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Awards & Book News

Zain Khalid wins the Bard Fiction Prize for his debut novel, Brother Alive (Grove; LJ starred review). Kirkus has coverage.

Target picks The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (Berkley; LJ starred review) as the 2023 Book of the Year.

The shortlist is announced for the Polari First Book Prize for LGBTQ+ literature. The Bookseller has the news.

The shortlist is announced for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. The Bookseller has coverage.

Barnes & Noble announces the finalists for its Discover Prize, representing the debut novels that most impressed B&N booksellers this year. Shelf Awareness has the news.

A California state law will fine schools for implementing book bans. Kirkus and NPR have the news.

New Title Best Sellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman: Viking; LJ starred review) holds No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and No. 5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Wellness by Nathan Hill (Knopf; LJ starred review) leaps to No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (S. & S./Marysue Rucci; LJ starred review) shines at No. 11 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi (Tor; LJ starred review) starts at No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list.

Nonfiction

The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin (Threshold) takes No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and the USA Today Best-Selling Books list, though some booksellers report receiving bulk orders.

Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (Harper) rises to No. 3 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list and No. 7 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell (Basic) holds No. 6 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list, though some booksellers report receiving bulk orders.

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot (Dey Street) jumps to No. 7 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I by Douglas Brunt (Atria) flies to No. 9 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Skinnytaste Simple: Easy, Healthy Recipes with 7 Ingredients or Fewer by Gina Homolka and Heather K. Jones (Clarkson Potter) grabs No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery, illus. by Matt Patterson, climbs to No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Leslie F*cking Jones: A Memoir by Leslie Jones (Grand Central) stars at No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list.

Reviews

Washington Post reviews Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (Riverhead): “Zhang is such a cool writer that salmon steaks could stay fresh in her prose for weeks.”

NYT reviews several academic romances “brimming with bookish sorts.”

LA Times reviews People Collide by Isle McElroy (HarperVia): “A story that finds queerness at the core of heterosexual marriage and, conversely, a heterosexual romance arc inside a gender transition novel”; and Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem (Ecco): “Every neighborhood deserves such a discursive portrait, such ruthless devotion and such an audacious book”; and has a joint review of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post by Martin Baron (Flatiron) and The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism by Adam Nagourney (Crown).

Briefly Noted

“Plagiarist or Master?” NYT writes about “the tortured legacy” of the late Malian novelist Yambo Ouologuem. Mohamed Mbougar Saar’s Prix Goncourt–winning novel about Ouologuem, The Most Secret Memory of Men, comes out this week from Other Pr., tr. by Lara Vergnaud.

The Millions interviews James Frankie Thomas, author of Idlewild (Abrams).

Bustle talks to Katie Barnes about their book Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates (St. Martin’s).

Salon has a conversation with Alicia Roth Weigel, author of the memoir Inverse Cowgirl (HarperOne) about being intersex.

USA Today talks to Melissa Lozada-Oliva about Candelaria (Astra House).

Vogue chats with filmmaker Miranda July about her forthcoming novel, All Fours (Riverhead).

Actor Patrick Stewart answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

People shares revelations from Joan Collins’s memoir Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends (Permuted).

Singer-songwriter Debbie Gibson is writing a memoir, to be published by Gallery, Kirkus reports.

NYT notes “18 New Books Coming in October” and LA Times lists “10 books to add to your reading list in October.”

The Guardian lists the top 10 grudge-holders in fiction.

Kirkus identifies “6 New Must-Reads for Nonfiction Lovers.”

Tor.com has “11 Books That Changed How [Charlie Jane Anders] Thinks About Space Opera” and “Five Mothers in SFF Who Are Dynamic, Multi-Dimensional Characters.”

Popsugar shares “20 Paranormal Romance Books That Are Spookily Sexy” and “80 New Historical Fiction Books Hitting Shelves This Year.”

Seattle Times recommends “8 fresh paperbacks to kick off fall reading season.”

Electric Lit suggests “The 15 Must-Read Small Press Books of Fall” and “8 Novels Using Television As a Plot Device.”

BookRiot has a primer to the dreadpunk books subgenre.

Authors on Air

Today, Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest To End Privacy as We Know It (Random) will appear on NPR’s Fresh Air.

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

Deadline reports that the TV rights to Lucy Clarke’s suspense novel The Hike (Putnam) have been acquired.

Wes Anderson discusses his new adaptations of Roald Dahl short stories with NYT.

Vanity Fair shares a first look at Leave the World Behind, a film adaptation of the novel by Rumaan Alam.

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