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Awards & Book News

New York Magazine’s summer book club pick is Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random; LJ starred review).

The Night Field by Donna Glee Williams (Mobius) wins the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation’s Manly Wade Wellman Award.

Wales Book of the Year winners are announced, including Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future by Tom Bullough (Granta).

The American Manga Award nominees are announced; Publishers Weekly has the news.

Shortlists are named for the UK’s Forward Prizes for Poetry, Publishing Perspectives reports.

London Libraries creates a reading app inspired by the “Couch to 5K” training program; The Bookseller has coverage.

In LitHub, critic Maris Kreizman spills the details on the making of the NYT Best of the 21st Century list.

Rowman & Littlefield acquisition and the strong trade sales of Sarah J. Maas books “boost outlook” at Bloomsbury, Publishers Weekly reports.

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva (Harper) kills at No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin (Ballantine) grabs No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list.

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble) enchants at No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and No. 13 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (Morrow; LJ starred review) catches No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list.

Nonfiction

Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson (Matt Holt: PRH) jumps to No. 4 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between by Gretchen Whitmer with Lisa Dickey (S. & S.) reaches No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay: Tips, Tales, Travels by Gary Janetti (Harper) soars to No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list, though some retailers report receiving bulk orders.

Reviews

NYT reviews Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age by Kathleen Sheppard (St. Martin’s): “Without glossing over the ‘vandalizing and pillaging’ that accompanied their work, [Sheppard] celebrates her subjects as trailblazers”; and four graphic novels: The Wendy Award by Walter Scott (Drawn & Quarterly), Search and Destroy, Vol. 1 by Atsushi Kaneko & Osamu Tezuka (Fantagraphics; LJ starred review), Den 2: Muvovum by Richard Corben (Dark Horse), and Adventureman: Ghost Lights #1 by Matt Fraction and Terry and Rachel Dodson (Image Comics).

Washington Post reviews The Lucky Ones: A Memoir by Zara Chowdhary (Crown): “The reading experience can be disorienting, but throughout the book, I felt deeply assured I was in the hands of a writer in control of what she wished to express—holding firm to the idea that if journalism tells the reader what happened, it is literature that reveals how it feels”; The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang (Morrow): “Kang generally writes with the stiff authority of a judge, rarely using language to delight or provoke. Even his nods to metafiction, a genre known for playing with form and defying traditions, feel pat”; In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger (S. & S.): “Can we prove an afterlife exists? No. Might one exist? Junger gives us reason to believe in that possibility. In any case, how lucky we are that Junger survived and that we’re able to join him on another mind-blowing adventure”; and Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable by Sarah Gerard (Zando): “Gerard pushes back against the typical arc of a true crime story and invites the reader to make their own meaning of Bush’s life and death alongside her”; plus a paired review of What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice by Anastasia Berg & Rachel Wiseman (St. Martin’s) and Begetting: What Does It Mean To Create a Child? by Mara van der Lugt (Princeton Univ.).

LitHub gathers “5 Book Reviews You Need To Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Eugene Lim, author of the recently reissued Fog & Car (Coffee House), shares his “Annotated Nightstand” with LitHub.

Suzanne Nossel, the head of PEN America, answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

NYT talks to Keanu Reeves and China Miéville about their “really weird” book, The Book of Elsewhere (Del Rey).

EW explains “how Hamilton and demisexuality inspired Thien-Kim Lam’s new romance,” Something Cheeky (Avon), coming out in March 2025.

In The Guardian, Monika Kim, author of The Eyes Are the Best Part (Erewhon; LJ starred review), recommends five of the best body horror novels. LJ interviewed Kim in April.

NYT has a booklist for readers who miss the Showtime series Couples Therapy.

CrimeReads rounds up 10 new books coming out this week and has reading lists of feminist capers and psychological thrillers in which houses have secrets of their own.

Inspired by Charli XCX’s Brat album, Vulture shares “hot-girl books to read at a bar with a martini and a side of fries.”

Washington Post offers a “somewhat definitive” ranking of Emily Henry’s novels.

LitHub ranks the ALA’s iconic celebrity “Read” posters.

Veteran books editor Boris Kachka, who was laid off from the LA Times in January, joins the staff of The Atlantic, Publishers Weekly reports.

Authors on Air

Deni Kasa, author of The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature (Stanford Univ.), speaks to LitHub’s The History of Literature podcast.

Emily Nussbaum, author of Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV (Random; LJ starred review), and Sally Franson, author of Big in Sweden (Mariner), are interviewed on LitHub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast.

LeVar Burton talks to NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin.

Today, NPR’s Fresh Air will interview Shalom Auslander, author of Feh: A Memoir (Riverhead).

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

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