by Kate Merlene
Feb 02, 2022 | Filed in Reviews+
Hannah Lowe wins the Costa Book of the Year Award for The Kids. AudioFile announces the February 2022 Earphones Award winners and the 2022 Romantic Novel Awards announces its shortlists. B&N selects The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang for its February book club. Reese Witherspoon picks The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont and GMA selects The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Charles Todd’s A Game of Fear, the buzziest book of the week. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Autumn M. Womack talk about Toni Morrison, and The Well-Read Black Girl podcast debuts. Plus, James Joyce’s Ulysses turns 100, and the appetite for diet books shrinks.
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Awards, Book Clubs, & News
Hannah Lowe wins the Costa Book of the Year Award for The Kids(Bloodaxe Books).The Guardianhas coverage.
AudioFileannounces the February 2022 Earphones Award Winners.
The 2022 Romantic Novel Awards (RNA) announces shortlists.
Reese Witherspoon picks The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (St. Martin’s) for her February Book Club.The Washington Post reviews, calling it “richly imagined; inventive and, occasionally, poignant; and about as true-to-life as Christie’s own tales of quaint villages with their staggering murder rates.”
B&N selects The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang (Norton) for its February Book Club. Chang guest blogs for B&N, discussing her inspirations behind the novel and sharing a writing prompt for readers.
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor) is the GMA Book Club pick.
“Dutch Publisher Apologizes Over Disputed Anne Frank Book.” The NYT reports.
Reviews
NPR reviews Thank You, Mr. Nixon: Stories by Gish Jen (Knopf): “Every story in this collection, though, is outstanding. Thank You, Mr. Nixon is an exceptional collection, written with intelligence, wit and grace—it’s one of the best books of Jen’s remarkable career.”And, Free Love by Tessa Hadley (Harper): “A domestic novel of manners, erotic abandon and cultural change, Free Love is as eclectic and alive as the times it captures.”Also,Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu 
(Tin House): “This collection cements Fu as one of the most exciting short story writers in contemporary literature.”
USA Today reviews Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (Avid Reader Press: S. & S.), giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars: “the darkly wry novel proves a thorny, unafraid exploration of a post-menopausal woman’s desire, so rarely explored in art and popular culture except to 
turn lustful older women into the butt of jokes.”The LA Times also reviews: “Jonas, with a potent, pumping voice, has drawn a character so powerfully candid that when she does things that are malicious, dangerous and, yes, predatory, we only want her to do them again.”
NYT reviews The Nineties: A Book by Chuck Klosterman (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review): “By declaring his cohort recessive and unannoying at best, writing indifferent lines like ‘times change, because that’s what 
times do,’ Klosterman cunningly sets a low bar for this project. Does it clear it? Well, yes. No. Sometimes.” And, The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. by Jennifer Croft (Riverhead): “The power and beauty of Tokarczuk’s writing, which shine through Jennifer Croft’s ebullient translation, lie, in part, in how tenderly she recreates the material as well as psychic reality of the actors in this strange, implausible drama, making them substantial, sympathetic, impossible to dismiss.”
Briefly Noted
LibraryReads and Library Journaloffer read-alikes for A Game Of Fear (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries, Bk. 24) by Charles Todd (Morrow), the buzziest book of the week.
Bitchtalks with Ricky Tucker about the inspiration behind his new book, And the Category Is…:Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community (Beacon).
Salonhas a wide ranging interview with Carl Bernstein, Chasing History (Holt), about “journalism, Trump and history.”
LA Times has 7 takeaways from new release,Didn’t We Almost Have It All:In Defense of Whitney Houston by Gerrick Kennedy (Abrams), and a Q&A with punk house photographer Melanie Nissen about her new photobook, Hard +Fast (Blank Industries).
NYThas a feature on J Dilla and the new book about his life and legacy, Dilla Time:The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas (MCD).
Time writes aboutThe Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned To Act by Isaac Butler (Bloomsbury; LJ starred review).
The Atlantic calls Octavia Butler’s Fledgling (Seven Stories) a “novel of our times,”and alsoimplores us to “Read the Books That Schools Want to Ban.”
Tahereh Mafi, This Woven Kingdom(HarperCollins), takes the Entertainment Weekly pop culture questionnaire.
Bustle shares an excerpt from From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy by Scott Meslow (Dey St), about actor Hugh Grant’s enduring appeal.
James Joyce’s Ulysses Turns 100.LitHub looks at its legacy.
USA Todayexplores why Americans’ “appetite for diet books is shrinking,” and highlights 5 diet-free self-improvement books.
The Millionsshares its February preview.
Bustle shares “The Most Anticipated Books Of February 2022.”
Buzzfeed has “21 Book-To-Film Adaptations Coming To Screens In 2022.”
T&C has a booklist for what to read after watching The Gilded Age.
Popsugar suggests“15 Books by Afro-Latinx Writers You Won’t Want to Put Down”; 54 Romances; and 55 Thrillers and Mysteries.
Authors on Air
NPR’s Morning Edition discusses Toni Morrison’s Recitatif: A Story (Knopf), newly published in book form, with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Autumn M. Womack.
NPR’s Fresh Airtalks with Florence Williams about her book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey (Norton), and how extreme emotional pain affects the body.
The Well-Read Black Girl podcast launches this month with two episodes featuring guests Tarana Burke and Min Jin Lee.
