News - Literary News

News - Literary News

October 22, 2021

Lucy Corin sat down in conversation with West Trade Review to discuss her novel, THE SWANK HOTEL. West Trade Review’s Fiction Editor D.W. White told Corin: "When I was reading THE SWANK HOTEL, I was thinking of INFINITE JEST, that type of metafictional, hysterical realism…It’s this wonderland of a world, filtered through the mind of a few characters." Graywolf Press published the novel on October 5, 2021.

October 15, 2021

Barnes & Noble selected CHILD OF LIGHT by Terry Brooks as one of their ten “Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021” books. Del Rey will publish the book on October 19, 2021.

October 15, 2021

NERUDA ON THE PARK by Cleyvis Natera was named by WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS author Naima Coster on Entertainment Weekly’s list of favorite Latinx books chosen by Latinx authors. Coster raves: “[NERUDA ON THE PARK] is unlike anything I have ever read before. It's thrilling, but it's also a family story, so sensitive and beautifully told. It's that rare kind of book that can be chilling, but also moving and fun." Ballantine Books will publish the novel on May 17, 2022.

October 15, 2021

Maggie Nelson sat down with the Literary Friction podcast and The Ezra Klein Show to discuss her latest book, ON FREEDOM. The Ezra Klein Show writes: “ON FREEDOM pierces right into the heart of America’s founding idea: What if there’s no such thing as freedom, at least not freedom as a state of enduring liberation? And more than that: What if we don’t want to be free? Perhaps that’s the great lie in the American dream: We’re taught to want freedom, but many of us recoil from its touch." Graywolf Press published the book on September 7, 2021

October 15, 2021

Barnes & Noble selected SCIENTIST by Richard Rhodes as one of their ten best biographies of 2021. Doubleday will publish the book on November 9, 2021.

October 8, 2021

THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones Jr. is a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award Fiction finalist. The winners will be announced in the 72nd National Book Awards ceremony on November 17, 2021. Jones Jr. sat down with Interview Magazine to discuss the nomination, and when asked how he reacted to the news, he told the interviewer: “I’m still in something of a daze…I was in this loop of shouting, ‘Have mercy!’ and ‘Thank you so much!’” THE PROPHETS also received a glorious review from Chapter 16. Sean Kinch raves: “[T]he metaphorical mileage that Jones gets out of that paradoxical place-name illustrates how the novel accretes meaning. Empty, a Mississippi cotton farm near the Yazoo River, exists in a moral vacuum. It’s a godless wasteland, a loveless pandemonium, an institution invented out of nothing and doomed to obliteration…Like Colson Whitehead and Yaa Gyasi, Robert Jones Jr. proves that the slave narrative, far from being empty, remains a vast and fertile territory.” G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the novel on January 5, 2021.

October 8, 2021

In a piece for Elle magazine’s Shelf Life, Jonathan Franzan recommends GOLDEN GATES by Conor Dougherty. He selected the title as the book that “currently sits on [his] nightstand,” saying: “I’m halfway through and seriously admiring [GOLDEN GATES]…Dougherty has a gift for making complex policy problems both clear and compellingly readable, and for rendering his characters with unsentimental sympathy. However much attention the book got when it was published, last year, I’ll bet it didn’t get nearly enough.” Penguin Press published the book on February 18, 2020.

October 8, 2021

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow was featured on Lit Hub’s “New and Noteworthy Nonfiction to Read this October.” Lit Hub Editor in Chief Jonny Diamond writes: “Graeber and Wengrow aren’t messing around…THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING is full of provocative reconsiderations of how, exactly, civilization has come to be.” Farrar, Straus, and Giroux will publish the book on November 9, 2021.

October 8, 2021

SCIENTIST by Richard Rhodes received a starred review from Booklist. They rave: “No disrespect to Hank Pym, Marvel Comics’ shrinking scientist and Avenger, but the real “Ant-Man” is Edward O. Wilson, the world’s preeminent myrmecologist (expert on ants) and conservationist superhero. Esteemed biographer and historian Rhodes warmly portrays Wilson as an ambitious and accomplished biologist, a passionate and influential advocate for identifying all life forms and preserving half of Earth as natural habitat, and a prolific, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer…His many admirable attributes include a genuine inquisitiveness, sense of wonder, and deep concern for all life, from insects to people, and our planet.” Doubleday will publish the book on November 9, 2021.

October 8, 2021

BTTM FDRS by Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore was featured on New York Magazine’s The Strategist’s “The Best Graphic Novels and Memoirs, According to Experts.” Leigh Hurwitz, the outreach librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library, calls the book an “Afro-futurist horror-comedy” that deals with “gentrification, urban blight, housing, and race,” adding: “You will want to stay in this book forever.” Fantagraphics published BTTM FDRS on June 25, 2019.