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Awards & Book News

Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of books including 2018’s The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity, has been awarded the Library of Congress Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity.

Open Road will launch (starting Sept. 22) the Free Voices Geo-Targeting initiative to help consumers find and read banned books in the 10 states where book bans are most prevalent. Publishers Weekly and Publishing Perspectives have coverage.

EarlyWord releases its August GalleyChat roundup.

Mary Wings, pioneering creator of queer comics, has died at 75; NYT has an obituary.

Page to Screen

August 9

Dance First, based on the life of Samuel Beckett. StudioCanal. Reviews | Trailer

It Ends with Us, based on the novel by Colleen Hoover. Sony Pictures. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Washington Post reviews A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings (St. Martin’s): “Coincidentally, the book arrives at a moment when the trappings of the hyper-patriarchal, anti-modernity lifestyle hold cultural power, too”; and two books about the contemporary art scene: Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today by Claire Bishop (Verso) and Dancing on My Own: Essays on Art, Collectivity, and Joy by Simon Wu (Harper).

The Guardian reviews You’re Embarrassing Yourself: Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies by Desiree Akhavan (Random House Trade Paperbacks): “You’re Embarrassing Yourself reminds me of the best of Nora Ephron…. While you believe Ephron’s insecurity and relish her exploration of her anxiety, you know at the same time that she doesn’t quite mean it. She is simply revealing how foolish we all are in our self-obsession.”

NYT reviews The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady by Heath Hardage Lee (St. Martin’s): “Affectionate reminiscences from Pat’s daughters, sons-in-law and the daughter of her best friend provide color to this biography—but that color is Republican red. Lee is quick to discount the negative press Pat received and to discredit those who stood in Pat’s way as driven by sexism or jealousy.”

Briefly Noted

LA Times profiles Gill Paul and his book Scandalous Women: A Novel of Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann (Morrow).

Kirkus talks to Ellen Atlanta, author of Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women (St. Martin’s).

The Rumpus interviews Nina Schuyler about her story collection In This Ravishing World (Regal House).

Jamaica Kincaid shares “The Books of My Life” with The Guardian.

NYPL’s blog explains where to start with the works of Malachy McCourt.

The Guardian gathers five of the best books about classical music.

NYT has “six new books we recommend this week” and a reading list for those who have just watched It Ends with Us.

Washington Post has a roundup of “weird fiction,” including The Weird Tales Boys by Stephen Jones (PS Publishing).

NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recommends three fiction audiobooks.

CBC selects 14 Canadian mystery and crime novels to dive into this summer.

Electric Lit highlights seven novels about toxic student-teacher relationships and seven of the funniest crime novels ever written.

Washington Post explores “the evolution of thriller novels in the age of television binge-watching.”

Authors on Air

There’s a TV adaptation of Emily Perkins’s Lioness in the works, Deadline reports.

Ang Lee will produce a documentary version of Steven Callahan’s memoir Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea; Deadline has the news.

Today, NPR’s Fresh Air will interview Evan Thomas, author of Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II (Random).

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