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Awards, News & Events

Publishers Weekly rounds up August’s book club picks.

The Dragon Awards ballot is announced. Locus has details. 

The Premio Italia Finalists are announced, Locus reports.

Utah has banned 13 books from public schools statewide; NYT has the news. 

Heresy Press is becoming a Skyhorse Publishing imprint, reports Shelf Awareness.

Publishers Lunch announces a Buzz Books Romance virtual event for Wednesday, August 21, wth Milwaukee Public Library’s Beth Gabriel serving as host.

Reviews

NYT reviews A Termination by Honor Moore (A Public Space Books): “Rather than a call to arms, or even a lesson from history, Moore’s memoir depicts her knot gradually and incompletely untangling over 50 years.”

Washington Post reviews We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston (Random): “Regardless of the fiction writer’s standard caveat—It’s not history!—there’s something vaguely unseemly about subordinating the deaths of so many real people to the ashen background of a far-fetched romance”; and two books on the history of D&D: Playing at the World, 2E, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson (MIT) and Dungeons & Dragons: The Making of Original D&D, 1970–1977 by Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast): “If you look around, you’ll find the influence of D&D everywhere, from corporate culture to the classroom, from exercise apps to customer loyalty programs.”

The Guardian reviews The Voyage Home by Pat Barker (Doubleday): “Clytemnestra and Cassandra are two women with every reason to despair. This strikingly accomplished novel compels us to bear witness to them both.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Shadow of Doubt by Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler), the top holds title of the week. 

LJ has new prepub alerts. 

Parade shares notable new releases for the week.

Reactor highlights new fantasy books arriving in August. 

Ebony suggests Black-authored books for August.

ElectricLit has “7 Funny Books That Will Make You Laugh and Then Cry.”

Author Peter Heller leads a literary tour through Denver, at NYT. 

The publication date for Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington To Save America by Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts, featuring a foreword by J.D. Vance (Broadside), has been postponed until after the U.S. presidential election, The Guardian reports.

Liza Minnelli will release a tell-all memoir, written with Michael Feinstein, in spring of 2025. People has details. Vulture and The Guardian also have coverage. 

The Guardian previews Zora Neale Hurston’s forthcoming posthumous final novel, The Life of Herod the Great with Deborah G. Plant (Amistad), due out in January. 

Bob Woodward’s next book, War (S. & S.), due out October 15, will focus on conflict abroad and politics at home, AP reports. 

People previews Jennifer Finney Boylan’s forthcoming book, Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us (Celadon), due out February 4. 

People talks with Julianne Hough about gaining perspective after family crisis and her forthcoming novel, Everything We Never Knew, written with Ellen Goodlett (Sourcebooks Landmark), due out next week. 

Vogue has an interview with Casey McQuiston about her latest book, The Pairing (St. Martin’s Griffin; LJ starred review).

The Atlantic explores a famous literary marriage through the new book A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson by Camille Peri (Viking). 

Ismet Prcic, Unspeakable Home (Avid Reader), answers 10 questions at Poets & Writers. 

Authors on Air

NPR’s Code Switch podcast highlights Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel by Shahnaz Habib (Catapult). 

Bridgerton coexecutive producer Leila Cohan will showrun and cowrite the Netflix adaptation of Emily Henry’s Happy Place, Deadline reports.

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