Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Awards & Book News

Reese Witherspoon chooses Nina Simon’s Mother-Daughter Murder Night (Morrow; LJ starred review) as the latest pick for her book club. Kirkus has the news.

The winners of this year’s Anthony Awards, for outstanding mystery books, have been announced. Kirkus has coverage.

Winners have also been announced for the 2023 Dragon Awards, for SFF novels, Locus reports.

The longlist is out for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize, honoring the best Canadian novel, graphic novel, or short story collection.

SFF novelist Rich Larson wins the 2023 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction, Locus shares.

New Title Best Sellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Entangled: Red Tower) steals No. 1 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Coworker by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen) works its way to No. 4 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) races to No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons by Karin Smirnoff, tr. by Sarah Death (Knopf), snatches No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (Hogarth) rises to No. 12 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

The New Automation Mindset: The Leadership Blueprint for the Era of AI-For-All by Vijay Tella (Wiley) runs to No. 7 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak by Robert F. Kennedy and Brian Hooker (Skyhorse) takes No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list, though some retailers report receiving bulk orders.

Reviews

NYT reviews Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (Farrar): “There is something hopeful in this project, in its sheer intellectual ambition and range, its effort to pick apart and decipher the absurdities and ironies of our political derangement, which almost no other writer could pull off”; and Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier by Marisa Meltzer (Atria/One Signal): “But Glossier’s rise has plateaued, and with Glossy, the reporter Marisa Meltzer pieces together a compulsively readable narrative of beauty, business, privilege and mogul-dom.” Washington Post also reviews the latter: “Glossy is well worth reading not because it contains any especially juicy revelations, but because Meltzer is such a smart skeptic of Glossier’s myth and such a sharp analyst of the ways in which the brand is a barometer of broader trends.”

Washington Post reviews Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity by Laura Meckler (Holt): “Meckler deftly explores how miscommunication, arrogance and flat-out racism sometimes thwarted good intentions as she chronicles many initiatives aimed at closing the academic gap, such as combining advanced and regular classes and finding ways to aid those ‘on the economic edge’”; But Will You Love Me Tomorrow? An Oral History of the ’60s Girl Groups by Laura Flam & Emily Sieu Liebowitz (Hachette; LJ starred review): “For better and worse, Flam…and Liebowitz…let their subjects do most of the talking. But the lack of an editorial voice can make reading their book exhausting”; Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest To Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford (Gallery): “Bamford has created a work destined to shine much-needed light on mental illness. Illuminating those serious moments with humor is her true triumph”; and The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (Riverhead): “In every one of these glimpses of Zed’s life back in England or at the Jamestown settlement, the novel vibrates with tension and drama that unveil the fabric of early-17th-century life. But such treats are parceled out to us…rarely.”

NPR reviews Holly by Stephen King (Scribner): “King has never been shy about his politics, but Holly is one of his most political novels to date, and it’ll surely anger all the right people.”

LitHub selects “5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Kirkus identifies “13 Mystery Writers Who Are Transforming the Genre.”

CrimeReads gathers psychological thrillers centered on toxic friendships and mothers-in-law from hell.

The Guardian has a list of the best descriptions of ambition in literature.

Tor.com rounds up all the new science fiction books and all the new fantasy books arriving in September. There’s also a selection of five underrated backlist titles set in the future and five books with “devilishly dangerous fairy deals.”

Yiyun Li, author of Wednesday’s Child: Stories (Farrar), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

Washington Post profiles Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions (Avid Reader: S. & S.). Gurba also answers LitHub’s “Annotated Nightstand” survey and is interviewed on The Maris Review podcast.

Publishers Weekly talks to historian Ibram X. Kendi and cartoonist Joel Christian Gill, creators of the graphic novel Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America (Ten Speed).

The Millions has an interview with National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee.

The Guardian has a profile of Jewelle Gomez, “the Black lesbian writer who changed vampire fiction—and the world.”

NYT’s “Inside the Best-Seller List” profiles None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (Atria).

Patrick Rothfuss is hosting a Twitch series with guest authors to promote his latest publication, The Narrow Road Between Desires, due out from DAW in November. Tor has reporting.

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s next book will be an anthology of poems inspired by the natural world, You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, to be published by Milkweed Editions next spring; Kirkus has the news.

Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt from singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge’s memoir, Talking to My Angels (Harper Wave).

Publishers Weekly has an excerpt from Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novel Roaming (Drawn & Quarterly; LJ starred review).

The Millions runs an excerpt from Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry, ed. by George Getschow (Univ. of Texas).

Sarah Young, author of the best-selling devotional Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Thomas Nelson), has died at age 77. ShelfAwareness has an obituary.

Authors on Air

Tor.com and LitHub’s Voyage into Genre podcast interviews S.L. Coney, author of Wild Spaces (Tor.com); Ruthanna Emrys, author of A Half-Built Garden (Tor.com); and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (AK Pr.).

NPR’s Fresh Air talks to Maria Bamford, author of Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest To Belong Anywhere (Gallery).

Tomorrow, Alex Guarnaschelli, coauthor of Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods (Clarkson Potter), appears on GMA, while Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It (Harvard Business Review), appears on Tamron Hall.

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

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.