a voice.”

NYT reviews Another Man in the Street by Caryl Phillips (Farrar): “When I read a novel that belongs to no obvious genre, I begin to anticipate themes it might examine, and how its form will reflect a certain view of the world. Another Man in the Street often obstructs such anticipation”; and We Tried To Tell Y’all: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives by Meredith D. Clark (Oxford Univ.): “Often when an academic writes about a cultural phenomenon that exists outside the mainstream consciousness, there’s an attempt to explain it as a means to legitimize it. Clark, instead, memorializes Black Twitter, hoping to prevent further perversion of Black innovation, Black language, culture and style.”

Briefly Noted

NYT features Sarah Hoover and her art-world parenting memoir, The Motherload: Episodes From the Brink of Motherhood (S. & S./Simon Element).

Graham Norton, the BBC talk show host and author of the novel Frankie (HarperVia), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

Publishers Weekly interviews Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (Viking), and Erin E. Devers, author of The Unbiased Self: The Psychology of Overcoming Cognitive Bias (IVP Academic).

Publishers Weekly features new religion books that address intimacy and sex.

Kirkus shares books about the contemplative life.

Reactor gathers “Five SF Novels That Dabble in Environmental Determinism.”

CrimeReads rounds up “Historical Crime Novels Featuring Agatha Christie Vibes.”

USA Today suggests YA and adult Greek mythology books for those who loved the Percy Jackson series.

NYT recommends things to read and watch for those who are enjoying Netflix’s American Primeval.

Cat therapist Carole Wilbourn, author of books including The Total Cat: Understanding Your Cat’s Physical and Emotional Behavior from Kitten to Old Age, has died at age 84; NYT has an obituary.

Authors on Air

Kirkus’s Fully Booked podcast has Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of The Sequel, and Liz Moore, author of The God of the Woods, discussing the art of mystery at the Texas Book Festival.

Tomorrow: Jamie Oliver, author of Simply Jamie: Fast & Simple Food (Flatiron), will appear on The View and The Sherri Shepherd Show.

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

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