This highly entertaining and fun book is especially recommended for educators and caregivers of school-age kids.

English PEN Translates winners are announced. NYT releases its readers’ picks for best books of the 21st century. The winners of the Oklahoma Book Awards are revealed. Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake and Kira Hayen win Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Awards for Indigenous writers. Plus interviews with Lorrie Moore, Jasmine Graham, and Howard Blum and Page to Screen.

New York Magazine’s summer book club pick is Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. The Night Field by Donna Glee Williams wins the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation’s Manly Wade Wellman Award. Wales Book of the Year winners, American Manga Award nominees, and shortlists for the UK’s Forward Prizes for Poetry are announced. London Libraries creates a reading app inspired by the “Couch to 5K” training program. Critic Maris Kreizman spills the details on the making of the NYT Best of the 21st Century list. 

Speaking to Jew and Gentile, believer and nonbeliver, this poetry collection makes our hungers radiant. Highly recommended.

Based on extensive primary research, this detailed case study will magnetize readers interested in U.S. Civil War history and politics.

In an NYT Book Review poll, Edward P. Jones’s The Known World is voted the best work of fiction by an American writer in the 21st century so far. The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction shortlist and the Scribe Award nominees are announced. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for buzzy book The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey. In a restructuring at Hachette, Algonquin will be folded into Little, Brown, while Workman announces layoffs. Melissa De La Cruz’s Blue Bloods will get a series adaptation. Plus, a first look at Apartment 7A, a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, based on the novel by Ira Levin.

J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, is named Donald Trump’s running mate. The Sturgeon Award finalists are announced. Esquire examines “The Second Coming of the Sports Novel.” Interviews arrive with Deborah Harkness, Kathie Lee Gifford, Halle Butler, Madiba K. Dennie, and Liz Moore. Plus, Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, based on the book by Elin Hilderbrand, gets a trailer.

A most moving, memorable memoir that expertly incorporates sensory details. Readers will be able to easily envision de Bastion’s grandfather, his love of music and great talent for it, his strength and resilience during the war, and the power of his music to keep him alive.

The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Deborah Harkness, Lev Grossman, B.K. Borison, Jessica Joyce, and Meg Shaffer. The Shirley Jackson Award winners are announced; Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory wins best novel. Eight LibraryReads and eight Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. Sex therapist and author Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer has died at the age of 96.