Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.

Awards & Book News

N.S. Nuseibeh’s essay collection Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman (Olive Branch) wins the UK’s Jhalak Prose Prize for writers of color, while Mimi Khalvati’s Collected Poems (Carcanet) wins the Jhalak Poetry Prize. The Guardian has coverage.

Amazon editors pick the 10 best books of 2025 so far, People reports.

The Guardian writes about how the U.S. far right is trying to spread its ideology through the publishing world.

The Guardian reports on Russia’s “Z literature,” a nationalistic subgenre of fantasy fiction that may be encouraging teens to enlist in the war on Ukraine.

AI was the hot topic at this year’s U.S. Book Fair, Publishers Weekly reports. PW also has a general summary of the events of the fair.

New Title Bestsellers

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

Fiction

Never Flinch by Stephen King (Scribner) grabs No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts (St. Martin’s) finds No. 2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list and No. 8 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley) reaches No. 3 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Releasing 10 by Chloe Walsh (Bloom) hits No. 4 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

All Superheroes Need PR by Elizabeth Stephens (Montlake) flies to No. 9 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Return to Sender by Craig Johnson (Viking) is sent to No. 12 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 7—Steel Ball Run, Vol. 1 by Hirohiko Araki (VIZ Media) rolls to No. 14 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan (Putnam) sweeps to No. 15 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Nonfiction

Coming into View: How AI and Other Megatrends Will Shape Your Investments by Joseph H. Davis (Wiley) achieves No. 6 on the USA Today Bestselling Books list.

Steve Martin Writes the Written Word: Collected Written Word Works by Steve Martin by Steve Martin (Grand Central) attains No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter (Harper Horizon) appears at No. 14 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao (Penguin Pr.) comes out at No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers list.

Reviews

NYT reviews Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor (Celadon): “After some initial throat clearing, Taylor’s fast-paced writing captures the pressure of start-up culture, and the ease with which a founder can be separated from their own creation.”

Washington Post reviews Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney (Bloomsbury): “Proto, it has to be said, is a dense read. Spinney’s approach is a thorough one, so that the chapters tack back and forth in time as we follow each of these branches in turn…. Spinney’s background is as a science journalist, and it shows in the way she has assimilated a vast amount of up-to-date scholarly information and presented it concisely and accurately”; and My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy by Edward Hirsch (Knopf; LJ starred review): “Nestled within this fragmented form is another unique feature: Each piece stands alone and often has the rhythm of a joke, the kind of joke Hirsch excels at—funny, sad, ironic all at once…. Other sections read like verse without the line breaks, beautiful, rhythmic reminders that a poet is at the mic.”

NPR reviews And Housing for All: The Fight To End Homelessness in America by Maria Foscarinis (Prometheus): “One of the book’s strengths is its sustained attack on ‘the false narrative that homelessness is driven by personal, not systemic, failures.’ With the backing of nearly 100 pages of endnotes, Foscarinis lays out the hard facts: homelessness is a policy failure, not a personal one.”

LA Times reviews Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser (Penguin Pr.): “The book’s a meld of true crime, memoir and social commentary, but with a mission: to shock readers into a deeper understanding of the American Nightmare, ecological devastation entwined with senseless sadism. Murderland is not for the faint of heart, yet we can’t look away: Fraser’s writing is that vivid and dynamic.”

LitHub gathers “Five Book Reviews You Need To Read This Week.”

Briefly Noted

Time interviews Lynne Olson, author of The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp (Random).

Kirkus profiles Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf).

CrimeReads talks to Megan Abbott, author of El Dorado Drive (Putnam; LJ starred review).

Kate Briggs, translator of Hélène Bessette’s Lili Is Crying (New Directions), shares her “Annotated Nightstand” with LitHub.

CrimeReads locates 11 story collections set in fictional small towns and six books on romantic obsession.

Reactor gathers all the new science fiction books arriving in June.

Penguin Random House buys the direct-to-consumer UK-based publisher Wonderbly, Publishers Weekly reports.

Award-winning science fiction writer Barry B. Longyear has died at age 82; Locus has an obituary.

Authors on Air

LitHub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast interviews Susan Choi, author of Flashlight (Farrar).

Today, NPR’s Fresh Air will talk to Ocean Vuong, author of The Emperor of Gladness (Penguin Pr.). Tomorrow, GMA will host Casey Elsass, author of What Can I Bring?: Recipes To Help You Live Your Guest Life (Union Square & Co.).

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

Nicole Kidman will star in a TV adaptation of Eliza Jane Brazier’s Girls and Their Horses (Berkley), People reports.

Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.