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Awards & News

The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding announces a shortlist. LitHub reports. 

The 2023 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes are announced.

Publishers Weekly rounds up September’s book club picks.

Publishing Perspectives provides analysis for this week’s U.S. Circana report, which shows the market “slowing a bit.” 

Indigo CEO Peter Ruis has resigned. ShelfAwareness reports. 

A new Agatha Christie memorial statue is unveiled on a bench in Oxfordshire town Wallingford, Christie’s home for 40 years. The Guardian reports. 

The Internet Archive files an appeal after its latest loss. Publishers Lunch reports.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America by Cara Fitzpatrick (Basic): “The book is a timely history of a movement that could reshape American education and set off explosive policy debates for many years”; and The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush (Scribner): “Like space travel itself, The Six widens our vision of what it means to belong to ‘the whole family of humankind.’” Plus, there is a paired review of Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR’s Fight To Regulate American Capitalism by Diana B. Henriques (Random) and The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything by John Coates (Columbia Global Reports), books that “tell the story of America’s powerful and unwieldy financial institutions.”

Washington Post reviews A House for Alice by Diana Evans (Pantheon): “A House for Alice is ambitious but suffers from disinterest in its own moving parts, including the tides of recent history within which it is conspicuously placed.” NYT also reviews: “This is a novel that encourages us to stand in life’s burning doorways, and to think long before we walk away or walk through.”

Washington Post also reviews Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me by Bernie Taupin (Hachette; LJ starred review): “It reads like a collection of amusing anecdotes assembled by a charming raconteur. But Taupin’s account of rubbing elbows with celebrities is the best thing here.”

Vox reviews The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (Riverhead): “Stark, vicious, and transcendent, The Vaster Wilds is the best book I’ve read all year. It’s a triumph.”

Briefly Noted

Arthur C. Brooks, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, written with Oprah Winfrey (Portfolio), writes about the myths and truths of happiness, at The Atlantic. Oprah Winfrey chats with People about the book and impostor syndrome. 

Walter Isaacson discusses his process for working with his latest subject, Elon Musk (S. & S.), with LA Times. Plus, Isaacson delivers a wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair.

Tod Goldberg talks about his new novel, Gangsters Don’t Die (Counterpoint), with LA Times. 

Lauren Groff discusses her new book, The Vaster Wilds (Riverhead), “historical fiction, captivity narratives, and why we can’t get enough of survival stories,” with Slate.

LitHub shares 28 new books for the week. 

B&N suggests “10 Climate Change Books to Read Right Now.”

Five writers, including Eliza Clark, Vauhini Vara, and Joshua Mohr answer LitHub’s author questionnaire. 

LitHub has a preview and cover reveal for Juliet Escoria’s forthcoming story collection, You Are the Snake (Soft Skull), due out in June 2024.

Vox has a Q&A with Ben Goldfarb, Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet (Norton), about “how cars ruin wild animals’ lives.”

Today shares an exclusive excerpt from Iron Flame (Entangled/Red Tower), Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing sequel, due out November 7. 

Vulture shares 11 essential hip-hop books. 

ElectricLit has “9 Books With Fabulist Worlds That Push Boundaries.”

Authors on Air

A Murder, She Wrote movie (with assoc. titles) is in the works at Universal Pictures. Variety reports.

The Water For Elephants musical, based on the novel by Sara Gruen, will open on Broadway this spring. Deadline reports.

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