Malcolm Harris has sold a new book to Little, Brown. The Ghosts of Palo Alto will be “a mix of California history and memoir” that explores “Harris’s hometown, a national center of wealth accumulation, elite education, and teen suicide” and uncovers “a 150-year legacy of eugenics and mass murder at the foundation of Silicon Valley.”
The Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize shortlist was announced yesterday. Finalists include Tishani Doshi’s Small Days and Nights, Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, and Robert Macfarlane’s Underland. The winner will be announced May 4.
The Booker Prize Foundation has delayed the announcement of this year’s International Booker Prize winner. Publishers of shortlisted books had asked the group to postpone due to the difficulties of getting books out to readers. “A winner announcement in May, in the current context, would have been a bit bittersweet for the winners, who might not have had a chance to enjoy their success as they might another year,” said Fitzcarraldo publisher Jacques Testard.
At Literary Hub, Megha Majumdar talks to Sopan Deb about different perspectives, stand-up comedy, and his new memoir about his family, Missed Translations. “If all four of the members of my family wrote our own versions of this book, it would be four different books. You have to be prepared for the fact that you don’t see things the way your parents see things, and you have to do your best to bridge those gaps,” he said. “Prepare to look inward, and if you’re not ready for that, then this is not the project for you.”
Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen “has been spending his time behind bars writing an explosive tell-all book” that he plans to publish before the 2020 election, the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Cartwright reports. “Michael’s stories about Trump are incredible. He has saved a lot of them for when the time is right and the time is now right,” one anonymous source said. “He has paid his dues and he’s pissed he had to go to jail for this.”