Celebrated poet and BONE and THE TERRIBLE author Yrsa Daley-Ward sat down with Refinery29’s Unbothered to speak about writing her latest book, THE HOW. “This year shone a light on so many things that we do on autopilot just to appease the people or be part of a group,” she says. “You then realize you do it so often you forget that you don't want to do it. It just becomes part of a weekly or monthly thing or whatever, down to personal relationships, friends that you have had for a long time, but when you really reassess and you think about it, it doesn't bring you joy.” Daley-Ward will also be collaborating with global florists—Urban Stems in the US and McQueens in the UK—to promote THE HOW alongside featured bouquets in coordinated online and social media campaigns. In the US, she will be doing an Instagram story takeover on Urban Stems’s account on October 27, and she will do a coordinated giveaway with Penguin and Urban Stems on November 4 to celebrate the book’s launch. In the UK, McQueens is working with Yrsa to create her own floral arrangement for their bouquet of the month, designed in collaboration with the talented Hamish Powell. McQueens will also feature the UK edition of the book online and in stores alongside the bouquet, complete with bookplates signed by Yrsa. Around publication time, McQueens will promote the collaboration heavily on its socials and create an article for their journal, as well as sending dried flower bundles along with copies of THE HOW in their influencer mailout. Penguin Books will publish THE HOW on November 2, 2021.

Laura Kipnis' forthcoming LOVE IN THE TIME OF CONTAGION received a glowing review from Kirkus. They call the essay collection “witty…[p]rovocative and darkly humorous,” adding: “Fearless and sharply observed, this book suggests that future post-pandemic challenges will have less to do with its biological legacy to humanity and more to do with the impact of a virus on interpersonal closeness.” Pantheon will publish the book on February 8, 2022.

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.

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow has received a wealth of praise surrounding its publication. In a review for The Atlantic, William Deresiewicz calls the book “[a] brilliant new account…something of a glorious mess, full of fascinating digressions, open questions, and missing pieces,” and a “final, unexpected gift” from the late Graeber, who Deresiewicz refers to as “[n]ot an extremely intelligent person – a genius…[who] seemed to belong to a different order of being from me, like a visitor from a higher dimension.” The Times applauds it as “[p]acey and potentially revolutionary…This is more than an argument about the past, it is about the human condition in the present.” Lastly, The Guardian praises it as “an impressively large undertaking that succeeds in making us reconsider not just the remote past but also the too-close-to-see present, as well as the common thread that is our shifting and elusive nature” and ran an excerpt from the book: “Unfreezing the Ice Age: The Truth About Humanity’s Deep Past.” Allen Lane published the UK edition of the book on October 19, 2021, and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux will publish the US edition on November 9, 2021.

The French edition of Daniel Loedel’s debut novel, HADES, ARGENTINA, has won the prestigious Prix du Premier Roman Étranger. Judged by a panel of literary critics, the award is given each year to the best first book by a foreign author. HADES, ARGENTINA was also named a finalist for two other French prizes: the Prix Femina and the FNAC First Novel Prize. La Croisée published the French edition on August 25, 2021, and Riverhead Books published the US edition on January 12, 2021.

After being named one of three finalists in the category, Brian Castleberry has won the Library of Virginia’s 2021 Award for Fiction for his debut novel NINE SHINY OBJECTS. Custom House published the book on June 30, 2020, and the paperback edition on August 17, 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.

Gabriela Garcia’s debut novel, OF WOMEN AND SALT, was awarded the Gold Medal for the Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Award – English at Empowering Latino Futures’ International Latino Book Awards on October 17. Flatiron Books published the novel on March 30, 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.