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Awards 

The Horror Writers Association announced the winners of 2021 Bram Stoker Awards, with My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga: S. & S.; LJ starred review) taking the top prize for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence by Frances Wilson (Farrar), wins the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year. LitHub reports.

Vincent Kling wins the 2022 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of Heimito von Doderer's novel The Strudlhof Steps (NYRB Classics). Hayden Toftner is the winner of the twelfth annual Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York. The Goethe-Institut announced the prizes.

Yiyun Li wins 2022 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

The 2022 Ohioana Book Award finalists are announced.

The 2022 Indie Book Awards shortlist is announced.

The 2022 Seiun Awards nominees are announced.

Reviews

NYT reviews His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuel and Toluse Olorunnipa (Viking): “It is a testament to the power of His Name Is George Floyd that the book’s most vital moments come not after Floyd’s death, but in its intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life.” And, 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19 by Ben S. Bernanke (Norton); “It is light on personal anecdotes and devoted to substantive judgments. This exercise of historical assessment from a central participant is one that more policymakers should probably try.”  Also, This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead): “its most complex and specific evocations are reserved for the relationship between an amiable, if slightly checked-out, single father and his city-kid daughter, a girl expected to be the solid one in the relationship.” And, The Absolute by Daniel Guebel, trans. by Jessica Sequeira (Seven Stories Pr.): “The book we are reading, or the invented book it encases, is an embodiment of the questing syndrome under scrutiny, while Guebel himself, in composing a late-modernist hybrid of essay, psychoanalytic case study, history lesson, saga and farce, displays more than his share of symptoms.” And, The Long Corner by Alexander Maksik (Europa Editions): “Maksik never allows the novel to seem overly programmatic. It is finally an argument for the necessity of irony, risk and integrity in the production of art as in life.” Also, The Colony by Audrey Magee (Farrar): “Magee builds her world with a rich particularity that never defaults to the off-the-peg lyricism that often marks novels about rural Ireland.” And, Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War by Phil Klay (Penguin Pr.): “It is engrossing and important, and I hope readers will start with the longest parts first.” And, Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri (Princeton Univ. Pr.): “If her project, like all extreme schemes of self-invention, seems hopeless, her doomed but heroic quest for freedom lends this book its life. She knows that the illusion of freedom is an illusion. But her pursuit of Italian is about something far bigger than synonyms or dictionaries or nouns.” And, Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University by Richard White (Norton): “Despite the catchy title, solving the murder isn’t really the point of this book. Instead, it’s an intriguing look at the sordid Gilded Age history of a respected and storied academic institution.” Plus, Chéri and The End of Chéri by Colette, trans. by Rachel Careau (Norton): “Rachel Careau’s meticulous and agile translation of this pair of novels brings to Anglophone readers some of Colette’s finest writing, rich in the sensuality for which she is widely known — but also in the sharpness of her social observations, so ahead of her time that they come across as radical even by contemporary standards.” Finally, The Letters of Thom Gunn by Thom Gunn, ed. by Michael Nott, August Kleinzahler, and Clive Wilmer (Farrar): “Gunn was not a confessional poet. These letters have been anticipated, by many, because he rarely spilled his guts on the page. There’s been no biography. These letters are what we have, and they don’t disappoint."

NPR reviews Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise by Dana Suskind (Dutton): “Suskind's core message: creating a nurturing, interactive environment for kids aged zero to 3 is vital for their development — and many kids are getting left behind during this critical period.”

LA Times reviews a new series of “Radium Age” sci-fi novels edited by Joshua Glenn, Voices from the Radium Age (The MIT Pr.): “However the series develops, it is already making available some great (or at least significant) fiction that usually offers a much brighter future than many of us can bring ourselves to hope for anymore.”

The Guardian reviews thrillers of the month.

Briefly Noted

Library Reads releases its June list, including top pick The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen; LJ starred review).

The Believer literary magazine returns to its original publisher, McSweeney’s, after a brief interlude at Paradise Media that garnered outrage from authors and readers. NYT reports. LA Times also covers the story.

The Atlantic and Zando partner to launch the new imprint, Atlantic Editions. Each book will “feature long-form journalism by Atlantic writers devoted to a single topic, focusing on contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine’s 165 year archive.” The Atlantic will also offer a virtual event with Caitlin Flanagan on the legacy of Joan Didion on Thursday, May 19th.

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey share secrets from their new book, The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There (Dey St.), with Entertainment Weekly.

Tsering Yangzom Lama, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies (Bloomsbury), discusses “experiences of ordinary Tibetans in exile, the many effects of colonization, survival, resistance, and spirituality,” with Jessamine Chan at ElectricLit.

Senator Tom Cotton announces his forthcoming book, Only the Strong: Reversing the Left's Plot to Sabotage American Power (Twelve), due out November 15th, on Fox&Friends.

The Millions highlights notable new releases.

ElectricLit shares 7 poetry collections by queer women of color.

BookRiot has TikTok favorite read-alikes, “13 new LGBTQ books by AAPI authors” , and the “24 best romances of all time.”

“Larry Woiwode, author of acclaimed 1970s novel, dies at 80.” The Washington Post has an obituary.

Authors On Air

NPR’s Fresh Air talks with Hugh Ryan about his new book, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison (Bold Type Books).

Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth (Pegasus) and The Panopticon (Hogarth) will be adapted for television. Deadline reports.

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