Hot News This Week
November 13, 2025
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“Tolentino’s detailed ink drawings in a soft vintage palette feel both familiar and full of childlike wonder,” says prize judge and children’s librarian Amber Moller. “We are encouraged to wonder where else in the world, and beyond, our imaginations might take us.” Learn more in the New York Times.
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| The White Stripes Inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
“To young artists, I want to say, get your hands dirty and drop the screens and get out in your garage or your little room and get obsessed.”
On Saturday, Jack White appeared at a ceremony inducting The White Stripes into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The celebration featured tributes from Iggy Pop, Olivia Rodrigo, Feist, and Twenty One Pilots, and it will air as an ABC primetime special on January 1. Read more via Rolling Stone and the New York Times.
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| Meet the National Book Award Finalists
Ahead of next Wednesday’s National Book Awards ceremony, Literary Hub spoke with the finalists about their reading habits, work process, and more. Read the piece here, featuring the writers behind Consortium publishers’ four finalist titles:
- “You can always practice being more open and receptive to whatever is zinging by. Do things you love, find art that moves you . . .” Ethan Rutherford, author of North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther (Deep Vellum / A Strange Object)
- “I have written novels for more than 35 years now. During the first 30 years my books did not sell.” Anjet Daanje, author of The Remembered Soldier (New Vessel Press)
- “I used to assign myself lists of books to be read in order, but that’s a grim business and by now I’ve mostly learned better.” David McKay, translator of The Remembered Soldier
- “Sometimes you want to say something important but you just can’t.” Richard Siken, author of I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press)
- “Richard Howard walked into my class at Columbia and said, ‘Saying you are a famous poet is like saying you are a famous mushroom.’” Gabrielle Calvocoressi, author of The New Economy (Copper Canyon Press)
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| Award Winners and News
- Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore (Talonbooks), won for Translation
- Rise, Red River by Tara Beagan (TCG / Playwrights Canada Press), won for Drama
How Dreadful! by Claire Lebourg, translated by Sophie Lewis (Transit Children’s Editions), is shortlisted for the 2026 Prix Albertine Jeunesse, a North American young reader’s choice award presented in part by Albertine Books.
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| Best Books of the Year
With year-end lists rolling in, we’ll be keeping tabs on all the books featured from Consortium publishers. Here are the latest best-of picks for 2025:
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“The sweetest story about a rain cloud who just wants a friend, and a little girl who figures out how to befriend the rainy day. Beautifully illustrated, this is one that will be treasured for years!” — Lynne Graham, Watermark Books & Cafe (Wichita, KS)
“This is a lovely story about a little girl and her friendship with the rain. The illustrations are dazzling.” — Meredith Pass, Carmichael’s Bookstore (Louisville, KY)
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“Sleep Here, Wake There really celebrates the genuine curiosity and whimsical thinking of children. . . . I loved how this story celebrated extended family support and the ways we show love to those we care about and for.” — Madison Rodriguez Eberth, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)
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| | Look Up
by Azul López, trans. Shook
Transit Children’s Editions • November 2025 • 9798893380286
“I love the way López plays with perspective in this book. . . . Look Up encourages readers to do exactly that, but also to slow down, to pay attention to the world around them, and to approach new things with curiosity.” — Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop (Athens, GA)
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| | Mule Boy
by Andrew Krivak
Bellevue Literary Press • February 2026 • 9781954276468
★ “The luminous story of Ondro, a son of Slovak immigrants and the only survivor of a 1929 Pennsylvania coal mine disaster. . . . Krivak brilliantly succeeds at plumbing the depths of the human spirit and showing how the dead live on in memory. This is flawless.” — Publishers Weekly
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| | Antic Hay
by Aldous Huxley, afterword by John O'Brien
Deep Vellum / Dalkey Archive Press • January 2026 • 9781628975680
★ “Readers of Huxley’s Brave New World will find glimmers of that book’s dark humor and sterling powers of observation in this stellar 1923 lampoon of English intellectualism after WWI. . . . It’s a riot.” — Publishers Weekly
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★ “The friendly voice, useful strategies, and excellent advice make this a valuable and accessible resource. Entertaining, comprehensive, and encouraging; for anyone who’s curious about how stories work.” — Kirkus Reviews
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| | Benbecula
by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Biblioasis • November 2025 • 9781771967020
“It’s fairly amazing how Burnet, in the spare, unadorned voice of Malcolm McPhee, builds an eerie tension around events we know are coming.” — Chicago Tribune
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| | Bloodline
by Lee Clay Johnson
County Highway / Panamerica • April 2026 • 9798999146700
“The book comes superbly to life in its character sketches, its bawling dialogue and its rugged sense of place. There are terrific scenes of fish fries, political rallies and all-night drunken benders.” — Wall Street Journal
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“The four hundred pages of Padam Padam, carefully curated by Evan Kennedy and Jason Morris, are but a smattering of Kevin Killian’s life work, yet they’re ample enough to show his brilliant, hungry mind develop over the decades, spinning up new universes, sometimes enjambed but always brainy and sexual.” — Brooklyn Rail
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| | New Digital Review Copies
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“When they talk about Your Name Here . . . they use words like ‘albatross’ (DeWitt), ‘a vampire or zombie’ (Gridneff) and ‘the current monstrosity’ (DeWitt again).” Last week, the Washington Post interviewed Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff about their collaborative novel, Your Name Here (Deep Vellum / Dalkey Archive Press).
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ABA, PNBA, MPIBA, SCIBA, NAIBA, GLIBA, NCIBA Bestseller
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman, trans. Ros Schwartz
Transit Books • May 2022 • 9781945492600
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