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Awards & Book News

Shortlists for the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards for food writing and cookbooks are announced.

The shortlist for the Dublin Literary Award is announced.

Swimming Against the Tide by Said Khatibi (Hachette Antoine) wins the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Finalists for the Nota Bene Prize for fiction are revealed.

Recipients of the Writing Freedom Fellowship are named; LitHub reports.

Jonathan Maberry and Lisa Morton will receive lifetime achievement awards from the Horror Writers Association, Locus reports.

Novelist Helen DeWitt discusses having turned down the 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize; The Guardian has coverage.

Paramount has formed a new publishing imprint; Publishers Weekly has the news.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux will close their experimental MCD imprint, Publishers Weekly reports.

Page to Screen

April 10

California Schemin’, based on the memoir California Schemin’: How Two Lads from Scotland Conned the Music Industry by Gavin Bain. Patriot Pictures. Reviews | Trailer

Hamlet, based on the play by William Shakespeare. Vertical Entertainment. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews The Oracle’s Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult by Harrison Hill (Scribner): “This is exactly the kind of story that the true-crime industrial complex lives to hyperventilate over. But Hill is an extremely skilled writer, and his conscientious, measured reporting is a gift. He’s also a reliable guide who’s managed to create stunningly vivid scenes from the memories with which his subjects have trusted him.”

NPR also reviews The Oracle’s Daughter: “The twists and turns Hill follows throughout this true story are extraordinary, and the author does a wonderful job of contextualizing the painful, sometimes horrifying choices his subjects made—especially those involving women leaving their children, which, as he points out, would be perceived very differently if these women had been men”; as well as I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley (Avid Reader): “If you’re one of those readers who prizes likeability above all else in your fictional characters, you may be inclined to give I Am Agatha a pass. But that would be a mistake. This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love. And, all too unusually, the love affair here is between two women in their 60s”; and After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace by Robert Polito (Liveright): “The book is itself a flood of ideas, of information, of emotion. As it proceeds, we begin to learn things about the author: That the writing of this book, for example, was interrupted by an illness that was almost fatal but that also inspired him to make sure he completed it.”

The Guardian reviews Go Gentle by Maria Semple (Putnam): “The book is a zany high-wire act and the main plot, which at times seemed like a shaggy dog story, is ingeniously wrapped up at the end. For me, the whole doesn’t really cohere, but as Marcus Aurelius said, everything is perspective, not truth. I felt both cleverer and sillier after finishing this book, which is a lovely way to be left.”

LitHub rounds up the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

NYT profiles Merlin Holland, only grandchild of Oscar Wilde and author of the new book After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal (Europa).

Deborah Levy, author of My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein (Farrar), shares “The Books of My Life” with The Guardian.

Harlan Coben will share writing wisdom in his forthcoming memoir, Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft, due out from Grand Central on September 8, People reports.

NYT asks, “Where does publishing’s AI problem leave authors and readers?”

NYT highlights “9 New Books We Love This Week.”

Kirkus suggests informative new nonfiction.

CrimeReads rounds up the best paperback releases of April and recommends 15 LGBTQIA+ crime novels to check out this spring.

Reactor gathers all the new SFF crossover and YA SFF books arriving in April.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews Mary Fariba Afsari, author of Labor: One Woman’s Work (Avid Reader).

Kirkus’s Fully Booked podcast talks to V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, the writing duo behind Evelyn Clarke’s The Ending Writes Itself (Harper; LJ starred review).

Ana Huang’s “Gods of the Game” sports romance series will get a three-film adaptation, People reports.

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