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Awards & Book News

Winners are announced for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Book Awards for books from indie presses.

The Asian American Literature Festival will return in September, organized by a collective of literary groups, this time without the Smithsonian, Washington Post reports.

Page to Screen

May 2

A Man in Full, based on the novel by Tom Wolfe. Netflix. Reviews | Trailer

May 3

Wildcat, based on the life of novelist Flannery O’Connor. Oscilloscope Laboratories. Reviews | Trailer

May 8

​​Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, based on Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. 20th Century. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Every Living Thing: The Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts (Random): “Let me end by stressing how much this failed biology major enjoyed Roberts’s lively study of Linnaeus, Buffon and the later thinkers they influenced” and Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles (Thesis): “Now that Bowles is employed by the Free Press, a bastion of free thought, what free thoughts is she thinking? Very few, as it turns out. In fact, it can be difficult to discern any at all in her book.”

NPR reviews Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, tr. by Robin Moger (Transit): “Mersal is a cool, restrained writer. Her prose, in Robin Moger’s translation, slips by easily, so that her moments of flaring emotion stand out…. Of course, Traces of Enayat is not designed to satisfy. It’s there in the title: we’re only going to get glimpses and fragments of its subject—or, really, its subjects.”

The Guardian reviews The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader/S. & S.): “While Bradley’s writing can veer towards the glib, go with it: give in to the tide of this book, and let it pull you along. It’s very smart; it’s very silly; and the obvious fun never obscures completely the sheer, gorgeous, wild stretch of her ideas.” Washington Post also reviews: “Her utterly winning book is a result of violating not so much the laws of physics as the boundaries of genre. Imagine if The Time Traveler’s Wife had an affair with A Gentleman in Moscow. No wonder the manuscript…sold in dozens of markets around the world faster than the speed of light.”

LitHub highlights the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

Rutgers University history professor David Greenberg is set to publish a biography of Lewis titled John Lewis: A Life, due out from S. & S. in October, People reports. Prepub Alert offers more details as well.

Dial will publish actor Nicole Maines’s memoir It Gets Better…Except When It Gets Worse: And Other Unsolicited Truths I Wish Someone Had Told Me this fall, Kirkus reports.

LA Times interviews Kathleen Hanna, author of Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk (Ecco: HarperCollins; LJ starred review).

The Millions asks its readers what they’re reading.

Abir Mukherjee, Hunted (Mulholland; LJ starred review), answers The Guardian’s “The Books of My Life” questionnaire.

The Guardian rounds up five of the best books about eating.

CrimeReads has a list “exploring diverse representation of women in historical mysteries.”

Authors on Air

PBS News Hour interviews Eddie Glaude Jr., author of We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (Harvard Univ.).

NPR talks to Emily Oster, author of The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complications (Penguin Pr.).

Today, NPR’s Fresh Air devotes the show to Paul Auster, who died on Tuesday, and will re-air past interviews with him.

Amazon Prime Video has ordered a series adaptation of the Michelle Frances novel The Girlfriend (Kensington), according to Variety.

Bridgerton creator Chris Van Dusen is developing a series adaptation of Girl Abroad (Bloom Bks.) by Elle Kennedy, Deadline reports.

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