Hot News This Week
May 22, 2025
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No Straight Road Takes You There was published by Haymarket Books this month, and this marks their second NYT bestseller of 2025 after Mohammed El-Kurd’s Perfect Victims: And The Politics Of Appeal hit the list in February.
For more on Solnit’s latest, read her interview with the Boston Globe.
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| Heart Lamp Wins the International Booker Prize
Published by And Other Stories, it’s the first collection of short stories to be awarded the prize, and the first book translated from Kannada to be nominated. “This was the book the judges really loved, right from our first reading,” says novelist Max Porter, chair of this year’s prize committee. “It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.”
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| Drexler Defies “Straitjacket of Femininity,” Millás Motivated by the “Imp of the Perverse”
To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler (Hagfish) is a “brilliantly offbeat novel of two seemingly unrelated subcultures in 1970s New York City: the art world and women’s wrestling,” according to a rave review in the New York Times Book Review by author Lauren Elkin. It’s a novel about a woman daring “to test her power, to defy the straitjacket of femininity and to grow ever larger and stronger,” Elkin writes. “To Smithereens is at its heart about relationships, and the conflict and contact that is their lifeblood, or their ruin.”
Only Smoke by Juan José Millás (Bellevue Literary Press) received a glowing review in the Wall Street Journal last week. “Though Mr. Millás is a genial and humorous writer (the translators Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn showcase his conversational style),” writes critic Sam Sacks, “he is motivated by the imp of the perverse.” Only Smoke’s “fusion of fantasy and metafiction calls to mind Salman Rushdie,” and its “startling ending” is one “that the Brothers Grimm and [Patricia] Highsmith alike would appreciate.”
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“The bright contrasting colors and imaginative situations make this perfect for a wide range of readers—from the young ones pointing out the cat in each picture to older ones who can think of their own ideas for what a cat may be doing while away!” — Hilary Chetta, The Novel Neighbor (Webster Groves, MO)
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| | Gabby Gabe
by Carmen Mateo, illus. Marisa Morea
NubeOcho • May 2025 • 9788410074989
“The cutest most wholesome way to remind ourselves that words do matter. Our voice holds power especially when we deny others of it. Adored this book to pieces!” — Josie Meléndez, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)
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“A wacky adventure perfect for any young wordsmith and a great early literacy builder, complete with primary-color illustrations that immediately reminded me of a Pedro Almodóvar film! Love. PS: the clever ending made me laugh out loud.” — Taylor Carlton, Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX)
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| | Así soy yo
by Helena Harastova, illus. Ana Kobern
Albatros Media • August 2025 • 9788000074573
★ “A wonderful way to discuss behavior and personality traits with younger readers, this informative Spanish title is an excellent addition to school and public libraries.” — School Library Journal
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| | Motherlover
by Lindsay Ishihiro
Iron Circus Comics • May 2025 • 9781638991465
★ “Video game writer and web cartoonist Ishihiro debuts with this vibrant slow-burn sapphic romance. . . . . It’s a refreshing, inviting, and much-needed take on remaking traditional ideas of family.” — Publishers Weekly
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| | Red Water
by Jurica Pavicic, trans. Matt Robinson
Bitter Lemon Press • June 2025 • 9781916725157
“Jurica Pavičić’s outstanding crime thriller Red Water opens in September 1989 as Yugoslavia’s communist dictatorship is collapsing. . . . This finely engineered, haunting novel has been deservedly garlanded with awards.” — Financial Times
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“[Denpa] has re-released Hagio’s seminal sci-fi classic, including its second half Horizon of the East, Eternity of the West, and it is a must-have for fans of formative shōjo manga.” — Anime News Network
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“‘There is beauty, too, in Gaza’s streets,’ Almoghayer writes in this corrective, which offers memories and testimonials to the city’s vitality before Israel’s bombing campaign reduced it to a ‘garden of mass graves.’” — New York Times Book Review
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| | New Digital Review Copies
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ABA, MPIBA, MIBA, PNBA, GLIBA, NAIBA, and SIBA Bestseller
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman, trans. Ros Schwartz
Transit Books • May 2022 • 9781945492600
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