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 Awards, News & Summer Previews

Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq, tr. by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories) wins the International Booker Prize, marking the first time a story collection has won the award. NYT has a feature, and The Guardian has coverage. 

Sasha Vasilyuk wins the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her debut novel, Your Presence Is Mandatory (Bloomsbury).

The Society of Authors’ Awards shortlists are announced. The Bookseller has coverage. 

The winners of the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards are announced.

NPR previews 17 books for summer. 

Kirkus recommends four essential novels for summer.

Publishing Perspectives recaps AAP’s February StatShot.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Sun-Times both recently published an AI-generated summer reading list featuring several books that do not exist, Publishers Lunch reports. LitHub, NPR, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Guardian also have coverage.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Doorman by Chris Pavone (MCD): “If The Doorman suffers from anything, it’s a surfeit of riches—details and digressions that can lead you away from the central story. But all of it accelerates into a tour de force ending (this is where it becomes a thriller) that rewards close attention”; and Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins (Holt): "The novel views Puerto Rican culture from a distance, disconnected from the archipelago’s colonial history and lacking the nuance of lived experience."

Washington Post reviews Spent by Alison Bechdel (Mariner; LJ starred review): “Ultimately, the very thing that threatens to grate in Spent—the self-involvement of its characters, Alison in particular—is what makes the book so rewarding. In teasing herself and her friends, Bechdel finds a new way to have fun with both.”

Slate reviews Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney (Bloomsbury): “Fortunately, Spinney is a stylish and erudite writer; it’s the rare science book that quotes Keats, Seamus Heaney, and Ismail Kadare. She also has a keen sense of the romance of her subject.”

Briefly Noted

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown), the top holds title of the week. 

NPR delves into how social media is influencing authors’ book promotion.

Vogue highlights Sarah Jessica Parker’s reading schedule as a Booker Prize judge. 

USA Today talks with author Kristina McMorris about her new book, The Girls of Good Fortune (Sourcebooks Landmark).

Quentin Tarantino is collaborating with Jay Glennie to write coffee table books on three of his films for Insight Editions, Deadline reports.

Poet July Westhale, author of moon moon (Black Lawrence), answers 10 questions at Poets & Writers.

Author Ashley Poston recommends 10 small town romance books for NYT.

NYT has a visual feature on the work of Junji Ito, whose latest graphic novel, The Liminal Zone, Vol. 2 (VIZ Media), published in March. 

People shares an excerpt from Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline (Tiny Reparations).

Rachel McCarthy James discusses her new book, Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder (St. Martin’s), with NYT. 

Dean Koontz, Going Home in the Dark (Thomas & Mercer), writes about how his three dogs have changed his life, at People.

People also previews Dance Mom alum Nia Sioux’s forthcoming memoir, Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life (Harper Horizon), due out November 4, and shares a cover reveal for Elle Cosimano’s forthcoming Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line (Minotaur), which publishes in March 2026.

Authors on Air

PBS NewsHour talks with Jonathan Capehart about his new memoir, Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man’s Search for Home (Grand Central).

Jake Tapper discusses his new book, Original Sin, written with Alex Thompson (Penguin Pr.), on NPR’s Fresh Air.

Ryan Murphy and Kaia Gerber are developing Bret Easton Ellis’s 2023 novel The Shards (Vintage) as series for FX; Variety has the story.

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