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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.

Will draw fans of redemptive family sagas that cross time and space, such as Amanda Dyke’s Set the Stars Alight and Heidi Chiavaroli’s Hope Beyond the Waves. Cox (He Should Have Told the Bees) is fast becoming an auto-buy for library collections.

James McBride’s body of work wins the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. A new posthumous novel by Zora Neale Hurston, The Life of Herod the Great, is due out from Amistad in 2025, and Goose Island, a previously unpublished novel by the late Margaret Walker, is coming next year from Univ. Pr. of Mississippi. Reagan Arthur, the former publisher of Knopf, is joining Hachette to start and run a new imprint.

The American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, held June 27–July 2 in San Diego, CA, was big and busy, with more than 8,400 attendees and 5,000 exhibitors, authors, illustrators, members of the press, and staff. And while those numbers didn’t top last year’s Annual in Chicago, which saw more than 15,000 guests, it felt busier—possibly because of the slightly smaller venue, and definitely because of the sense of engagement and enthusiasm throughout. The great weather may have kicked the mood up a few notches as well.

Featuring wonderfully developed characters and fluid, well-paced writing, Roberts’s (Text Appeal) latest is highly recommended for fans of small-town and supernatural romances.

Librarians and educators will find this thorough and outstanding resource about misinformation highly useful for community activists and students.

Chidi Ebere wins the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize for his debut novel, Now I Am Here. New inductees to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame include Nalo Hopkinson and Jo Walton. EC Dorgan, Paola Ferrante, Daysha Loppie, Aubrianna Snow, and Karianne Trudeau Beaunoyer are named Writers’ Trust 2024 Rising Stars. Macmillan will launch another graphic novels imprint, 23rd Street Books, while Random House will acquire comic books and graphic novels publisher Boom! Studios. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Kevin Barry, Nikki Giovanni, and Amy Tan.

Take the deadly mystery and vicious academic politics of The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, stir in the magic and the romance of the “Emily Wilde” series by Heather Fawcett (but make it sapphic), add several drops of the political shenanigans of epic fantasy, and stir with a sharp, prickly thorn of a main character to get this fraught enemies-to-lovers fantasy. YA author Saft’s (A Fragile Enchantment) adult debut is highly recommended.

Lit Hub previews the most anticipated books of the second half of 2024. Viola Davis will collaborate with James Patterson on a forthcoming novel. RBmedia will acquire Dreamscape Media, including Dreamscape Publishing and Dreamscape Select. Josh Gad will release a memoir in January and actress Christina Applegate is at work on a new book about her life. Emily Henry will adapt her novel Funny Story for the big screen, while Lev Grossman's Arthurian novel The Bright Sword and Carolyn Huynh’s The Fortunes Of Jaded Women will get series adaptations. Plus, authors Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw launch a new podcast called Reckon True Stories.

Soria’s newest book will wrap readers into a cozy world that they won’t want to leave. This fantasy romance is sure to enrapture readers looking for an atmospheric and lovable read, much like Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.

The CWA Dagger Award winners and longlists for the Toronto Book Awards and the Mo Siewcharran Prize are announced. NYT recounts “the Most Memorable Literary Moments of the Last 25 Years.” USA Today has a Q&A with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer about her new book, True Gretch. Esquire considers what AI means for publishing and goes behind the scenes of celebrity book clubs. A sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, based on the book by Lauren Weisberger, is in development at Disney, while the musical adaptation, starring Vanessa Williams and featuring music by Elton John, will be staged at London’s Dominion Theater in October.

The American Library Association’s 2024 annual conference and exposition included many announcements from library vendors. Here’s a roundup of some of the news from this year’s show floor.

There are many barriers to earning a Master of Library Science degree, particularly for those in minoritized populations, and moving the needle for would-be librarians has proved to be a challenge. Initiatives to increase diversity in librarianship have been slowly increasing. Among these, the Pathways to Leadership program at Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), launched in 2021, is a particularly strong example of how wraparound support can look—and succeed.

Not to be missed; sure to be one of the best collections of the year.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Emily Giffin, Daniel Silva, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Linda Castillo, and Lana Ferguson. July Book Club picks include All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Read with Jenna), The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood (GMA), The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (B&N), and The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan (Reese Witherspoon). People’s book of the week is The God of the Woods. The August Indie Next list is out, featuring #1 pick The Wedding People by Alison Espach. Audiofile announces the July Earphones Award winners, and The Millions publishes its summer 2024 preview. Plus, Alice Munro’s family secrets roil the literary world.

Keynoters and other speakers at American Library Association (ALA) conferences over the years have come to the conference from a wide range of disciplines, but their speeches all incorporate at least a few minutes attesting to the value of libraries in their lives—some landing more powerfully than others. At this year’s ALA Annual, held June 27–July 2 in San Diego, CA, a few speakers went beyond tales of being avid library users as children to tell stories that painted vivid pictures of what libraries, literacy, and unfettered access can mean to a kid who is looking to understand their world a little better.

Frankly, I should have seen it coming, but personal growth and change can be so subtle that you sometimes don’t realize you’re doing it until you’ve done it. In my case, things started small: snapping a photo of a wildflower while on a walk, admiring my friend’s summer crop of vegetables.

As library leaders contemplate retirement, are their libraries—and the next generation of leaders—ready for the change?

Executive leadership development is imperative for the future of any organization, and this was especially pertinent to Columbus Metropolitan Library as my retirement announcement grew closer. I decided to strategically tap the expertise of our library board of trustees because of their external organizational perspectives on talent management.

Anyone who is attending this year’s American Library Association (ALA) Annual Convention in San Diego hoping to hear more about artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on libraries has not been disappointed. “Breaking Boundaries: Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT to Transform Library Services,” one of the earliest panels on Saturday morning, was presented to a full house—five conjoined rooms with every seat taken.

Hisham Matar’s My Friends and Matthew Longo’s The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain win Orwell Prizes. Poets & Writers publishes its 24th annual roundup of the summer’s best debut fiction. South Carolina censorship law goes into effect. Plus, Page to Screen.

On Thursday, June 27, at the American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego, CA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the launch of its nationwide Information Literacy Initiative. The multipartner project provides a website, InformationLiteracy.gov, that offers a wide range of ready-to-use tools and resources for library and museum professionals—trusted educators—to engage their communities to find, understand, evaluate, and share accurate information.

Arundhati Roy wins the PEN Pinter Prize amid prosecution threat over Kashmir comments. The longlist for the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime novel and the shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize for memoir and autobiography are announced. Authors Against Book Bans officially launches. Plus, new title bestsellers.

The Colorado Book Award winners and RSL Christopher Bland Prize shortlist are announced. Lambda Literary announces new fellows for the 2024 Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Chris Whitaker’s buzzy book All the Colors of the Dark. Adaptations are forthcoming for Emily Henry’s Happy Place and Lindy Ryan’s Bless Your Heart, plus a long-awaited Green Lantern series. The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, turns 20 this week. Plus, ALA’s Annual Conference kicks off in San Diego tomorrow.

On November 2, 1929, at Curtiss Airfield in Valley Stream, NY, 26 female licensed pilots, mostly from the East Coast, gathered to form the Ninety-Nines, an organization dedicated to support and advance women in aviation. Famed aviator Amelia Earhart, the first president of the Ninety-Nines, came up with the name in honor of the 99 charter members. Almost 95 years since its founding, the Ninety-Nines has about 7,000 members in 44 countries.

A Minnesota bill with a section prohibiting book bans in public libraries, and libraries or media centers in public postsecondary institutions and schools, was signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz on May 17. Senate File 3567, an omnibus education reform bill—which also includes rulings on cell phone use in schools, student performance data, and student journalism, among other items—went into effect immediately.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anne Applebaum is awarded the German Book Trade Peace Prize. Patrick deWitt wins the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel The Librarianist. Alicia Elliott’s And Then She Fell and Brandi Bird’s The All + Flesh: Poems win Indigenous Voices Awards. Hillary Clinton will release a new book, Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, on September 17. Plus, authors recommend books for Pride Month.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Ashley Poston, Danielle Steel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and Beatriz Williams. Five LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Bear by Julia Phillips. The Glass Bell Award longlist is announced. NYT profiles physician Freida McFadden’s rise as the fastest-selling thriller writer in the U.S. Plus, Washington Post celebrates audio narrators for Audiobook Appreciation Month.

Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark is the new Read with Jenna book club pick. Jackie Wullschläger’s Monet: The Restless Vision wins the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. Jamaluddin Aram’s Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday, Jérémie Harris’s Quantum Physics Made Me Do It, and Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers win the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes. Shortlists are revealed for the Taste Canada Awards for the best in Canadian food writing. The lineup for the Library of Congress’s National Book Festival is announced. 

R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface and Katherine Rundell’s Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures have won Britain’s Indie Book Awards. Isabella Hammad’s Enter Ghost wins the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award for best second novel. Winners of Britain’s Society of Authors Awards and the shortlist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize are also announced. Plus, new title bestsellers.

June 24 marks two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, making abortion a state’s issue. As of this writing, abortion is banned or severely restricted in 21 states. However, abortion is just one part of the larger landscape of Reproductive Justice and reproductive health. Whether you are providing reproductive health information, especially abortion information, in your collections, at the reference desk, or through programming, consult with a legal expert about your options. This may include what type of information you can provide and where in your collection it’s located.

LibraryReads’ top pick for July is The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. In the fall, Macmillan will launch Saturday Books, an imprint with a new adult focus. B&N is buying Denver’s storied Tattered Cover bookstore. Amazon announces its Best Books of 2024 So Far, including Percival Everett’s James, the #1 book so far. The Taste Canada Awards shortlist is announced. Author Yulin Kuang suggests book and wine pairings for the summer. Anthony Bourdain’s graphic novel series Get Jiro! will be adapted for TV. Plus, LJ's Galley Guide for the 2024 ALA conference is now available.

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are new titles by Riley Sager, Liv Constantine, Patricia Briggs, Catherine Newman, Jack Carr, and Claire Lombardo. Eight LibraryReads and three Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Catherine Newman’s Sandwich. Several adaptations earned Tony Awards, including The Outsiders, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton, which won Best Musical.

V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World wins the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction. Kevin Jared Hosein wins the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for Hungry Ghosts. Winners of the Reading the West Book Awards, the shortlist for the Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers, and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel shortlist are announced. Plus Page to Screen.

The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is continuing to recover from a ransomware attack on Saturday, May 25. At press time, all branches were open, in-person and virtual programs and events were still being hosted, books and other physical materials were available for checkout, and online services provided by third-party vendors including ProQuest, Hoopla, Kanopy, and others were available to patrons. However, access to SPL’s ebooks and e-audiobooks, public computers, in-building Wi-Fi, printing and copying services, pickup lockers, museum pass services, interlibrary loan services, and some other online resources remained unavailable.

The winners of the Lambda Literary Awards are announced. The African Speculative Fiction Society releases the shortlist for the Nommo Awards. Poets & Writers announces its picks for the best debut authors of the summer: ’Pemi Aguda, Jiaming Tang, Michael Deagler, Yasmin Zaher, and Gina María Balibrera. The Oklahoma Supreme Court blocks state effort to ban books from school libraries. The entire author events team at the Free Library of Philadelphia has been fired. A new study from The Economist says that the New York Times bestseller list is politically biased against conservative books.

Oprah selects Familiaris by David Wroblewski for her 106th book club pick. Ted Chiang wins the PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Christina Morina wins the German Nonfiction Prize. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for buzzy book Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood. V.E. Schwab signs a two-book deal with Tor. Sylvester Stallone’s forthcoming memoir The Steps will be published by Morrow in 2025. A Crazy Rich Asians TV series, based on the books by Kevin Kwan, is in the works, and Netflix is developing a three-part series adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery.

Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump’s nephew, will publish a memoir, All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, on July 30. The Frank R. Paul Award Nominees are announced. Publishers Weekly rounds up book club picks for June. Earlyword’s June GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now. Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will become a writers residency. Thomas Harris’s Hannibal turns 25. Plus, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are in talks to star in a sequel to Practical Magic, based on the novel by Alice Hoffman.

This year’s American Library Association Annual Conference will be held June 27 – July 2 in San Diego, CA, where Pacific Ocean breezes and dry air will likely keep daytime temperatures in the low ’70s and nights 10 degrees cooler. Add in the San Diego Convention Center’s bayfront setting and nearby attractions that include Balboa Park, home to the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Museum of Art, and Mission Beach a 15-minute car trip away, and this year’s Annual is one to look forward to.

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Elin Hilderbrand, Katherine Center, Freida McFadden, and Rufi Thorpe. The James Beard Media Award winners are announced. Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors wins the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Nine LibraryReads and nine Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is All Friends Are Necessary by Tomas Moniz. Plus, Costco announced its plan to no longer sell books year-round.

In recent years, the scholarly nonprofit Ithaka has prioritized advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), both within the organization and in its outward-facing work. As that process evolved, Kate Wittenberg, managing director of Ithaka’s digital preservation service, Portico, saw that its archival conservation mission aligned in many ways with social justice ideals. In summer 2021, she began to identify underrepresented community collections that might be at risk without a preservation strategy, and in 2023 Portico launched a pilot project connecting the curators of those archives to its expertise and resources.

Homer Aridjis’s Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, tr. by George McWhirter, wins the Griffin Poetry Prize. Kevin Sinfield wins the top Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Award for The Extra Mile. Alicia Elliott wins the Amazon Canada First Novel Award for And Then She Fell. Louise Penny wins the International Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet Award for public service. A new “Hunger Games” book and movie are announced. Cengage, Elsevier, Macmillan Learning, and McGraw Hill have sued Google for allowing ads to run on sites that pirate textbooks.

In a divided three-judge panel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a majority decision largely upholding a preliminary injunction ordering Llano County Library System to reshelve several titles that were previously removed.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead wins the Gotham Book Prize for the best book set in or about New York City. Nick Bradley and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo are among the 10 writers selected for the ILX 10 list by Britain’s National Centre for Writing. The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize shortlist has been revealed. Imbalances still remain when it comes to Black authors in the bestsellers lists, The Bookseller reports. Plus, interviews with Morgan Talty, Griffin Dunne, Jacqueline Winspear, and Judi Dench and new title bestsellers.

Reese Witherspoon kicks off an exclusive audiobook partnership with Apple Books with her June book club pick, The Unwedding by Ally Condie. Other book club picks include: Malas by Marcela Fuentes (GMA), Swift River by Essie Chambers (Read with Jenna), You Are Here by David Nicholls (B&N), and Becoming Ted by Matt Cain (Target). The New Brunswick Book Awards and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers are announced. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Eruption by Michael Crichton & James Patterson. Bill Gates will publish a memoir, Source Code, next year. Plus, summer booklists arrive.

The Horror Writers Association announces the winners of the Bram Stoker Awards, with Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory taking the top prize for Superior Achievement in a Novel. The ITW Thriller Award winners are announced, including S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed. Time shares “15 LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride.” Four of Harlan Ellison’s books will be revised and reissued this year. According to the latest Audio Publishers Association Survey, U.S. audiobook revenue grew by 9%, to $2 billion, in 2023.

Eruption by Michael Crichton & James Patterson leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Annabel Monaghan, Brynne Weaver, Lisa Wingate, and Jacqueline Winspear, who bids adieu to her legendary detective Maisie Dobbs. People’s book of the week is Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy. Jenna Bush Hager picks Swift River by Essie Chambers for her June book club; B&N’s pick is You Are Here by David Nicholls. Audiofile announces the June Earphones Award winners, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory wins the Chautauqua Prize, and the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence winners include Amanda Peters and Nita Prose. Romance Writers of America declares bankruptcy. Plus, remembrances continue for author Caleb Carr, who died last week at the age of 68.

In their shared hometown of Columbus, OH, at an event where readers celebrated their writing, Hanif Abdurraqib and Jacqueline Woodson sat with Library Journal for a conversation about libraries, book bans, and censorship.

As a book lover who works in the book industry, I have a job that aligns with my love for reading—and I get to work with librarians! Witnessing the sharp rise in attempts to ban books nationwide in recent years, I have become a vocal supporter of the First Amendment in ways that I didn’t expect when I began in publishing in 1988.

Frederick Douglass famously said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” This powerful and inspiring idea continues to resonate more than a century later, at a time when the essential services that libraries provide are more vital than ever.

Growing up in India as a young Sikh boy to aspiring middle-class parents, I understood their singular focus was to educate their children. Books were the windows that allowed me to gaze into a world far beyond my limited surroundings or imagination. The ancient tales of equality, courage, and righteousness from our scriptures, region, and history of valor ignited my imagination as I got older. At the same time, contemporary literature exposed me to the rich tapestry of cultures that coexisted in our vibrant nation.

Two and a half years ago, I was fired by the High Plains Library District (HPLD) in Weld County, CO, after I objected to cancelling programs for LGBTQIA+ teens and youth of color because they were “polarizing.”

Freedom to read issues are generating legislation—both library-adverse and library-protective—across the country.

This year’s standout selections from the American Library Association’s Government Documents Roundtable.

When the LJ team decided to focus our June issue on censorship, I couldn’t get the idea of exploring the personal nature of book bans out of my head. Yes, the broad societal impacts of affronts to intellectual freedom are significant—but what do they look like and mean for individual readers?

The U.S. Book Show, presented by Publishers Weekly—this year in collaboration with the Association of American Literary Agents—held its fourth annual event on May 22. The conference, which launched as a virtual symposium in 2021 to replace the defunct BookExpo America, offered a day of industry-centered conversation for publishing professionals, agents, editors, marketers, and authors.

My mentor used to say that we really only need to ask two questions when recruiting people: “Do you like to solve problems?” and “Do you like to help people?” If so, you would like working in the library! I tend to think that she’s right—and if the Library Journal 2024 Movers & Shakers are any indication, the opportunity to support community, exercise creativity, and advance learning are forces driving their work.

Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal wins the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, which is given to an emerging Black American fiction writer. Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, tr. by Sean Cotter, wins the Dublin Literary Award. Ali Bryan’s Coq, Patrick deWitt’s The Librarianist, and Deborah Willis’s Girlfriend on Mars are shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Canadian humor writing. The shortlists for Britain’s Society of Authors Awards are announced. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Amy Tan, Kaliane Bradley, and Monica Youn.

JSTOR’s Path to Open pilot project and MIT Press’s Direct to Open program are both demonstrating that open access (OA) monographs are receiving significantly more use and are cited more often than non-open counterparts, according to a recent JSTOR webcast and an impact report released last week by MIT Press. 

Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos wins the International Booker Prize. The winners of the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Awards and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire are announced. Library Reads and LJ offer read-alikes for Ruth Ware’s buzzy book of the week, One Perfect Couple. People previews Sally Rooney’s forthcoming novel, Intermezzo, due out from Farrar on September 24. Emma Törzs’s Ink Blood Sister Scribe will get a TV series adaptation. And NYT distills the essential Don Delillo.

In celebration of National Bike Month (May in the United States, June in Canada), libraries are offering innovative ways to support bicycling all year round.

In a surprise move, Penguin Random House dismisses two of its top editors, roiling the industry. The Aurealis Awards winners and the Highland Book Prize shortlist are announced. Atria Books will relaunch Washington Square Press as a frontlist hardcover imprint dedicated to literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Summer booklists arrive, along with interviews with Kevin Kwan, Daniel Handler, Sebastian Junger, and Michael McDonald. Plus, Washington Post critic Michael Dirda offers 10 rules for reading.

When Angel City Press (ACP) cofounders Paddy Calistro and Scott McAuley began thinking about retiring a few years ago, they knew they wanted to make sure ACP remained a local operation. Several years, a few lawyers, and much due diligence later, the donation of ACP to the Los Angeles Public Library has been approved by Los Angeles City Council, and ACP will now be known as Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library.

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Kevin Kwan, and Steven Rowley. Yepoka Yeebo’s Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World wins the BIO Plutarch Award. Six LibraryReads and seven Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. PBS Canvas takes a look at the trending popularity of Japanese animation and comic books in the U.S. Plus, NYT delves into Reese Witherspoon's literary empire ahead of her 100th book club pick.

Caleb Azumah Nelson wins the Dylan Thomas Prize for Small Worlds. Finalists have been selected for the Firecracker Awards, honoring the best independently published fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Abrams buys Taunton Books. Plus, interviews with Hari Kunzru, Coco Mellors, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Carvell Wallace.

Winners of the CrimeFest Awards are announced. Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy, Iman Mersal’s Traces of Enayat, and Ian Penman’s Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors win the James Tait Black Prizes for biography and fiction. The Finnish translation of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone wins the Helsinki Science Fiction Society’s Tähtivaeltaja Award. Plus new title bestsellers.

Nobel laureate and beloved short story writer Alice Munro has died at the age of 92. Ian Penman wins the RSL Ondaatje Prize for Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors. The CWA Daggers shortlists are announced. Summer booklists start to arrive. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for this week’s top holds title, The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. Plus, interviews with George Stephanopoulos, Melissa Mogollon, Michael McDonald, and Miranda July.

Those outside our field may marvel at—or be disconcerted by—transformations they experience as new, seismic shifts from what they understand about libraries. We know the transformation is far from sudden, and far from over. Understanding this, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is using best practices and key research to better understand and equip libraries with the tools needed to address the future needs of the diverse communities they serve.

V. Ganeshananthan wins the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her book Brotherless Night. The British Book Awards are announced; R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface wins Fiction Book of the Year. The Indigenous Voices Award finalists are announced. South Arts announces Inaugural Literary Arts Fellows. Authors Casey McQuiston and Danny Lore will join the list of presenters for the 2024 Lammy Awards, which will be held on June 11. Ken Follett moves to Hachette for his next release, which will publish in 2025. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel will publish Freedom: Memories 1954–2021 on November 26.

It has been a busy legislative session in the Louisiana House, with several bills poised to impact libraries and library workers halted at various points, while others have been approved and moved on to the Senate. As they proliferate, grassroots library advocacy organizations are stepping up to combat them.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Harlan Coben, Miranda July, Jenn McKinlay, and Katee Robert. Four LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Shanghailanders by Juli Min. The Wales Book of the Year shortlist is announced. Madhur Jaffrey’s landmark Invitation to Indian Cooking celebrates 50 years.

Libraries, vendors, and library organizations have been busy with several recent artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives—check out LJ's roundup of the latest news from the field.

Patricia Evangelista’s Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country wins NYPL’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. Winners of the American Book Fest’s American Legacy Book Awards and the Vermont Book Awards are announced. Finalists for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and shortlists for the British Booksellers Association’s Indie Book Awards are released. Plus Page to Screen and interviews with Judi Dench, Serj Tankian, Christina Cooke, and Marissa Higgins.

Ben Fountain wins the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for mid-career fiction writers. The winners of the Minnesota Book Awards are announced. Shortlists for the Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards are released. The longlist for the Kraszna-Krausz Photography and Moving Image Book Awards is revealed. Plus new title bestsellers and interviews with Abir Mukherjee, Michael McDonald, and Lucas Mann.

John Vaillant wins the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World. The Minnesota Book Awards are announced. Marina Endicott wins book of the year at the 2024 Saskatchewan Book Awards. May book club picks arrive. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, which also tops May’s Loanstars list. Earlyword’s May GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now. This month’s Costco Connection highlights Long Island by Colm Toíbín, which is also the Oprah book club pick.

The 2024 Pulitzer Prizes are announced, with Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips winning the top prize for fiction. A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall, King: A Life by Jonathan Eig, Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo, No Right to an Honest Living by Jacqueline Jones, and Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza also win prizes. Eduardo Halfon is awarded the Berman Literature Prize for his novel Canción. Oprah picks Colm Toíbín’s Long Island for her book club, and Reese Witherspoon selects Yulin Kuang’s How To End a Love Story. Plus, Simon & Schuster acquires Dutch publisher VBK.

Chelsea Heinbach is the teaching and learning librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her work (with Nimisha Bhat, Hailley Fargo, and Charissa Powell) in developing the blog and related podcast (created by Amber Sewell): LibParlor, a site dedicated to helping researchers find community resources and have a place to ask questions, discuss issues, and share expertise. She and the team received an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to create LibParlor Online Learning (LPOL), a free, online curriculum devoted to research topics and how-tos. LJ recently followed up with her to learn more about her work.

Fifty-seven percent of academic libraries report that the use of audiovisual (AV) sources such as news reels, recordings, performances, and films have increased over the past three years—with 21 percent describing significantly increased usage—while only 15 percent say that use of these resources have decreased, according to Library Journal’s recent AV Primary Sources Survey of Academic Libraries, sponsored by AM, that netted 220 responses from academic librarians in the United States and Canada. Thirteen percent of respondents said that college and university students now prefer AV primary source materials, compared with 18 percent who prefer print and other archival primary source materials.

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, Kaliane Bradley, Mary Kay Andrews, Colm Toibin, and Jayne Castle. Nine LibraryReads and nine Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is How To Read a Book by Monica Wood. Alexis Wright wins the Stella Prize for Praiseworthy. Plus, the Pulitzer Prizes will be announced at 3 p.m. EST today.

On April 25, the Peabody Awards revealed the list of 68 nominations for 2023, chosen from a field of 1,100 entries. This year’s contenders include popular TV series such as The Bear, Bluey, and Reservation Dogs, documentaries about Judy Blume and Little Richard, children’s programming, newscasts—and two offerings from public libraries: Milwaukee Public Library’s social media streams in the interactive and immersive media category, and Borrowed and Banned, a 10-episode podcast from Brooklyn Public Library in the podcast/radio category.

Winners are announced for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Book Awards for books from indie presses. The Asian American Literature Festival will return in September, organized by a collective of literary groups, this time without the Smithsonian. NPR’s Fresh Air looks back today on past interviews with Paul Auster. Plus, Page to Screen and reviews of Kaliane Bradley’s buzzy The Ministry of Time.

Winners of the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards are announced, including best novel Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke. The winners of the League of Canadian Poets prizes are Hannah Green’s Xanax Cowboy, Sandra Ridley’s Vixen, and Bradley Peters’s Sonnets from a Cell. The finalists for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, the shortlist for the Leacock Medal for Canadian humor writing, and the shortlist for the Reading the West Book Awards are revealed. A record number of writers were jailed globally in 2023, according to a report by PEN America.

Recognizing that young girls in groups are often outvoiced by male peers, Amanda Chacon—School Library Journal’s 2024 School Librarian of the Year—founded STEM GEMS, a club offering no-tech, low-tech, and high-tech challenges for girls.

As Head, Advanced Research Services and Digital Scholarship Librarian with the University of Victoria Libraries, Matt Huculak examines librarians’ role in scholarly communication, archiving, and collecting, while collaborating with other disciplines to bring that documentation to life.

In her scholarship, as in her instruction, Allison Jennings-Roche aims to seize opportunities to make people think critically about libraries as public institutions and about the information systems that impact their lives.

As the adult services librarian at the Curtis Memorial Library (CML) in Brunswick, ME, Hazel Onsrud is a passionate advocate for sustainable living, developing programming focused on sustainability to help her community discover how best to improve their environmental impacts.

As a reference manager for St. Louis County Library (SLCL), Phifer-Davis takes a proactive approach to outreach and programming. Under her watch, SLCL’s Reference by Mail for incarcerated individuals has grown from responding to fewer than 500 letters to about 2,600 in 2022.

Phil Shapiro is an enthusiastic champion of digital inclusion and outside-of-school learning, assisting youth and adults with public Linux computers at the Takoma Park Maryland Library (TPML) and singing the praises of open-source software through his YouTube channel.

“Librarians have the wit and grit to get things done,” says Scott Summers, a former high school English teacher and school librarian who now brings that experience to his work as assistant director of the Media and Education Technology Resource Center at NC State University’s College of Education.

Guided by the strategic goal to support local community needs with reflective services throughout the Santa Clara County Library District, Library Services Manager Clare Varesio spearheaded systemwide efforts to educate both library workers and the greater community on responses to the opioid overdose epidemic and mental health.

Thanks to Nardia Cumberbatch’s leadership, Valencia College in Orlando, FL, was the first library in Florida (and second academic library overall) to complete the Sustainable Library Certification Program.

Jenay Dougherty aims to increase representation of Pacific Islanders in leadership roles, both within librarianship and in everyday life.