National Book Awards Winners

Announced During Virtual Ceremony

The winners of the 71st National Book Awards were announced this past week during a virtual, live-streamed broadcast free and open to everyone. First up during the evening were the lifetime achievement prizes, including the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, which was awarded to late Simon & Schuster publisher Carolyn Reidy. Additionally, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was presented to author Walter Mosley, making him the first black man to ever receive the award. The winners of the five book awards were:

• Fiction: Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu. Publisher: Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House
• Nonfiction: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne. Publisher: Liveright / W. W. Norton & Company
• Poetry: DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi. Publisher: Wave Books
• Translated Literature: Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri and Morgan Giles. Publisher: Riverhead Books, Penguin Random House
• Young People's Literature: King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender. Publisher: Scholastic Press / Scholastic Inc.

Five Antagonists You Love to Hate

Mystery and suspense literature is built around compelling protagonists who draw us in and, if created well, draw the very breath out of us with his/her adventures. As much as we love rooting for these protagonists, however, every so often there’s an equal yet opposite villain who has as much intrigue as their counterpart. Maybe it’s because we identify with their motives, even if their actions are questionable. Or maybe they have a backstory that engages us. Either way, there is something darkly delightful about a villain who gives the hero—and reader—a run for their money by disrupting what we all know about the bad guys and leaving us longing for more. Whether you love them or hate them, there is no denying their charisma. With that in mind, Novel Suspects recently published this list of five complex antagonists we can’t forget.

TRUE CRIME

Murder And Cover-Up At Harvard

In 1969 Jane Britton, a beautiful young graduate student in Harvard’s anthropology department, was found bludgeoned to death. Rumor at the time suggested she’d been having an affair with her professor, a liaison that started while on a dig in Iran, and when they returned to Cambridge, she wouldn’t give it up. The professor couldn’t have the university find out about their affair and, as rumor had it, he went to her apartment one night. They talked, and he allegedly struck her with an archaeological stone tool he had taken from the Peabody Museum. Police found her the next day and questioned the professor. The school forced the Harvard Crimson to change its article about the murder, and subsequent accounts of the murder were hushed up. The press stopped writing, the family never investigated, and the police never arrested anyone—until two years ago. Forty years later, in her junior year at Harvard,  Becky Cooper heard the story and spent the next ten years chasing down every lead—an investigation she recounts in her debut true crime book We Keep The Dead Close.

Espionage: The World’s

Second-Oldest Profession

Sometimes referred to as the second oldest profession, espionage has captivated audiences with stories of secrecy, manipulation, deception, danger, and equal parts romance and adventure. In a captivating article published last week in CrimeReads, suspense maven Otto Penzler tracks the evolution of the spy novel from the “flamboyant” early works of E. Phillips Oppenheim, H. C. McNeile, and Baroness Orczy, through the realism inspired by W. Somerset Maugham, and a new wave of post-war thrillers that “morphed into predictive anti-Nazi counterespionage tales that continued to elevate the level of verisimilitude.” The Cold War inspired more and more complex novels and a greater requirement for accuracy as the reading public became more sophisticated, as authors “presented the Cold War as a nuanced game played between two powers who employed the same tactics, its spies and counter-spies equally ruthless but also just human beings employed by their respective countries.”

Nielsen: Americans Believe Life

Is Starting To Normalize

Despite the highest daily Covid-19 infection rates the U.S. has seen so far during the pandemic, a majority of U.S. adults are masking up, leaving home, and trying to get back to a lifestyle that’s not hampered by crisis—albeit safely. Nielsen reports that—despite masks and social distancing—53% of Americans believe life is starting to normalize, they are more likely to resume typical activities and are starting to shop more as restrictions permit. That doesn’t mean, however, that these consumers are disregarding health and safety. The study also found that the people who are ready to get out also feel more confident about avoiding risk and staying safe when they leave their homes. Consumer sentiment among Americans remains among the highest in the world, with second-quarter consumer confidence (as reported by the Conference Board) clocking in at an index level of 102 (2 index points above the baseline of 100). Combined with eased business restrictions across the country, the marginally optimistic mindset of consumers, a better understanding about how to stay healthy, and perhaps a dash of cabin fever, have influenced a majority of Americans to begin spending on non-essentials, including out-of-home dining, non-food retail, travel—and books.

Some Excellent Mysteries And

Crime Dramas To Binge-Watch Now

The global pandemic has seen a marked increase in television binge-watching of new programs available from a growing number of streaming services, as well as older programs that are back for a second or third look. Last week TV Guide compiled a list of murder mysteries and crime dramas you can become obsessed with right now, covering an entire spectrum of sub-genres. As researcher Kaitlin Thomas notes, “When you think about the perfect murder mystery or crime drama, your mind likely conjures up a dark and moody atmosphere, moments of great tension, or a brooding detective wearing a great coat. But not every murder mystery or crime drama has to be this way. In fact, while there are some excellent but dark dramas that pose serious questions, there also are some comedies that include wacky hijinks on the road to solving a case. There's something for everybody, so check out this list and get to it.”

Uncut Gems: A Poor Investment Of Time

I’m not particularly prone to publishing unfavorable reviews, but I’ll make an exception in the case of the Safdie brothers’ film Uncut Gems. I’d read positive and negative criticism about this flick when it premiered late last year, but rarely do I let such comments prevent me from seeing a movie. I was unable to see it when it showed up at my local theater in January, but I’d viewed the trailer a few times and found it intriguing enough to invest two hours of my life on it. What a poor decision that turned out to be. Adam Sandler, whom I think is a fine actor and was compelling in Reign Over Me, plays a once-successful gem dealer in New York’s diamond district plagued with a gambling addiction that’s left him hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, his family in turmoil, and his career in the gutter. It's an interesting (if unoriginal) premise, but the hustle that follows is uninspired, as is every single character in the film. Twenty minutes into it I realized there wasn’t one person I cared about, nor was there one redeemable thing about anyone from the first frame to the last. I’ll try not to spoil the ending, but there came a point not long before the final credits when I actually cheered – and realized I was about to get my life back. At least I didn’t spend any money on popcorn and a cherry Coke.

HOLIDAY GIFT BUYING

“Reed Bunzel‘s Seven-Thirty Thursday (Suspense Publishing) is an intensely personal tale that echoes of both Greg Isles and John Hart. This establishes Bunzel as a kind of William Faulkner of the thriller-writing world. His effortless prose crackles with color and authenticity as the brooding Charleston skies sets the stage for the storm that’s coming."

–The Providence Journal