Congratulations to both of this year's Nobel Prize winners in Literature!

Also this week: Susan Rice, Saeed Jones, critics' picks and more [Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke]( Beata Zawrel and Barbara Gindl/APA/AFP via Getty Images In an unusual move, the Swedish Academy has awarded Nobel Prizes in literature to two authors: Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, who won the postponed 2018 award, and Austrian author Peter Handke, who won the prize for this year. The academy's permanent secretary, Mats Malm, announced the winners at a press briefing in Stockholm. Tokarczuk, 57, was recognized "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life," according to the judges' citation, released Thursday. And judges said Handke, 76, won "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience." Check out our coverage -- and read about why there were two prizes this year -- [here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- [Susan Rice at NPR]( Ben de la Cruz/NPR "My now 22-year-old son ... learned to walk in the halls of the State Department," [former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tells NPR's Steve Inskeep](. "And there were those who thought that was a little bit inappropriate for the staid halls of the State Department." Rice looks back on her career in a new book, Tough Love. She describes much of it as a balancing act -- between personal and professional, and between ambition and the complexities of being an African American woman in government. Reviewer Caitlin Kim says Rice tells her story "[in a personal and honest manner]( both advocating for herself and owning up to her mistakes. [How We Fight For Our Lives, by Saeed Jones]( Author and poet Saeed Jones is out with a fierce, funny, vulnerable new memoir, How We Fight For Our Lives, about growing up black and gay in Texas. [Critic Maureen Corrigan says]( "How We Fight for Our Lives is at once explicitly raunchy, mean, nuanced, loving and melancholy. It's sometimes hard to read and harder to put down." Jones dropped in on It's Been a Minute to talk about the book with our own Sam Sanders -- you can hear that conversation [here](. [The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner]( Before he was a novelist, poet and MacArthur Fellow, Ben Lerner was a high school debater and champion extraneous speaker. He draws on both of those disciplines in his new novel, The Topeka School, about Adam Gordon, a high school kid who lives in a world of words: His parents are both therapists, and he's a policy debater by day and freestyle rapper by night. [Lerner tells NPR's Ari Shapiro]( that Adam is drawn to forms of speech that let him seem tougher "a red-state masculinist culture where talking, unless you're talking trash, is often seen to be a sign of weakness." Finally this week, singer-songwriter Liz Phair is out with a new memoir, Horror Stories. [Our critic Michael Schaub says that]( "like her entire musical catalog, it's honest, original and absolutely remarkable." YA queen Leigh Bardugo's new adult novel Ninth House posits that the famed secret societies of Yale actually practice magic; critic Jason Sheehan [describes the story as]( "a swirl of blood and heartbreak, fentanyl and magic." And Laura Ruby's new Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind them All is a finalist for the National Book Award in young people's literature -- [critic Caitlyn Paxson says]( Ruby's "history-infused details feel achingly real." [Horror Stories, by Liz Phair]( [Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo]( [Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind them All, by Laura Ruby]( — Happy reading! --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [books@npr.org](mailto:books@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Pop Culture, Code Switch and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Books emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy](