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Awards & News

Thao Thai’s Banyan Moon (Mariner; LJ starred review) wins the Crook’s Corner Book Prize for the best debut novel set in the American South.

Winners of the Silvers-Dudley Prizes, for literary criticism, arts writing, and journalism, are announced; Kirkus has coverage.

Crown, a division of Penguin Random House, has launched Storehouse Voices, a new imprint devoted to elevating Black voices; Publishers Weekly has coverage.

Simon & Schuster has announced a new audio-first imprint, Simon Maverick, focused on self-published authors, Publishers Weekly reports.

Publishers Weekly has Barack Obama’s list of his favorite books of 2024, and their editors share “8 Books That Should Be On Your Radar in 2025.”

Page to Screen

January 13

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, based on Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Iconic Events Releasing. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay (Soho): “The canvas is large, the backdrop colorful, and the subplots proliferate like those in a Dickens novel. The language, meanwhile, is a playful, often alliterative mélange of English, Nepali and street slang reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”; The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne by Kate Winkler Dawson (Putnam): “What you’re really reading is a podcast on paper, in which the dead and the living collaborate and compare notes, becoming, in combination …captivating enough”; and Vantage Point by Sara Sligar (MCD): “These days [Charles Brockdon] Brown’s reputation is largely confined to academic circles, though Wieland is generally considered one of the first American Gothic novels. Drawing on a nearly forgotten text is fair game, of course, and Sligar makes some sly updates to the original.”

Washington Post reviews El Cid: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary by Nora Berend (Pegasus): “Being a careful, evidence-based work of scholarship, El Cid: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary demonstrates again and again how insidiously political and religious institutions distort history for their own ends.”

The Guardian reviews Oromay by Baalu Girma, tr. by David DeGusta & Mesfin Felleke Yirgu (Soho): “There are linguistic and cultural complexities difficult to convey in translation, but what does come through is how alive this novel is, how urgent its writing. The women aside, it is full of credible characters, which in a way is unsurprising, because they are so clearly based on real people with real power, their actions and motivations described in real time.”

LA Times reviews Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies by Manuel Betancourt (Catapult): “A lively and intelligent addition to an essential discourse on how not only accessing our desires but also being open about them can make us more human, and perhaps, make for a better world.”

LitHub has “5 Book Reviews You Need To Read This Week” and the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

The Guardian has a feature on novelist Chukwuebuka Ibeh, author of Blessings (Doubleday), who is confronting Nigeria’s anti-gay laws.

Stuart Turton, author of The Last Murder at the End of the World (Sourcebooks Landmark; an LJ Best Book), shares “The Books of My Life” with The Guardian.

Publishers Weekly’s “Writers Talking Writers” series has Ben Okri discussing Christopher Okigbo and Katie Kitamura discussing Natalia Ginzburg.

CrimeReads talks to Tracy Clark about her Harriet Foster thriller series, whose latest installment was December’s Echo (Thomas & Mercer; LJ starred review).

People announces that the last novel by the late Andrew Pyper, published under the pen name Mason Coile, is due out from Putnam this fall; Exiles comes out on Sept. 16.

ABC News correspondent James Longman navigates depression in his recently published memoir, The Inherited Mind: A Story of Family, Hope, and the Genetics of Mental Illness (Hyperion Avenue); People has an excerpt.

Singer Brandy will publish an as-yet untitled memoir with Hanover Square on Oct. 7, Kirkus reports.

NYT has “6 New Books We Recommend This Week.”

NPR declares, “We can’t wait to read these 10 books hitting shelves soon,” and offers “12 eye-opening reads to kick-start your 2025 reading goals.”

News producer Richard M. Cohen, author of several books, including Chasing Hope: A Patient’s Deep Dive into Stem Cells, Faith, and the Future, has died at age 76; NYT has an obituary.

Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, an expert on near-death experiences and author of The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences, has died at age 89; NYT has an obituary and excerpts from his book.

Authors on Air

Tom Holland will star in and produce a film adaptation of The Partner, John Grisham’s 1997 novel, for Universal Pictures, Deadline reports. 

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