The Literature Nobel goes to Louise Glück

It's a big week for literary prizes! We've got a roundup. [Poet Louise Glück in 2016 receiving the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama. Wednesday, Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature.]( Carolyn Kaster/AP The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2020 [goes to American poet Louise Glück]( for what the Swedish Academy called "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Glück is only the 16th woman to win a literature Nobel, which comes with a cash prize of just over a million dollars. She adds it to a bookshelf's worth of heavyweight awards -- a Pulitzer, a National Humanities Medal and a National Book Award. Speaking of the National Book Awards, the National Book Foundation put out its short list this week -- the 25 nominees include a lot of small presses and first time authors. [You can check out our coverage here;]( the award ceremony itself will stream live on YouTube next month. And as if that weren't enough news, the MacArthur Fellows -- commonly known as the Genius Grants -- were also announced this week, and in among the scientists, artists and all-around smart people were a bunch of authors we love: [Congratulations to N.K. Jemisin, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Jacqueline Woodson!]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- [Trust, by Pete Buttigeig]( Months after dropping out of the Democratic presidential primaries, former South Bend, Ind. Pete Buttigieg is back with a warning: America, he says, is facing a crisis of trust. And he says building that trust, in both American institutions and fellow citizens, is the only way to address the other challenges facing the country. He talked to NPR's Michel Martin about his new book Trust: America's Best Chance -- [check out that conversation here.]( [Why Didn't We Riot? by Issac J. Bailey]( Writer and professor Issac J. Bailey tells All Things Considered's Ari Shapiro that his new book, Why Didn't We Riot?, was hard to write. Not that Bailey had difficulty with the actual writing -- more that it was hard to confront his long-suppressed anger about being a Black man in America. "I never wanted to feel like what I feel now," [Bailey says.]( "And it is a combination of my anger and a deep sense of betrayal, frankly, because it hurts so much to actually deal with these issues, especially with the people whom I loved for such a long time." [Hush, by Dylan Farrow]( In Dylan Farrow's new young adult fantasy novel Hush, a cabal of magical men have literally stolen people's ability to distinguish fact from fantasy, and a young woman searching for her mother's killer discovers speaking truth can be dangerous. Farrow has alleged that her adoptive father Woody Allen abused her when she was a child; the book was inspired by her experience. [She tells Weekend Edition's Lulu Garcia-Navarro]( that fantasy "provides a safe space to explore feelings that you might not necessarily process in your day-to-day." Finally this week, critic Martha Anne Toll says Desmond Meade's [Let My People Vote]( is "a compelling story about one man's rise from addiction, homelessness, and prison to run a successful campaign to re-enfranchise more than one million Florida voters." Jason Sheehan says Matt Haig's The Midnight Library -- about a suicidal woman who ends up in a mystical library of alternate lives -- [is just a little too straightforward.]( And [Caitlyn Paxson says]( "It's a bit cheeky to call The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Faust for romantic bisexual goths, but it's not wrong." (And it's not a bad thing, either!) [Let My People Vote, by Desmond Meade]( [The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig]( [The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab]( Happy reading! -- Petra --------------------------------------------------------------- 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]( [NPR logo]