Hot News This Week
January 23, 2025
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Ito is credited with sparking Japan’s #MeToo movement with the publication of her memoir, Black Box, in which she went public with rape allegations against a high-profile figure and chronicled her subsequent pursuit of justice. Black Box Diaries, which Ito directed and produced, covers her investigations for the book and its explosive reception.
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| New Society Authors on Fossil Fuels and Climate Disasters
Two New Society authors have been in the news discussing the role of the fossil fuel industry in causing climate disasters like the devastating California wildfires.
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| Celebrating Third World Press and 7 Finalists for the NBCC Awards
We’re thrilled to see the National Book Critics Circle honor Third World Press with the 2024 Toni Morrison Achievement Award! “The Chicago-based publisher has championed generations of Black authors,” says prize committee chair Jacob M. Appel, “and is largely responsible for keeping the works of celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks in print.”
Seven titles from Consortium publishers have also been named finalists for the 2024 NBCC Awards, with winners to be crowned at the ceremony on March 20. Congrats, all!
- Intervals by Marianne Brooker (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Little Seed by Wei Tchou (Deep Vellum / A Strange Object)
- Melvill by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter)
- Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, translated by Robin Moger (Transit Books)
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| | Heaven and Hell
by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, trans. Philip Roughton
Biblioasis • February 2025 • 9781771966511
“In an Icelandic fishing village, a young man and a boy share a friendship based on their mutual love of literature. . . . [A] small, lyrical epic. Fans of Claire Keegan will love this one.” — Grace Harper, Mac’s Backs (Cleveland Heights, OH)
“With exquisite language, allegory, and an intense sense of place, the comparison to Cormac McCarthy is entirely appropriate.” — Mary Wahlmeier Bracciano, Raven Book Store (Lawrence, KS)
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“This is coming from someone who constantly has to strain not to just describe every book I read as ‘weird (complimentary),’ but, man, this book is absolutely wild. . . . The kind of little oddity that might be best stumbled onto with no other context, that feels like it could’ve been written in any era.” — Bryan Seitz, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)
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| | dd’s Umbrella
by Jungeun Hwang, trans. e.yaewon
Tilted Axis Press • April 2025 • 9781911284949
“Meditative and beautiful, with inventive use of footnotes, history, and philosophy. . . . Two quiet novellas sharing the nostalgia-grief of the marginalized in the face of disaster and protest.” — Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop (Athens, GA)
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“A vitriolic and fantastical crusade that squirms out of your grasp every time you think you have it pinned. Will satisfy fans of Layla Martinez and Fernanda Melchor.” — Tony Paese, Books & Company (Oconomowoc, WI)
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| | If Nothing
by Matthew Nienow
Alice James Books • January 2025 • 9781949944693
“‘This world expects a man/to prove that he exists,’ Nienow writes in his second collection, a mediation on masculinity that grapples with alcoholism, recovery and the deep yearning for forgiveness. ‘I didn’t know how to be/a friend or father,’ one speaker admits.” — New York Times Book Review
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| | Sunday
by Marcelo Tolentino
Blue Dot Kids Press • January 2025 • 9798989858811
“Tolentino made this visual treasure trove of a book, about a bored boy who travels the world inside his own home on a day of the week that always seemed ‘the same,’ to help children see ‘the magic in ordinary aspects of daily life.’” — New York Times Book Review
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| | New Digital Review Copies
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Holly Pester, author of The Lodgers (Assembly Press), appeared this week on the Across the Pond podcast with Lori Feathers and Sam Jordison.
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