News - Literary News
News - Literary News
Jennifer Marie Brissett’s epic space opera DESTROYER OF LIGHT received generous praise from The Los Angeles Review of Books. Reviewer Steven Shaviro writes: “DESTROYER OF LIGHT has a wonky, science-fictional feel to it, which is something that still deeply appeals to me, even though fantasy, horror, and weird fiction seem to be more widespread and popular these days. Brissett plays with and transforms a number of familiar science-fictional tropes…creat[ing] a weird and alien world, but one that resonates deeply with our own contemporary concerns.” Meanwhile, Brissett spoke to Den of Geek on the book’s inspiration and ambitious narrative structure: “What inspired this multiplicity of perspectives is my imaginative self-thinking of what it might be like to experience being at the speed of light when time no longer moves forward or backwards, but everything happens at once.” Tor Books published DESTOYER OF LIGHT on October 12, 2021.
Garden and Gun magazine named CHILD IN THE VALLEY by Gordy Sauer one of its must-read titles for this fall. Executive Editor Amanda Heckert writes: “Murder, greed, redemption—this debut novel by the Texas native Gordy Sauer chronicling one man’s lawless journey from Missouri to California to strike it rich during the Gold Rush landed on my to-read list after I saw Publisher’s Weekly call it ‘an accomplished literary western,’ and no less than the late Larry McMurtry deem it ‘vividly brutal and haunting.’ Deal me in.” Hub City Press published the book on August 24, 2021.
HarperCollins selected THE MOVEMENT MADE US by David J. Dennis, Jr. and David J. Dennis, Sr. for their Summer 2022 Diverse Voices award. A reading committee made up of volunteers from different levels and departments at HarperCollins selects only three titles per year for this internal award, which aims to promote awareness and appreciation of their diverse lists. Harper will publish the book on May 10, 2022.
VANDERBILT by Anderson Cooper continues to be a bestseller, appearing for the week of November 7 on The New York Times lists for Hardcover Nonfiction, Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction, Audio Nonfiction, and Business, as well as The Washington Post’s Hardcover Nonfiction list. The New York Times also featured a Letter to the Editor responding to Cooper’s By the Book interview last month: “Anderson Cooper’s responses showed his deep honesty and vulnerability, and all the sadness he has had in his life... I can think of no one else who has answered that oft-posed question (‘You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?’) in such a disarming and truthful manner. So moving.” Harper published VANDERBILT on September 21, 2021.
FOUL PLAY, the 59th book in Stuart Woods’s long running Stone Barrington series, made its debut on the New York Times Bestseller list for the week of October 24. The book debuted at number 9 on the Combined Print and E-book Fiction list. G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the book on October 5, 2021.
Danielle Steel’s latest novel, THE BUTLER, will make its debut on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of October 24, 2021. It will debut at number 5 on the Combined Print and E-book Fiction list, and number 7 on the Hardcover Fiction list. Delacorte Press published the book on October 5, 2021.
Joss Lake discussed his debut novel FUTURE FEELING with Ari Braverman of The Believer, who calls the book "smart and a little bit pissed off but not so cynical that it wasn’t also luminously, optimistically enthralled with the world and all the ways we might figure out how to live inside it," and a story "filled with tenderness—a reminder for its readers that these days a real appraising eye sees not only decline but connection and potential as well." Soft Skull published the book on June 1, 2021.
Daniel Barban Levin sat down for an interview with Frances Badalamenti for BOMB Magazine to discuss his memoir SLONIM WOODS 9, the meaning of the word "cult" and how easily "normal" people might fall into one, and how the process of writing allowed him to come to terms with everything he endured. He also appeared on an episode of the Ivy League Murders podcast, discussing his experiences as a second installment in their Sarah Lawrence series on Larry Ray and his influence on his daughter's group of college friends. Crown published SLONIM WOODS 9 on September 7, 2021.
Jamelle Bouie invokes Mike Konczal’s FREEDOM FROM THE MARKET in his latest Op-Ed for the New York Times, “Joe Manchin Doesn’t Like What Joe Biden is Doing.” He writes: “Animating the New Deal, Mike Konczal writes in his book, FREEDOM FROM THE MARKET...was a 'new idea of freedom that limited and constrained markets' and put limits on ‘market dependency’… Konczal quotes a Roosevelt administration official, the great labor lawyer Donald Richberg, who made this point in explicit terms when he said that when workers are ‘compelled by necessity to live in one kind of place and to work for one kind of employer, with no choice except to pay the rent demanded and to accept the wages offered — or else to starve — then the liberty of the property owner contains the power to enslave the worker. And that sort of liberty is intolerable and cannot be preserved by a democratic government.’” The New Press published the book on January 12, 2021.
Ask.com featured THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones Jr. on its list of “The 15 Best Books of 2021 (So Far).” They write: "In Robert Jones, Jr.’s lyrical debut novel, THE PROPHETS, Isaiah and Samuel are two enslaved young men who find refuge in each other — and their love becomes both sustaining and heroic in the face of a vicious world. Entertainment Weekly writes that 'While THE PROPHETS’ dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison…Its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.' Now that's a compliment." G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the novel on January 5, 2021.