News

News

February 10, 2023

THE HIGH DESERT by James Spooner received the American Library Association's Alex Award, which honors “books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.” Harper published the book on May 17, 2022.

February 10, 2023

Ramona Ausubel’s THE LAST ANIMAL received a starred Kirkus review. They rave: "Deadpan gems […] sparkle in just about every scene of Ausubel’s fourth volume of highly original fabulist fiction, which marries an extraordinary and slightly bananas scientific adventure with a deeply felt portrait of a mother and daughters healing from terrible loss...An amazing amount of humor, pizazz, wisdom, and wonder packed into a story that is essentially about processing grief." The book was also featured in Orion Magazine’s “The Most Anticipated Books of 2023 – as Flowers,” and Library Journal’s “Annual Books Preview.” Riverhead Books will publish the novel on April 18, 2023.

February 3, 2023

AN IMMENSE WORLD by Ed Yong is the Nonfiction Winner of the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Stephen Sposato, chair of the selection committee, said: “[S]tanding out even during a recent golden age of nature writing, Ed Yong dazzles with a deeply considered exploration of the many modes of sensory perception that life has evolved to navigate the world, written with exhilarating freshness.” The book was also selected as a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction. Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the New School in New York City on March 23. Random House published AN IMMENSE WORLD on June 21, 2022.

February 3, 2023

STRANGERS TO OURSELVES by Rachel Aviv was selected as a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the New School in New York City on March 23. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on September 13, 2022.

February 3, 2023

HOUSE OF COTTON by Monica Brashears received a wonderful review from Publishers Weekly. They rave: "[A] haunting and macabre debut...Magnolia is a wonderfully complex character...Brashears skillfully portrays the ease with which Magnolia pivots from her interventions in the spirit world to her interactions with Cotton and Eden’s paying customers. This is a fine testament to resilience.” Flatiron Books will publish HOUSE OF COTTON on April 4, 2023.

February 3, 2023

The New York Times included Joseph Earl Thomas' SINK in their roundup of “13 New Books Coming in February,” praising the memoir as “a brilliant coming-of-age story.” The Washington Post also featured the book on its list of “10 Noteworthy Books for February,” praising: “For the reader, third-person narration creates a buffer to a brutal coming of age, and perhaps allows Thomas enough distance from his trauma to bravely expose the vulnerability and resilience of his youth.” Grand Central Publishing will publish the book on February 21, 2023.

February 3, 2023

THE FURROWS by Namwali Serpell was selected as a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction. Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the New School in New York City on March 23. It was published by Hogarth on September 27, 2022.

January 27, 2023

David Graeber’s PIRATE ENLIGHTENMENT, OR THE REAL LIBERTALIA, the final posthumous work by the co-author of THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, published this week to critical acclaim. Peter Frankopan calls it a “slim, feisty book,” in his review for The New York Times, adding: “Graeber’s challenge is to try to make sense of a set of sources that are unreliable or obtuse, and often written either many decades after events they describe or many thousands of miles away — or both…[He] is heroic to try to square a series of circles…David Graeber was a highly original thinker and a wonderful writer. Most of all he was someone who sought out challenging problems and set about trying to solve them.” Meanwhile, a review from Jatin Dua for Science/AAAS praises the book as an “elegantly breezy treatise [that] takes readers on a journey to the monsoonal waters of the Indian Ocean and the verdant landscape of Madagascar,” adding: “In his academic writing and political commitments, David Graeber exemplified an ethos of action and conversation. There is a certain bittersweetness to this text, one that ends with an exhortation toward the arts of speaking and conversation. Graeber himself is no longer around to speak, to debate, or to inspire protest and action. As anthropologists have noted, gifts are inalienable—they contain within them something of the giver. Graeber’s final book is certainly such a gift.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux published PIRATE ENLIGHTMENT, OR THE REAL LIBERTALIA on January 24, 2023.

January 27, 2023

De'Shawn Charles Winslow's DECENT PEOPLE has had a cascade of fantastic media attention. The book received a rave review from The Washington Post, where reviewer Ron Charles praises Winslow as a “talented young author,” adding: “Watching Winslow subvert the conventions of an old literary form is half the thrill of this novel. After all, the shelf of mystery detectives is hardly crowded with 60-year-old Black women. And that’s not the only cozy convention Winslow toys with…The larger social context that Winslow explores is what moves this story beyond one crime into a reflection on the myriad unacknowledged crimes committed across decades.” A review from Joseph P. Williams Jr. for the Minneapolis Star Tribune calls the book “an entertaining, relatable story, and Winslow an engaging storyteller,” while a review from Leah Tyler for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the book “an introspective and big-hearted examination of small-town Southern life,” adding: “On the surface DECENT PEOPLE is a cozy, homespun mystery…But Winslow has tucked a sophisticated story full of entwined relationships and crackling social commentary inside this small-town tale.” Meanwhile a review from “Bookworm Sez” Terri Schlichenmeyer, which ran in dozens of regional papers around the country, raves: “And that’s also where the fun lies: watching the small-town mechanics unfold with a bit of dark humor kind of almost makes you wish the book wasn’t going to end. Running out of pages in DECENT PEOPLE and having to leave West Mills feels like a letdown after immersing yourself in this wonderful small world.” Winslow was interviewed by Diane Marie Brown for Bomb magazine, who writes: “Many writers have bemoaned the dreaded sophomore novel, and with good reason. For a first book, typically there’s no external pressure or expectations…Imagine those expectations when the author’s first novel is universally loved and celebrated, such as the case with De’Shawn Charles Winslow, whose book IN WEST MILLS won the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize in 2019. With his newest book DECENT PEOPLE (Bloomsbury), not only did Winslow expand into new territory, giving readers a murder-mystery, he also blessed his fans with a return to the fictional small town of West Mills and brings back a few beloved characters from his debut.” Lastly, the book was featured on the New York Post’s list of best new releases of this week. Bloomsbury Publishing published DECENT PEOPLE on January 17, 2023.

January 27, 2023

Boygenius mentioned Rebecca Rukeyser’s THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH in their Rolling Stone cover interview. Angie Martoccio writes: "Boygenius like to read, and I do not mean that in a casual sense. A majority of our lunch is spent discussing literary fiction, where they ping-pong across the table with their recent reads. Rachel Yoder’s NIGHTBITCH. C.S. Lewis’ THE GREAT DIVORCE. Jenny Offill’s WEATHER. Leslie Feinberg’s STONE BUTCH BLUES. And Rebecca Rukeyser’s THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH, which [Phoebe] Bridgers gives me a copy of the following day." Doubleday published the book on June 7, 2022.