Hot News This Week
April 10, 2025
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| Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories), is a finalist for the 2025 International Booker Prize. “Exploring the lives of those often on the periphery of society, these vivid stories hold immense emotional and moral weight,” say the prize judges. The winner will be crowned on May 20.
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“A beautiful book in every regard—an elegant layout with both Japanese and English translations on opposite pages, gorgeous cover art that pleased the eye, and absolutely packed full of brilliant haiku. Each page offers a clever, curious, or profound piece on nature and living life.” — Andrew Preston, CoffeeTree Books (Morehead, KY)
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| | My Dear Sea
by André Carrilho
Blue Dot Kids Press • April 2025 • 9798989858835
“A beautiful and enchanting book about treasuring our seas and acknowledging how important they are to all life on Earth.” — Andrew King, Ridgecrest Books (Shoreline, WA)
“The illustrations so perfectly pair with this rhyming story that offers an ode to the rhythms and power of the sea. . . . Whimsical, ecological, hopeful!” — Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC)
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| | Horsefly
by Mireille Gagné, trans. Pablo Strauss
Coach House Books • May 2025 • 9781552454992
“Eco-horror and historical fiction drowned in an oily pool of anthrax-laced Weird.” — Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore (Richmond, VA)
“A short but punchy horror story that flips back and forth between WWII, when biological testing was conducted on an island in the St. Lawrence River, and today, when a brutal heatwave releases swarms of horseflies.” — Kay Wosewick, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)
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| | Ultramarine
by Mariette Navarro, trans. Eve Hill-Agnus
Deep Vellum Publishing • March 2025 • 9781646053575
“A spare, mysterious, and hypnotic book, like watching a high-seas horror story through fogged glass. Navarro captures the sensation of becoming completely unmoored—from routine, expectations and reality—a beautiful and slippery depiction of lurching into a profound uncertainty.” — Bryan Seitz, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)
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| | Second Nature
by Chaun Ballard
BOA Editions • April 2025 • 9781960145529
★ “Truly a standout. . . . Intergenerational relationships, family and community identity, beautifully rendered nostalgia, and clever wordplay are all present and accounted for in this stunning debut collection.” — Booklist
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★ “Astonishing . . . teeming with wonder and wicked humor, Blaxell’s dispatches offer a boisterous trip through a formidable intellect. . . . Readers craving a break from the mundane will be grateful Blaxell has shared these stunning explorations.” — Publishers Weekly
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★ “Enchanting, mournful yet hopeful. . . . Childs ruminates poetically on the ageless use of stellar navigation by all manner of species, from birds to grasshoppers to great human civilizations, and what happens to them when the stars disappear.” — Booklist
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| | The Island
by Antigone Kefala
Transit Books • June 2025 • 9798893380033
★ “With sensuous and piercing prose, Kefala traces the life of European transplant Melina in post-WWII Sydney. . . . An extraordinary exploration of desire, love, and loss. Readers will cherish this.” — Publishers Weekly
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| | New Digital Review Copies
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Melissa Chan and Badiucao’s You Must Take Part in Revolution (Street Noise Books) was written up in Foreign Policy last week, praised for being “an empathetic portrayal of the wrenching choices activists make when facing repressive governments.”
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This month, poet Sunni Brown Wilkinson appeared on UPR’s Access Utah to discuss her new collection, Rodeo (Autumn House Press).
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ABA, MPIBA, SCIBA, GLIBA, NAIBA, and MIBA Bestseller
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman, trans. Ros Schwartz
Transit Books • May 2022 • 9781945492600
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