Mary Kuryla of Lit Hub featured THE STARS ARE NOT YET BELLS by Hannah Lillith Assadi in her literary roundup of “Deeply Flawed Mother Figures of Literature.” She writes: “In Assadi’s rendering of dementia, we are rewarded with a privileged view of a mother’s secrets and passions simply by virtue of what insists in the mind and what muddles. Can we be surprised that motherhood and its demands, for all its insistence, winds up in the muddle?” Riverhead Books published the novel on January 11, 2022.

On the day of its release, New York Magazine ran an exclusive excerpt of THE YEAR THAT BROKE AMERICA by Andrew Rice. Rice also sat down for an interview with The Los Angeles Times about the book. Harper published the book on February 22, 2022.

EVERYBODY by Olivia Laing is an “octafinalist” for the 2022 BookTube Prize Award for Fiction. The prize was established in 2019 “to bring an award to everyday readers who are active content producers and participants in the bookish community on YouTube and other social media—called BookTube.” Quarterfinalists will be announced in April/May, semifinalists in June/July, finalists in August/September, and the winners will be announced on October 8, 2022. W.W. Norton & Company published the book on May 4, 2021.

CHINA ROOM by Sunjeev Sahota is an “octafinalist” for the 2022 BookTube Prize Award for Fiction. The prize was established in 2019 “to bring an award to everyday readers who are active content producers and participants in the bookish community on YouTube and other social media—called BookTube.” Quarterfinalists will be announced in April/May, semifinalists in June/July, finalists in August/September, and the winners will be announced on October 8, 2022. Viking published the novel on July 13, 2021.

THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV by Dawnie Walton is an “octafinalist” for the 2022 BookTube Prize Award for Fiction. The prize was established in 2019 “to bring an award to everyday readers who are active content producers and participants in the bookish community on YouTube and other social media—called BookTube.” Quarterfinalists will be announced in April/May, semifinalists in June/July, finalists in August/September, and the winners will be announced on October 8, 2022. 37 Ink published the novel on March 30, 2021.

THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones Jr. is an “octafinalist” for the 2022 BookTube Prize Award for Fiction. The prize was established in 2019 “to bring an award to everyday readers who are active content producers and participants in the bookish community on YouTube and other social media—called BookTube.” Quarterfinalists will be announced in April/May, semifinalists in June/July, finalists in August/September, and the winners will be announced on October 8, 2022. G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the novel on January 5, 2021.

Laura Kipnis’ LOVE IN THE TIME OF CONTAGION received a wave of positive press following its publication. Sophia Nguyen of The Washington Post writes: “Readers who crave that warm feeling of being taken into someone’s confidence will also find a lot to like in Laura Kipnis’ LOVE IN THE TIME OF CONTAGION… Kipnis’ intellectual restlessness is what makes her so fun to read.” David Mikics reviewed the book for Tablet, praising: “LOVE IN THE TIME OF CONTAGION is shot through with Kipnis’ ample comic talent. As a satirist and commiserator she has few equals these days.” Chicago Tribune featured the book in a Valentine’s Day column examining the difficulty of romantic commitments: “LOVE IN THE TIME OF CONTAGION [is] a new social study by Kipnis, longtime professor and bomb thrower (metaphorically) at Northwestern…Kipnis offers a cloistered world in which, at least, we recognize both, the painful and the enlightened.” Lastly, Kipnis sat down for interviews with Lit Hub, The Colin McEnroe Show, and The Unspeakable Podcast. Pantheon published the book on February 8, 2022.

VERY COLD PEOPLE by Sarah Manguso continues to receive rave reviews following its release. Katy Waldman wrote a glowing review of the novel for The New Yorker, comparing it to Elena Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND and praising: “The book has a fairy-tale quality, a ring of the nursery rhyme… The book’s symmetries, prototypical figures, and brutality heighten the Grimmish mood. You half expect the characters to be devoured by wolves.” Meanwhile, Claire Messud reviewed the book for Harper’s Magazine, raving: “[VERY COLD PEOPLE] is a searing catalogue of pinched bitterness...[W]ith her gemlike apercus, Manguso renders this bleakness oddly fascinating...[She has] a distinctive and pungent style. She is known for her aphoristic precision and intense, adamantine paragraphs. Her novel thus has the effect of a series of sharply focused snapshots.” Hogarth published the novel on February 8, 2022.

CHINA ROOM by Sunjeev Sahota was longlisted for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The award “celebrates quality, innovation, and ambition of writing, and is open to books first published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland, or the Commonwealth.” The shortlist for the award will be announced in April, and the winner will be announced in June via the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland. Viking published CHINA ROOM on July 13, 2021.

Sarah Manguso's VERY COLD PEOPLE received a wealth positive press surrounding its publication this week. In a rave review for The New York Times, Alexandra Jacobs writes: “Best known as a memoirist and essayist, Manguso also writes poetry, and this is apparent in her fiction. Though dealing with life’s ugly, messy truths, her writing is compact and beautiful…So masterly is Manguso at making beauty of boring old daily pain that when more dramatic plot turns arrive — suicides, teen pregnancies — they almost seem superfluous, visitations from an after-school special. The book is strong enough as a compendium of the insults of a deprived childhood: a thousand cuts exquisitely observed and survived. The effect is cumulative, and this novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.” Michele Filgate reviewed the novel for The Washington Post, writing: “Manguso’s attention to the chilliness and reservation of certain New Englanders crackles like a room-temperature beverage poured over ice…[She] portrays the fears surrounding girlhood with a blistering clarity.” Lastly, Rebecca Steinitz’s review for the Boston Globe praises Manguso as “an exquisitely astute writer…admirable [for] her refusal to bow to predictable plot tropes.” Hogarth published the novel on February 8, 2022.