HEAVY author Kiese Laymon is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. USA Fellowships are awarded annually to “the most compelling artists working and living in the United States, in all disciplines, at every stage of their career.” Scribner published HEAVY on October 16, 2018.

The Today Show featured Cleyvis Natera's NERUDA ON THE PARK on their list of “18 books by Latinx Authors You'll Want to Read in 2022.” Lupita Aquino of “Lupita Reads on Instagram” told Today: "I have a sweet spot for debut authors and every year I keep an extra eye open for their titles, so, when Naima Coster shared her excitement for NERUDA ON THE PARK, I immediately added it to my TRB.” PopSugar also featured the novel on their list of “15 Books by Afro-Latinx Writers You Won't Want to Put Down,” calling it an "intriguing read." Ballantine Books will publish the novel on May 17, 2022.

Tanaïs' literary debut IN SENSORIUM was named one of Vogue's “7 LGBTQ+ Books We Can't Wait to Read This Year.” They write: "This memoir from writer and perfumer Tanaïs is as ambitious as it is wide-ranging, telling the story of their experience as an American Bangladeshi Muslim femme moving around the world in a wise and engaging manner that asks deeply relevant questions about queerness, gender, colonization and South Asian identity." The book was also selected as Lit Hub’s Astrology Book Club pick for “Cancer”: "Everyone knows that smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory, and by extension to emotion—two things that Cancers know a thing or two about. They will happily dive into the pool of sensations that is this memoir by writer and independent perfumer Tanaïs, and if they’re lucky, come out a little bit changed." Harper will publish the book on February 22, 2022.

THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV by Dawnie Walton audiobook was selected for the ALA RUSA Listen List. The committee considered 284 titles and produced a list of 12 winners that "highlight extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them." THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV was also featured on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour “Books We Love.” 37 Ink published the novel on March 30, 2021.

GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM by Wajahat Ali published this week to positive media attention. NPR reviewed the book, writing: "Ali doesn't pull any punches when expressing his righteous anger against things like the moderate Muslim trope, mass incarceration, systemic racism, socio-economic inequality, and more. Scathing political commentary about both Republicans and Democrats is supported with requisite data and historical facts. He leavens and seasons all of that skillfully with comedy, popular cultural references from the U.S. and Pakistan, and a deeply warm affection for the family and friends who've always been there for him.” Ali was also interviewed by Jean Guerrero for The Los Angeles Times, who praises the book as “funny and heart-wrenching…Ali’s tale is a hopeful one. It is also a love letter to America, despite many of its citizens giving him the send-off in his title…In the end, Ali’s book is about the power of storytelling to reroute history.” W.W. Norton & Company published the book on January 25, 2022.

THE WORLD CANNOT GIVE by Tara Isabella Burton is a Harper’s Bazaar “Best, Buzziest New Book of 2022” (“a vortex of dark academia and queer desire”), a most-anticipated book for The Millions (“THE SECRET HISTORY meets FIGHT CLUB, sort of, but younger, more feminine, more queer”), and a most-anticipated crime fiction title for CrimeReads (“Burton’s second novel is just as deliciously involving as her debut SOCIAL CREATURE, but makes rather better use of her doctorate in theology and ongoing religious scholarship.... It’s a book about the nature of and limits of fervor, religious, sexual, and otherwise, and a spellbinding coming of age story that—despite being set in the Instagram-laden present—feels somehow plucked out of time”). Simon & Schuster will publish the book on March 8, 2022.

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow received an enthusiastic review from ArtForum. Simon Wu writes: "The premise is exhilarating, and its implications are only beginning to be considered…[Y]ou get the sense that a political consciousness is an artistic consciousness. This view enables us to look at works of art with renewed optimism, as little windows into alternative ways of living rather than 'artificial hells’…At a moment when so many artists, curators, and academics are eager to ‘decenter the human’ in their work, THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING invites us to do the (much harder) job of reframing the braided questions of what humankind was, is, and could be." Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the book on November 9, 2021.

BORN READY by Jodie Patterson is a Notable Book for a Global Society 2022 winner. Titles were selected for “reflect[ing] diversity in the broadest sense, celebrating a variety of voices and topics.” Crown Books for Young Readers published the book on April 20, 2021.

CROSSING THE LINE by Kareem Rosser is a winner of the ALA's 2022 Alex Award, “given to books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.” St. Martin’s Press published the hardcover edition on February 9, 2021, and will publish the paperback edition on February 1, 2022.

GOD: AN ANATOMY by Francesca Stavrakopoulou published this week to critical acclaim. Karen Armstrong reviewed the book for The New York Times, praising it as a “a long, detailed and scrupulously researched book….[that is] packed with knowledge and insight.” Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly awarded the book a starred review, raving: “Biblical scholar Stavrakopoulou convincingly argues for understanding the Christian God as an embodied being in this fascinating comparative mythology...Stavrakopoulou writes with the fluidity of a seasoned storyteller, using ample footnotes, but never getting weighed down by academic jargon. This is a provocative tour de force.” Knopf published the book on January 25, 2022.