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Awards, Book Clubs & News

The 2024 Pulitzer Prizes are announced. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf) wins the top prize for fiction. 

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan: Holt; LJ starred review) wins for Best General Nonfiction, and King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Farrar; LJ starred review) and Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo (S. & S.; LJ starred review) share the prize for biography.

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones (Basic) takes the Pulitzer in history, and Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza wins for memoir/autobiography.

The prizes for poetry and drama go to Tripas: Poems by Brandon Som (Georgia Review) and Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, respectively.

Medar de la Cruz wins the Pulitzer for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for his New Yorker work “The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker.”

NYT has a guide to the awards and winners. Publishers Weekly, Washington Post and NPR’s Morning Edition also have coverage. 

Eduardo Halfon is awarded the Berman Literature Prize for his novel Canción, tr. by Lisa Dillman & Daniel Hahn (Bellevue Literary). 

The Women’s Prize announces the Discoveries shortlist.

Oprah picks Long Island by Colm Toíbín (Scribner) for her book club; CBS shares an excerpt and a readers’ guide.

Reese Witherspoon selects Yulin Kuang’s novel How To End a Love Story (Avon; LJ starred review) for her May book club. 

Simon & Schuster acquires Dutch publisher VBK, Publishers Weekly reports. 

Reviews

NYT reviews Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung (Berkley): “The novel’s subject is revealed to be whether a woman will choose to save herself, or the system that has said she is worthless unless she can bear a son. Hai, her mother and Di all make different choices”; Long Island by Colm Toibin (Scribner): “Long Island is a busier book than its predecessors, more exciting in some ways but in others less satisfying. There is more plot—more incidents and coincidences, more twists and revelations—and less Eilis”; and Miracleman: The Silver Age by Neil Gaiman (text) & Mark Buckingham (illus.) (Marvel Universe): “The nightmares in The Silver Age aren’t as deliberately unknowable as those in Gaiman’s other classics—and it’s to Gaiman’s credit, and the artist Mark Buckingham’s, that the cruel monsters and sweet temptations in the book remain just as evocative and ambiguous.”

USA Today reviews Coming Home by Brittney Griner, written with Michelle Burford (Knopf): “If Griner’s honesty helps even a dozen readers see the world differently, that impact, her impact, will be felt for years.Griner's book will get people talking to each other, and that's when real change begins.” NYT also reviews: “Coming Home is a visceral, harrowing account of what it’s like to be trapped inside Russia’s infamous criminal justice system, with its merciless judges and vast labor camps.”

Washington Post reviews You Never Know: A Memoir by Tom Selleck, written with Ellis Henican (Dey Street): “It’s hard to separate the dancer from the dance, the mustache from the man, but not impossible. Memoir is supposed to puncture the facade of performance, or at least try to. Perhaps Selleck will trust his audience enough to write a more intimate sequel. He’s been speaking to us for a long while now, and I’m sure he has more to say”; Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal by Gary S. Cross (NYU): “His book helps us recognize the less than innocent influences that have captured time that had once been painstakingly liberated from work and converted it into little more than consumer activity”; and Final Verdict: The Holocaust on Trial in the 21st Century by Tobias Buck (Hachette): “Born in Germany, Buck studied law in Berlin before going into journalism, and he draws on all elements of his experience as he seeks answers, grappling with how his country has tried to come to terms with its legacy.”

Briefly Noted

LitHub highlights 27 new books for the week. 

Reactor shares new fantasy books for May.

CrimeReads shares “Five Novels to Transport You to Wild Worlds This Summer.”

AARP suggests nine books featuring mother-daughter relationships.

BookRiot recommends nine memoirs.

Mona Awad leads a literary tour through Montreal at NYT.

LitHub shares “the best-dressed writers at the Met Galas” of years’ past, while BBC finds “delicious irony” in this year’s theme, which takes its title from J.G. Ballard’s 1962 short story “The Garden of Time.”

People shares an excerpt from With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic by A. Ashley Hoff (Chicago Review; LJ starred review).

LA Times highlights Whoopi Goldberg’s new memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me (Blackstone). 

Ann Hood shares an animated book cover reveal for her new novel, The Stolen Child (Norton), at People.

The Millions argues against the use of the term “Latin American literature.”

Hannah Brown talks with People about her new novel, Mistakes We Never Made (Forever: Grand Central). The Bachelorette alum also has an interview with FoxDigital.

Authors on Air

Zoë Schlanger discusses her new book, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth (Harper), with NPR’s Fresh Air. 

Brittney Griner discusses her book Coming Home, written with Michelle Burford (Knopf), with PBS Canvas and NPR.

Jana Monroe’s Hearts of Darkness: Serial Killers, the Behavioral Science Unit, and My Life as a Woman in the FBI (Abrams), will be adapted as a series, Deadline reports.

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