The Book News We Covered This Week
Today in Books delivered a weekly roundup covering bestseller lists, the 2026 Pulitzer winners, and industry news. Highlights include the death of legendary comics writer Gerry Conway, a warning to libraries preparing for Pride month amid rising book bans, and announcements such as a new Tolkien manuscript and Prime Video’s YA adaptations. Additional links spotlight a PEN America character‑naming auction, a film adaptation of Freida McFadden’s novel, and a report that banned non‑fiction books doubled in U.S. schools.
Piruz Khambatta’s Ashoi: How 60,000 Parsis Built $400 Billion in Enterprise Value
Piruz Khambatta, CEO of Rasna, released his book *Ashoi* outlining how the Zoroastrian principle of righteousness has helped India’s 60,000‑person Parsi community create roughly $400 billion in enterprise value. He argues that the triad of good thoughts, words and deeds builds...
![[Video] Sunday Book Review: May 10, 2026, The Top Books on AI Governance Edition](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://jdsupra-static.s3.amazonaws.com/profile-images/og.2237_4849.jpg)
[Video] Sunday Book Review: May 10, 2026, The Top Books on AI Governance Edition
Tom Fox’s Sunday Book Review spotlights four newly released titles that dissect AI governance, from technical security frameworks to practical regulatory guides. The highlighted works—by Bozdag & Bennati (2026), Eitel‑Porter et al. (2025), Kompella & Cooper (2025) and Gangavarapu (2025)—cover ethical systems, risk navigation,...
Book Review: ‘Look What You Made Me Do,’ by John Lanchester
John Lanchester’s latest novel, “Look What You Made Me Do,” is a dark domestic tale that fuses personal revenge with the cold logic of cryptocurrency. The story follows Kate, who obsessively targets her husband Jack, an architect, after a tangled...
Review of The Kerala Club, Edited by K.M. Chandrasekhar, T.P. Sreenivasan
The review examines *The Kerala Club: Keepers of the Flame*, a collection of 29 essays by current and former civil servants that explore Kerala’s distinctive development model, democratic decentralisation, and social challenges. The editors K.M. Chandrasekhar and T.P. Sreenivasan assemble narratives ranging...
Newest Edition Of Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke Costs Over $17,000
Argent Comics, a boutique publisher in Croatia, is issuing a limited‑edition "Avant‑Garde" version of Alan Moore’s *Batman: The Killing Joke* priced at $17,409 per copy. Only 47 copies will be produced, each bound between aluminum boards, wrapped in goatskin leather, and...
R.I.P. Koji Suzuki, Creator of Sadako and Author of Ring
Koji Suzuki, the author who defined modern Japanese horror, died at 68, as reported by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. His breakthrough 1991 novel Ring sold more than 500,000 copies and spawned blockbuster film adaptations in Japan and the United States, cementing...
Narrative History Moves Us., Which Is Exactly the Problem. We Mistake Emotion for Understanding
Alex Rosenberg argues that narrative history, exemplified by Solzhenitsyn’s *Gulag Archipelago*, moves people emotionally but fails to provide true causal understanding. While the three‑volume work helped expose Soviet atrocities and influenced public opinion, its impact illustrates how stories can shape...
‘I Couldn’t Have Done It Without You’
Frances Wilson’s latest conversation piece in the New York Review of Books explores how instant, almost hypnotic love recurs among the literary and cultural figures she profiles, from Liza Minnelli to Patricia Highsmith. She argues that love, whether for a partner,...
Desmond Morris: Controversial Thinker Who Redefined Human Evolution with The Naked Ape
Desmond Morris, the controversial zoologist and author of The Naked Ape, reshaped public perception of human evolution by treating Homo sapiens as a “naked ape” whose behavior mirrors that of other primates. His 1967 bestseller combined scientific ethology with vivid...
Understanding Our Mothers
The Wonder Reader’s latest edition curates a suite of Atlantic pieces that explore mothers beyond their parental role, delving into the lives they led before children arrived. It highlights personal essays, a 2015 neuroscience feature on hormonal shifts, and recent...
Poetry Review: ‘Wellwater,’ by Karen Solie
Canadian poet Karen Solie’s seventh collection, *Wellwater*, blends deadpan humor with stark ecological observation. The poems navigate prairie and northern cityscapes, exposing glyphosate drift, fracking, and water scarcity while probing personal memory and collective responsibility. Solie’s anticapitalist undertones surface through...
Israel: What Went Wrong? By Omer Bartov Review – the Long View
Omer Bartov’s new book examines Israel’s trajectory from a liberal, democratic promise in 1948 to what he describes as a morally and politically degenerated state. Drawing on his personal background as a kibbutz‑born former IDF officer and a Holocaust‑genocide scholar, Bartov...
Book Review: ‘Selling Opportunity,’ by Mary Lisa Gavenas
Mary Lisa Gavenas’s new book *Selling Opportunity* offers a dual biography of Mary Kay Ash and the cosmetics empire she built. The narrative traces Ash’s rise from a modest Houston upbringing to founding a multilevel‑marketing powerhouse that rewarded top sellers...
What Angels Fear by CS Harris
C.S. Harris’s “What Angels Fear”, the 19th entry in a long‑running Regency mystery series, blends a tightly plotted murder case with richly described London scents and a brooding aristocratic hero. Protagonist Sebastian St Cyr, a former army intelligence officer, navigates post‑war...
The Best Books to Read on American Empire
Alexis Coe’s column examines the uneasy marriage of American power and liberty, tracing the idea of an "empire for liberty" from Jefferson through the Mexican‑American War to modern debates. She highlights key titles that unpack this paradox, especially Amy S....
Lydia Pang on Infertility, Bitterness and the Unexpected Gift of Failure
Author Lydia Pang recounts her journey through three miscarriages, the bitterness that followed, and how she channeled that pain into a memoir titled "Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts and Food." She explains the Chinese idiom “eat bitter” as a...
Q&A: Author Sid Shroyer on Destruction in the Name of “Economic Development”
Author and former public‑radio host Sid Shroyer discusses his memoir When Once Destroyed, which chronicles the 1945‑1954 Upper Wabash Valley Flood Control Project that flooded his father’s hometown of Somerset, Indiana. The book weaves personal family history with a broader critique...
Novelists Tayari Jones and Meg Wolitzer Share Notes on Mothers in Fiction
Ahead of Mother’s Day, novelists Tayari Jones and Meg Wolitzer sat down to discuss how mothers shape fiction. The conversation weaves personal anecdotes—from Jones discovering her mother’s historic Ph.D. in economics to Wolitzer’s tribute to her 96‑year‑old mother, Hilma, a...
J.H. Prynne, Erudite and Elusive British Poet, Dies at 89
J.H. Prynne, the notoriously reclusive British poet, died on April 22 at age 89 in Cambridge. He spent five decades teaching and serving as librarian at Gonville and Caius College, becoming a cornerstone of the Cambridge School of poetry. Prynne’s work,...
Can I Borrow Your E-Book?: A Brief Discussion of Controlled Digital Lending
Controlled digital lending (CDL) lets libraries scan a physical book and lend the digital copy while maintaining a one‑to‑one owned‑to‑loaned ratio. In 2024 the Second Circuit rejected CDL as a fair‑use defense in Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive, siding...
Retrospective Maps Brion Gysin’s Avant-Garde Canon
The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris is hosting a retrospective of Brion Gysin’s avant‑garde work from April 10 to July 12, 2026. The show traces Gysin’s evolution from his 1930s Sorbonne days through his pivotal role in the Beat Hotel’s cut‑up experiments in...
Marianne Boruch Has Won the $100,000 Jackson Poetry Prize.
Chicago-born poet Marianne Boruch has been awarded the 2026 Jackson Poetry Prize, a $100,000 award presented by Poets & Writers. The prize, judged by Major Jackson, Cole Swensen, and Afaa Michael Weaver, honors an American poet of exceptional talent. Judges...
Odds & Ends: May 8, 2026
The latest "Odds & Ends" roundup from The Art of Manliness blends literature, memoir, tech tools, and music for the modern professional man. It highlights E.M. Forster’s 1909 novella “The Machine Stops” as a cautionary tale about over‑reliance on technology...
Blair Underwood on Honoring His Mother, Creating a Legacy, and How He Feels About AI
Actor Blair Underwood has released a new memoir, "A Soldier's Wife: My Mother, the Marvelous Mrs. Marilyn A. Underwood," honoring his mother. The book draws from Marilyn Underwood’s diaries and writings and was co‑written with Ylonda Gault. Underwood and his...
Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories by Wesley R. Bishop
Wesley R. Bishop’s *Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories* is a tightly woven short‑story collection set in a near‑future Earth spiraling toward ecological and technological collapse. The anthology links disparate tales—ranging from cult‑driven escape plans to generation‑ship colonists and time‑traveling...
Philip Caputo, Who Wrote Blistering Vietnam War Memoir, Dies at 84
Pulitzer‑winning journalist Philip Caputo, author of the seminal Vietnam memoir “A Rumor of War,” died at 84 from cancer. The 1977 book sold two million copies and was translated into 15 languages, cementing its place in war literature. Caputo’s vivid first‑hand...
7 Books About Women Migrant Workers
The article highlights a persistent gap in literary fiction: few novels center women migrant workers, especially domestic laborers. It curates seven recent titles that foreground these women’s interior lives, from Jamaica Kincaid’s *Lucy* to Alia Trabucco Zerán’s *Clean*. Each book...
The Post-Trauma Plot Book Is Here
Avigayl Sharp’s debut novel *Offseason* thrusts readers into a raw classroom discussion about trauma, using a provocative ranking of atrocities to challenge the notion of a ‘Trauma Olympics.’ The unnamed narrator, a former Ph.D. student turned private‑school teacher, recounts her...
What’s an Author to Do? Shadow Libraries in the Age of AI.
On March 6, the five largest global book publishers filed a lawsuit in New York federal court seeking to shut down the shadow library Anna’s Archive, alleging it supplies pirated works to AI developers. The case highlights a new wave of litigation...
The Best Recent Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror – Review Roundup
A new roundup spotlights five recent speculative‑fiction releases that blend genre thrills with cultural depth. Mahmud El Sayed’s *The Republic of Memory* (£22 ≈ $28) offers an Arabfuturist space‑opera aboard a multilingual starship. Naomi Ishiguro’s *Rainshadow Orphans* (£20 ≈ $25) fuses Japanese pop aesthetics, magic, and cyber‑augmented...
Dark Is the Morning by Rupert Thomson — a Question of Infidelity
Rupert Thomson’s new novel "Dark is the Morning" explores a wartime love triangle that forces its protagonists to confront the moral ambiguities of infidelity. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the narrative follows a British intelligence officer, his wife,...
A Campus Novel For a Post-Ironic World
Avigayl Sharp’s debut novel *Offseason* follows an unnamed instructor at a remote all‑girls school, using a self‑aware, often dishonest narrator to probe trauma, authority, and the power of literature. The book interlaces references to Dickens, Nabokov, and a fascination with...
Lit Hub Daily: May 8, 2026
Lit Hub Daily May 8 2026 offers a curated sweep of literary commentary, from Irene Zabytko’s reimagining of *The Canterbury Tales* in post‑Soviet Ukraine to a data‑driven piece on what Google searches reveal about grief. The roundup highlights practical craft advice—such as why...
Wisdom of the 5AM Club
The 5 AM Club, popularized by Robin Sharma, is gaining traction among top executives like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Oprah Winfrey. Its core routine— the 20/20/20 formula—splits the first hour into exercise, reflection, and learning to boost dopamine, clarity, and...
The Backlist: Reading Kem Nunn’s Seminal ‘Surf Noir’ with Jordan Harper
Kem Nunn’s 1982 novel *Tapping the Source* is widely regarded as the founding work of surf noir, a sub‑genre that fuses California’s coastal grit with classic crime storytelling. The book follows desert‑born Ike Turner as he searches for his missing...
Book Review: ‘One Leg on Earth,’ by ‘Pemi Aguda
Pemi Aguda’s debut novel *One Leg on Earth* launches with a shocking suicide of a pregnant woman, setting a stark tone for the narrative. The story follows Yosoye, a fresh university graduate serving in Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps, as...
Lily King: ‘I Couldn’t Get Past the First 20 Pages of Pride and Prejudice’
Novelist Lily King reveals the books that shaped her writing journey, from a childhood obsession with Judy Blume to a later love‑hate relationship with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She credits Virginia Woolf and graduate‑school peers for reshaping her voice, and...
Book Review: ‘Screen People,’ by Megan Garber
Megan Garber’s new book "Screen People" explores how the internet turned everyday moments into public performance, using the 2015 viral dress debate as a starting point. Drawing on her tenure at The Atlantic, she charts the rise of meme wars,...
Historical Fiction Books That Illustrate the Bonds Between Mother and Child
The article highlights eight historical fiction titles that place mother‑child relationships at their core, illustrating how maternal bonds transcend time. It spotlights works like Anita Diamant’s *The Red Tent* and Kristin Hannah’s *The Four Winds*, showing how authors blend meticulous period detail...
Karen Tei Yamashita Writes About Japanese American Internment in Her New Novel
Novelist Karen Tei Yamashita uncovered a massive archive of 335 boxes documenting the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS) at UC Berkeley. The ethically fraught WWII project enlisted incarcerated youths to report on fellow prisoners. Inspired by the material and her...
Why Writing Stories For Children Is So Much Harder Than Writing Stories For Adults
The author, a dual‑genre writer, explains why crafting stories for children is tougher than for adults, citing harsh kid judges, the need for a distinct narrative voice, and the pressure to shape young minds. After a rejected middle‑grade pitch, the...
A Bookstore Grows in Damascus
Al Manhal Bakery and Books opened on Damascus' historic Straight Street, pairing a bakery with a second‑hand bookshop to provide a safe space for Syrians to explore their history after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Founder Asser Khattab, a...
Interview | Karan Mahajan on His New Novel, The Complex: A Post-Partition Punjabi Family’s Tale
Karan Mahajan’s latest novel, *The Complex*, was released by HarperCollins in 2026, revisiting a post‑Partition Punjabi joint family in Delhi. The story spans the 1980s‑90s, covering events such as the Mandal Commission protests and the rise of Hindutva politics. Mahajan...
‘Being Human Helps’: Despite Rise of AI Is There Still Hope for Europe’s Translators?
European translators are confronting a rapid AI surge that threatens both volume and pay. Surveys show 79% of translators fear replacement, while post‑editing jobs now pay as low as €0.60 per line (≈$0.66), a fraction of traditional rates. Literary translation...
Best New Thrillers — Five Pacy Tales of Money, Mafiosi and Betrayal
The latest roundup spotlights five new thriller titles that fuse global conflict with personal stakes. Tom Bradby’s *Red Scorpion* (UK £16.99, ≈ $22) follows a debt‑laden doctor drawn into a Colombian crime syndicate; Andrew Rosenheim’s *The Interpreter’s Secret* (US $18) places...
Review | The Correspondent Is Both a Slow-Burn Mystery and a Warm, Witty Novel
Virginia Evans’ debut novel, The Correspondent, is written entirely as letters and has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The story follows 73‑year‑old Sybil Van Antwerp, a former lawyer, as she navigates loneliness, memory, and modern communication...
Review | Women’s Prize-Shortlisted Dominion Is a Portrait of Family Life Shaped by Faith, Desire and Violence
Addie E. Citchens’s debut novel *Dominion* has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Set in the fictional Mississippi town of Dominion, the story follows pastor’s wife Priscilla and orphan Diamond as they navigate a family torn by faith, desire...
Radioactive Rain and Proving Relativity: Books in Brief
The May 8, 2026 book‑review column spotlights four new titles that tackle pivotal scientific and societal themes. Emily Seyl’s *Trinity* offers a visually rich account of the 1945 atomic test using newly restored Los Alamos photographs, including rare images of trinitite. Nick...
Disco Pogo Announce Andrew Weatherall Tribute Book
Disco Pogo will publish a 300‑page tribute book to late DJ and producer Andrew Weatherall, titled A Disco Pogo Tribute to Andrew Weatherall, slated for a July 15 release. The volume merges 100 pages of material from the 2020 Jockey Slut tribute...