Wolfson History Prize and British Academy Book Prize Shortlists | Book Pulse

Shortlists for the Wolfson History Prize and the British Academy Book Prize are announced. The Treaties We Break by Tina Shah wins the Mo Siewcharran Prize for unpublished fiction writers from Black, Asian, mixed heritage and minority ethnic backgrounds. Llano County, TX, told the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that it should hand politicians near total authority over what books can go on public library shelves. Plus new title bestsellers and interviews with Richard Osman, Isabella Hammad, Paola Ramos, Uzo Aduba, and Myriam J.A. Chancy.

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Awards & Book News

The shortlist for the Wolfson History Prize is announced.

The shortlist for the British Academy Book Prize for nonfiction is announcedPublishing Perspectives reports.

The Treaties We Break by Tina Shah wins the Mo Siewcharran Prize for unpublished fiction writers from Black, Asian, mixed heritage and minority ethnic backgroundsThe Bookseller announces.

Llano County, TX, told the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that it should hand politicians near total authority over what books can go on public library shelvesPublishers Weekly reports.

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

The Butcher Game: A Dr. Wren Muller Novel by Alaina Urquhart (Zando) brings in No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and No. 6 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman: Viking) resolves at No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and No. 10 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave (S. & S./Marysue Rucci) finds No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list.

Nonfiction

Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty by Hillary Rodham Clinton (S. & S.) gains No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list and on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop (Gallery) takes No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder (Crown) grabs No. 5 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success by Susanne Craig & Russ Buettner (Penguin Pr.) wins No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A Year of Meals; A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food by Dolly Parton & Rachel Parton George (Ten Speed) serves up No. 7 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, ed. by Gillian Anderson (Abrams), gets No. 8 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health by Marty Makary (Bloomsbury) sees No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Over the Influence: A Memoir by Joanna “JoJo” Levesque (Hachette) reaches No. 12 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list, though some retailers report receiving bulk orders.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (One World) garners No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Connie by Connie Chung (Grand Central) attains No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

A Return to Common Sense: How To Fix America Before We Really Blow It by Leigh McGowan (Atria/One Signal) arrives at No. 15 on on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list, though some retailers report receiving bulk orders.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead): “In Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s crisp translation, Tokarczuk tells a folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone.” Vulture also reviews: “Beginning with the 2007 publication of her Man Booker International Prize–winning novel, Flights, she has fallen into a rhythm, following each mystically inclined, formally challenging work with a light genre riff more focused on dictating a salient political message than pushing the bounds of art or reality. Unfortunately, her newest novel, The Empusium, only amplifies this pattern.”

Washington Post reviews The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar, tr. by Frank Wynne (HarperVia): “My first thought upon completing The Last Dream…was to wonder where a conscientious bookseller would shelve it….. In his introduction, Almodóvar describes the book as ‘a fragmentary autobiography,’ though eight of the 12 pieces are fiction”; and Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique by Jonathan Gienapp (Yale Univ.): “Gienapp’s book comes as a thunderclap. It is directed above all at originalists, who, in his view, misunderstand the founding—not a little but a lot. And although contemporary nonoriginalists are not Gienapp’s target, he has a lot to say to them as well.”

LA Times reviews Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown): “It remains tempting to dispute Gladwell’s repeated analogies between disease epidemics and social ones, and possible to wonder whether he is cherry-picking examples to serve his theories. At times, too, the narrative seems unduly slow and discursive, as he shifts, sometimes abruptly, from topic to topic. Still, Gladwell’s update of his ideas about tipping points will probably satisfy hard-core fans, and challenge and divert other readers.”

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

Briefly Noted

Julia Roberts will narrate the audiobook of Lisa Marie Presley’s memoirFrom Here to the Great Unknown (Books on Tape), due out October 8 in all formats, People reports.

In The Guardian, Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis, author of Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling (Calon), writes an essay about surviving her mother’s emotional abuse.

Public and charter schools across Pennsylvania will receive copies of 1/6: A Graphic Novel by Alan Jenkins and Gan Golan, which imagines what might have happened if attempts to overturn the 2020 election had been successful, USA Today reports.

Richard Osman, author of We Solve Murders (Pamela Dorman: Viking), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

Isabella Hammad, author of Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative (Black Cat: Grove), shares her “Annotated Nightstand” with LitHub.

NYT recommends five books to read for viewers who enjoyed Nobody Wants This.

LitHub selects the 16 best book covers of September.

Kirkus gathers “3 Indie Books About the Experience of Adoption.”

Authors on Air

NPR’s Code Switch talks to Paola Ramos, author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America (Pantheon).

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews actor Uzo Aduba about her memoir The Road Is Good: How a Mother’s Strength Became a Daughter’s Purpose (Viking; LJ starred review).

Myriam J.A. Chancy, author of Village Weavers (Tin House), joins LitHub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast to talk about Haitian American communities.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author of What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (One World), goes on PBS Newshour to talk about her book.

Tor and LitHub’s Voyage into Genre podcast speaks with Zen Cho, author of The Friend Zone Experiment (Bramble), and Freya Marske, author of Swordcrossed (Bramble).

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

Dynamic Television will turn George Dawes Green’s Southern gothic crime novel The Kingdoms of Savannah into a TV series, Deadline reports.

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