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The books most in demand by garden readers are about houseplants, cottage designs, native plants, and saving seeds.

The February LibraryReads list is announced, and the top choice is The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. The Gotham Book Prize announces the finalists for its first $50,000 award, which honors New York City-based books. After becoming friends with fellow stutterer Joe Biden, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington now has a book deal, with the picture book Brayden Speaks Up due out in Aug. See the trailer for The Luminaries, based on the book by Eleanor Catton, which premiers Feb. 14. Books set for TV and film adaptations include The Whistler by John Grisham, Libra by Don DeLillo, The Walled City by Ryan Graudin, and more.

At a time when more students are learning remotely and many office spaces have remained closed, libraries have been instrumental in making sure that community members without home broadband access aren’t left behind.

22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman will read at Joe Biden's inauguration. Meanwhile, more than 250 authors, editors, agents and others signed an open letter opposing any book deals for Donald Trump and members of his administration. Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner leads holds this week. A class-action lawsuit accuses Amazon of colluding with the "Big Five" publishers to inflate ebook prices. CNN anchor Don Lemon announced his forthcoming book, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism. Plus, Netflix is developing three anti-racism projects that will be executive produced by Ibram X. Kendi and based on his books Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, and Antiracist Baby.

On Thursday, January 14, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio released his preliminary FY22 budget, as well as outlining cuts to be enacted this year. All three of the city’s library systems—Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), New York Public Library (NYPL), and Queens Public Library (QPL)—will see cuts to their operating budgets, with subsequent reductions spread out through 2025.

A university’s research output is only beneficial when others can easily find it. This is where libraries can add tremendous value to the research process: By leveraging their expertise in collecting, organizing, and making information easily discoverable, academic libraries can help raise the profile of their institution’s research

With most patrons still unable to browse the stacks, public librarians are finding creative ways to provide the experience of serendipitous discovery through book bundles and grab bags.

Noah Baumbach will direct Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig in a feature adaptation of White Noise by Don DeLillo. In other adaptation news, there are first-look deals on The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. HarperCollins nabbed a three-book deal with Jeffrey Archer. First up this fall is the next book in his William Warwick series, Over My Dead Body. One Book, One Philadelphia at The Free Library of Philadelphia selects the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poems The Tradition by Jericho Brown. YALSA picks "2021 Great Graphic Novels for Teens."

PEN International honors activist and author Tsitsi Dangarembga, This Mournable Body, with its 2021 Award for Freedom of Expression. This week's new best sellers include Star Wars: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule, Neighbors by Danielle Steel, The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, and Keep Sharp by Sanjay Gupta. Connecticut is looking into whether Amazon engaged in anti-competitive behavior in its ebook distribution agreements. Plus, see the trailer for To All the Boys: Always and Forever, the film adaptation of Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han.

HVAC systems may be an important tool for reducing COVID risk in library buildings; the details make all the difference.

Lack of reliable broadband access has long posed challenges for many rural communities. As the pandemic ramps up the need, libraries continue to help with innovative solutions.

Sally Rooney's next book, Beautiful World, Where Are You, will be published Sept. 7. In other forthcoming book news, Billie Eilish announced a photobook and Margaret Josephs, one of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, has written a memoir. Learn even more about buzzy books during several virtual events at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The 2020/21 finalists for The Story Prize are Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans, and The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Powell's Books closed early following protests surrounding a controversial upcoming book. Plus, Ben Affleck is set to direct the Disney adaptation of Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger.

The February Indie Next list is out, and The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles is the top pick. The American Library Association announces the winners of the I Love My Librarian Awards. A Promised Land by Barack Obama led book sales in 2020. The Millions, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, BuzzFeed, and others preview the best forthcoming books of the year. David E. Kelley is working on the TV adaptation of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer series for Netflix.

Following the demise of BookExpo, new book fairs from Publishers Weekly and Edelweiss are launching later this year to fill the void. The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child leads holds this week. The People "Picks" book of the week is Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne. Senator Amy Klobuchar's new book, Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power From the Gilded Age to the Digital Age, will be out in April. Plus, in adaptation news, BCDF Pictures purchases the rights to adapt The Girl at Midnight series by Melissa Grey for TV, and there's a trailer for Cherry, based on the book by Nico Walker.

Simon & Schuster will no longer publish Senator Josh Hawley's forthcoming book, The Tyranny of Big Tech, which was due out June 22. U.S. print book sales were up 8.2 percent in 2020, according to the NPD Group, with A Promised Land by Barack Obama leading the sales numbers. New adaptations out this week include All Creatures Great and Small and the new season of American Gods. The English translation of Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO will be released on April 13. Merriam-Webster reports the top words searched for on its site on Wednesday included sedition, coup d'état, and fascism, and the NYT speaks with historians about the evolution of some terms.

Vulture previews 46 top reads for 2021, including The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, My Year Abroad by Chang-rae Lee, and The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Wiley has acquired open access publisher Hindawi for $298 million. Danez Smith reviews The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. for the NYT. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters is getting buzz, with a review in the L.A. Times and interviews in Vulture and Kirkus. Plus, Shelf Awareness has a look at how the chaos in Washington, D.C. impacted bookstores there.

From the American Library Association:  ALA forcefully condemns the violent attempts to undermine the integrity of our electoral process and our democracy. The threats, destruction of government buildings and looting witnessed on January 6 do not constitute peaceful protest, but domestic terrorism.

January book club picks are out: The Read With Jenna selection is Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour, the GMA book club title is The Push by Ashley Audrain, and for Reese Witherspoon's book club, it's Outlawed by Anna North. Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Book Marks, Entertainment Weekly, and others preview some of the most anticipated books of 2021. Read memorials for author Eric Jerome Dickey, who has died at age 59. His final book, The Son of Mr. Suleman, is due out April 20. Plus, Vulture has an in-depth feature on the pre- and post-publication controversies of American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

On the afternoon of January 6, as Congress prepared to count the electoral votes to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump—many of them armed—stormed the Capitol Building. The Capitol was evacuated and placed on lockdown, including the Library of Congress offices in the James Madison Memorial Building.

As announced in August 2020, the final incarnation of the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits, originally scheduled to be held in Indianapolis, IN, will instead take place virtually January 22–26. Registration will be open until January 15. Here are LJ’s editors’ picks from the program.

From Wiley: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. today announced the acquisition of Hindawi Limited, an innovator in open access (OA) publishing and one of the world’s fastest growing scientific research publishers, for a total purchase price of $298 million.

Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson is the January Barnes & Noble book club pick. Recommendations for upcoming new releases come from The Millions, CrimeReads, Entertainment Weekly, Shondaland, Essence, and others. Buzzy reviews for The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., Nick by Michael Farris Smith, Exercised by Daniel Lieberman, and more. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud and other winners of the 2020 Costa Book Award winners are announced. Plus, Tiffany Haddish will star in an upcoming adaptation of Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson.

When I look at the state of the nation, my first reaction is frustration with squandered opportunities for the federal government to address both pandemic spread and economic hardship. Both could have been considerably ameliorated with sustained, coordinated action from the top over the past 10 months.

LJ Horror columnist Becky Spratford interviews Usman T. Malik, author of Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan. She writes “his talent is blinding and his trajectory reminds me of Stephen Graham Jones, who I also found, like Usman, in Ellen Datlow collections first.” They discuss his work, influences, and the current landscape of horror fiction.

Librarians Elaine R. Hicks, Stacy Brody, and Sara Loree have been named LJ's 2021 Librarians of the Year for their work with the Librarian Reserve Corps, helping the World Health Organization manage the flood of COVID-19 information.

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries has developed CAMPI, a new web application that uses computer vision to assist librarians processing digital photograph collections.

From ALA: The American Library Association (ALA) announced today that the next First Lady, Jill Biden, Ed.D, will participate in ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits virtual meeting on Monday, Jan. 25, from 11:15 a.m. – noon CT. Dr. Biden will join a conversation with ALA President Julius C. Jefferson, Jr., which will serve as the event’s closing session.

Neighbors by Danielle Steel tops library holds lists this week, and other popular titles include All the Colors of Night by Jayne Ann Krentz, The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, and Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Sanjay Gupta. Future First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will address the ALA  Midwinter virtual meeting on Jan. 25. See previews for books coming out this year from Autostraddle, Kirkus, Electric Lit, and more.

Barnes & Noble lists forthcoming books already getting a lot of buzz, which include The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., and Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia. Adaptations out this week include Elizabeth Is Missing, based on the book by Emma Healey, and The Watch, based on the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. The Audacious Book Club from Roxane Gay launches in January, and will be accessible via a newsletter. Plus, following the success of the biopic Mank, the biography Competing with Idiots by Nick Davis about brothers Herman and Joseph Mankiewicz is coming next year.

Will the popularity of the new Shonda Rhimes's Bridgerton series eliminate some of the obstacles that have kept more mass-market romance books from being adapted into TV shows and movies? Lit Hub highlights some of the best but lesser-hyped books of 2020, while AARP and Bustle preview books that will be released in the months ahead. Nurturing Healing Love by Scarlett Lewis, a memoir about the loss of her son in the Sandy Hook massacre, is set to be adapted as a TV movie.

Hush-Hush by Stuart Woods tops library holds lists this week. More best-of 2020 books lists are out from The Atlantic, HuffPost, and Vogue. Time offers a look at what happens when copyright on The Great Gatsby expires Jan. 1. The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk will be adapted by the creator of The Shield, and a limited series of Sex and the City may be in the works. Plus, remembering author Barry Lopez, who died at age 75.

The longlists for the 2021 PEN America Literary Awards are out. Finalists will be announced in Feb. A film adaptation of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is in the works. Adaptations being released this week include The Midnight Sky, News of the World, Wonder Woman 1984, and Bridgerton. Plus, The New Republic looks into ebook licensing at school libraries.

Teacher, raconteur, debater, mentor, advocate, editor, and above all, librarian: Colleagues and friends from the field recall John N. Berry III’s vital voice.

Roxane Gay is launching The Audacious Book Club in 2021. The first read for January is Black Futures edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. More best-of 2020 book lists are out from CrimeReads, BuzzFeed, the CBC, and others. Read excerpts of Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman and Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe by Dr. Bonnie Henry and Lynn Henry. Plus, adaptation news about The School For Good And Evil series by Soman Chainani.

On the afternoon of December 21, Congress released and passed a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending package. The FY21 budget, along with a $900 billion Emergency COVID Relief spending package, includes a $5 million increase from FY20 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), including nearly $2 million for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The bill did not, however, include direct funding for libraries.

AHC Library enables students to access digital course reserves from any device, TLC Migrates to Oracle Cloud, and ProQuest Launches a new text and data mining visualization interface.

Gina Millsap, CEO and director of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library (TSCPL) for the past 15 years, retired on December 1. LJ caught up with her on her next-to-last day at TSCPL to find out more about her achievements, her challenges, and what’s next on her agenda.

The National Endowment for the Humanities teams up with the UK-based Arts and Humanities Research Council, ALA and Humble Bundle team up to offer library supporters and advocates an opportunity to fund ALA initiatives supporting social justice and intellectual freedom, The Canadian Research Knowledge Network and the National Information Standards Organization have announced a consortium agreement, and more news briefs.

Every public library is a star to the community it serves. LJ’s Star Library Ratings and the LJ Index of Public Library Service spotlight the best of the best across America. The 2020 edition is the 13th. This year, 5,608 U.S. public libraries are scored on the LJ Index, and there are 262 Star Libraries.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett leads 2020 checkouts at the New York Public Library. Toaster Oven Perfection by America's Test Kitchen tops library holds lists this week. The January issue of Entertainment Weekly is out, featuring reviews of The Push by Ashley Audrain and Girl A by Abigail Dean. Above the Ether by Eric Barnes wins the best novel category for the 2020 Darrell Awards. Sarah Polley will direct and Frances McDormand will produce and star in the film adaptation of Women Talking by Miriam Toews.

Barack Obama's 17 favorite books of the year include Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, Deacon King Kong by James McBride, and Jack by Marilynne Robinson. BOMB looks at new titles released by small and independent presses during 2020, plus other best-of lists from the L.A. Times, CrimeReads, Book Riot, and more. The audiobook version of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders has a star-studded narration. Jennifer Lopez is producing and starring in a feature adaptation of The Cipher by Isabella Maldonado for Netflix.

Paul Farmer, Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History, wins the $1 million 2020 Berggruen Prize. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's new book, Persist, will be out April 20, 2021. More lists of the best books of the year arrive from Town & Country, CrimeReads, Entertainment Weekly, and more. Read excerpts of Godspeed by Nickolas Butler and This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron. Plus, adaptation news about His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy, and more.

Jay-Z's Roc Nation is partnering with Random House on the new imprint Roc Lit 101, and the first releases will be memoirs by former Yankee CC Sabathia and music journalist Danyel Smith. The January Library Reads list is out, with The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins as the number one pick. More lists of the best books of 2020 arrive from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The A.V. Club, Slate, Vox, and more. MLA gives its 2020 First Book award to The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States by Derrick R. Spires. Plus, news on adaptations of Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution by P. W. Singer and August Cole, and more.

Academic librarians are seeing more interest in open access (OA) content and open educational resources (OER) during the COVID-19 pandemic, survey respondents reported, due in part to a lack of access to physical materials and a desire to keep textbook costs low. Those are some of the findings from the Library Journal Open Access Content/Open Educational Resources in Academic Libraries Survey, released this month.

How will COVID-19 change how libraries offer their collections and services in the long term? How will it change the nature of our work? This article provides a vision of the future in which libraries become true connectors of people and catalysts for discovery.

Lit Hub looked at 41 best-of lists that recommended 952 books to calculate "The Ultimate Best Books of 2020 List," and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett takes the top spot. More best-of lists are in from Vulture, CrimeReads, and BookPage. There's forthcoming book news from DC about a Batman anthology series, and from Henry Holt on Gabriel Debenedetti's book about the relationship between Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Also, see new trailers for Nomadland and Bridgerton.

John le Carré, author of Cold War thrillers such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, died of pneumonia on Saturday at the age of 89. NYPD Red 6 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp leads holds this week. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett tops LibraryReads' Voter Favorites 2020 list, and more of the year's best-of lists are out from USA Today, BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, and others. The NYT examines fiction published between 1950 and 2018 to investigate just how white the book industry is. Plus, adaptation news about The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan and Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War by Ken Adelman.

The Stand, based on the book by Stephen King, will be available next week on CBS All Access. Disney+ plans to release about 10 Marvel series and 10 Star Wars series in the next few years. More best-of 2020 book lists arrive from the L.A. Times, The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, and CrimeReads. Current Deputy Director of the National Book Foundation Jordan Smith will serve as its Interim Executive Director. Anthony Veasna So, whose debut short story collection Afterparties is due out Aug. 2021, has died at age 28.

When people think of Federal presidential elections and the Electoral College, they do not typically think of the role of archivists. Nonetheless, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) plays a critical role in collecting documents, ensuring that everyone who needs them has them, and finally keeping them for prosperity.

Navigating any place of employment can be complex for transgender and nonbinary people, but having an informed and supportive supervisor can make things easier.

As we think through the lessons we have learned over the past four years, one thing is quite clear: the way “we’ve always done things” is not sustainable for the well-being of our communities. We need to seek out those patterns that are emerging to systemically change the policy landscape of our society, economy and the environment and respect that leadership may look different in the coming years.

Kid Cudi is producing and will star in the adaptation of Real Life by Brandon Taylor. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker tops People's best books of the year list, and The Undocumented Americans: A Homecoming by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio tops Vulture's list of 10 best books of the year. Cat Kid Comic Club: From the Creator of Dog Man by Dav Pilkey is the only new bestseller this week. "Muslim" by Zahia Rahmani, translated by Matt Reeck, wins the 2020 Albertine Prize. Vanity Fair hosts a conversation between Jesmyn Ward and Barack Obama. Kellyanne Conway has received a multi-million dollar deal for an upcoming memoir. Melville House's Dennis Johnson calls for the Department of Justice to stop the consolidation of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.

Libraries and archives nationwide have launched initiatives to diversify their collections, institute antiracist descriptive practices, and conduct outreach to marginalized communities. We knew that our collections lacked all these things, but questioned how we could authentically start this work. What can libraries and archives do when confronted with limited resources, material, and community engagement to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in their work?

Bill Gates shares the books that inspired him this year, including Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. More 2020 best-of lists are out from Audible, Wired, and the New York Public Library. See the PEN America annual gala, which took place virtually this year and honored Patti Smith and Barack Obama, among others. There's news of several adaptations in the works, including Ring Shout by P. Djéli Clark, The Poppy War series by Rebecca F. Kuang, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani.

Martha Fogg of Adam Matthew Digital describes this database that charts the social history of Britain.

Participating public libraries will receive web archiving and access services, training and education, and funds to promote and pursue their community archiving. The Community Webs National Network will also make the resulting public library local history community web archives available to scholars through specialized access tools and datasets.

On November 7, Pfizer announced interim findings of a 90 percent effectiveness rate for its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. On November 16, Moderna announced a similar interim finding of 94.5 percent effectiveness. While there are cautionary notes—these are the companies’ numbers, not the FDA’s, and at press time the trials were not yet complete—it is still a hopeful sign that the most stringent measures to contain community spread may be behind us by 2022. Yet the right-now coronavirus news is grim.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel tops Entertainment Weekly's list of the 10 best books of the year. More 2020 best-of lists are out from Vanity Fair, Goodreads, Smithsonian magazine, and more. The 2020 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant winners are announced. Bob Woodward is working on another book about the Trump presidency. Plus, the filmmaker behind The Queen's Gambit has several adaptations in the works, including Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov.

On August 11, St. Louis County Library (SLCL), MO, announced the layoffs of 122 part-time workers. All 600 employees, both full- and part-time, had been paid during nearly three months while library buildings were closed. But a number of staff, along with other supporters, feel that the layoffs will impact services once the library reopens. Some workers have also alleged that the layoffs were retaliatory.

The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson with Casey Sherman leads holds this week. The January Indie Next list is up, and the top pick is The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. Luster by Raven Leilani wins the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Roald Dahl's family issues an apology for anti-Semitic comments he made. Plus, DC Comics says Ava DuVernay will adapt its Naomi series for TV.

Barnes & Noble booksellers pick World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, as the book of the year. Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy wins the the Bard Fiction Prize, and Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend wins the Cundill History Prize. Reality TV star Shep Rose of Southern Charm is writing a memoir called Average Expectations: Lessons in Lowering the Bar. Adaptations out this week include Nomadland and The Hardy Boys. Plus, a TV series based on Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is in the works.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline is No. 1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and the NYT Audio Fiction list, and starts at No. 2 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list. Forthcoming book news is out about A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins and Life After Death by Sister Souljah. Adaptations are in the works for Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey and The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore.

ReedPop announces it is "retiring" BookExpo, BookCon, and UnBound. The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia is the December book club pick from Reese Witherspoon, and This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens is the GMA December Book Club pick. Nalo Hopkinson is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's 37th Damon Knight Grand Master. Forthcoming book news arrives about The Reckoning by Mary Trump and Matrix by Lauren Groff. Plus, more best-of 2020 lists from editors of The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Despite precautionary measures against the coronavirus, such as regular testing and social distancing rules, as a second pandemic wave picks up across the country some schools are opting for an early shut-down of in-person learning. With classes pivoting to all online and residential students being sent home ahead of their Thanksgiving break—or being instructed not to return to campus afterward—academic libraries are once again adjusting to support their communities’ needs.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is the December Read with Jenna pick, honoring the 50th anniversary of its publication. AudioFile’s December Earphone Award winners are up. More lists of the year's best books are out. Journalist John Heilemann is writing a book on Joe Biden's campaigns, and screen rights have already been acquired by Showtime. The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish will be adapted as well. Ben Bova, the prolific sci-fi author and editor, has passed away.

From the AP: ReedPop, which has managed BookExpo for a quarter century, announced Tuesday that effectively immediately it was “retiring” the event, along with the fan-based BookCon and merchandise-based UnBound.

In today's day and age of the COVID pandemic, job loss, increased violence, and weather-related incidences, the Community Library has become more important than ever. People flock to libraries as a lifeline in times of need.

A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir leads library holds lists this week. The top LibraryReads pick of the month, How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams, comes out this week. Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson and A Promised Land by Barack Obama top the bestseller lists. Catch up on analysis of the sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House. Plus, interest in chess books and chess sets has spiked following the recent premier of The Queen's Gambit.

New York Public Library selects their favorite books of the year. Nominations for 2021 Grammy Awards include audiobooks narrated by Rachel Maddow, Ronan Farrow, and Meryl Streep. The Costa Book Awards shortlist is out. A Promised Land by Barack Obama breaks sales records for presidential memoirs. The new series The Flight Attendant and an updated Black Beauty debut this week. Plus, adaptations of Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander and Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith are in the works.

The 71st National Book Award ceremony, held on November 18 and hosted by Jason Reynolds, was completely virtual. And rather than holding court at Cipriani, National Book Foundation Board Chair David Steinberger and Executive Director Lisa Lucas broadcast from elegant—and appropriate—locations at their respective home bases: Steinberger from the Trustees’ Room at the New York Public Library and Lucas from the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library.

An early breaking announcement on November 25 stated that Penguin Random House has acquired Simon & Schuster in a $2.2 billion deal.

A variety of libraries public and private, in the United States and abroad, still have online gift shops that support library collections and programs and are open for business, no mask required (though several do sell cute ones). In addition to the pictured items unique to each location and collection, they all carry a curated selection of more general gifts calculated to appeal to book and library lovers of all ages—and at all budgets.

The New York Times lists its top 10 books of the year. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin wins the Brooklyn Public Library 2020 Nonfiction Prize and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong wins the 2020 Fiction & Poetry Prize. Charlaine Harris and Jeffery Deaver are the 2021 Mystery Writers of America Grand Masters, and Malice Domestic receives the 2020 Raven Award. In forthcoming book news, 2021 will see Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice by Yusef Salaam and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson. Also, there's a video game treasure hunt for Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline.

The German Centre for Accessible Reading, dzb lesen, unites tradition with the modern world. Founded on 12 November 1894 as the German Central Library for the Blind, it has been a library for blind and visually impaired people for more than 125 years and is thus the oldest specialist library of its kind in Germany.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline leads holds this week. Time lists the 10 best nonfiction books of 2020, with Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson in the top spot, while Lit Hub shares the best short story collections of the year. In Vanity Fair, Jesmyn Ward interviews Barack Obama to discuss A Promised Land. Historian and travel writer Jan Morris has died at age 94.

Shuggie Bain, the debut book by Douglas Stuart, wins the 2020 Booker Prize. Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump wins the 2020 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Amazon selects A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom by Brittany K Barnett as the best book of the year, and The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, and O: The Oprah Magazine have their 2020 best-of lists, as well. Never-before-seen work from J.R.R. Tolkien is coming next year in The Nature of Middle-earth. Plus, Between the World and Me, Hillbilly Elegy, and more new adaptation releases.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu and The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne are among the winners of the 2020 National Book Awards. The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly tops both the NYT and USA Today Bestsellers lists. The Washington Post unveils multiple best-of 2020 lists. The 2020 Writers’ Trust awards winners are out. Joy Harjo will serve a rare third term as U.S. poet laureate. Wonder Woman 1984 will be released in theaters and HBO Max on Christmas Day.

From open outdoor areas to fantastic and functional fixtures, sustainable systems to to study spaces, LJ's 2020 Year in Architecture roundup celebrates the best new construction and renovation in public and academic libraries across the country.

Going virtual in a pandemic year, the National Book Awards reveals that writing matters more than ever. 

Library distributor Baker & Taylor announced on October 28 that it would be returning to the academic market as a full-service vendor.

Publishers, authors, and agents ponder the impact a Donald Trump book deal might have. Quentin Tarantino is writing the novelization of his own film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which will initially be published as a mass market paperback. Rebecca Carroll is adapting her upcoming memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, as a series. Read an excerpt from Later by Stephen King. Plus, starting in 2022 Yale University Press is publishing a series of brief biographies called Black Lives.

Publishers and librarians offer their perspective on what makes for a great reference collection, and how to maintain it to serve all information seekers.

The December Library Reads list is out, and the number one pick is How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams. Barack Obama's memoir, A Promised Land, is out today, and continues to generate substantial buzz. The shortlist for ALA's 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence is out. The CW is at work on the series Wonder Girl, which will feature a Latina lead. Also, Penguin Random House and News Corp, which owns HarperCollins, are leading the bids to purchase Simon & Schuster.

Often when we talk about open access (OA), we talk about research articles in journals, but for over a decade there has been a growing movement in OA monograph publishing. To date, Oxford University Press (OUP) has published 115 OA books and that number increases year on year, partly through an increasing range of funder initiatives and partly through opportunities to experiment.

A Promised Land by Barack Obama leads holds this week, and audio excerpts read by Obama are available. Kirkus picks the best fiction of 2020. Forthcoming book news arrives about The Other Emily by Dean Koontz, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. The 2020 Christy Award winners are named.

Read excerpts and reviews of A Promised Land by Barack Obama, including an in-depth review by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The former president will also participate in the 2020 Booker Prize ceremony. Barnes & Noble lists its Book of the Year Finalists. Buzzy adaptations releasing this week include The Life Ahead, Alex Rider, and The Personal History of David Copperfield. Buzzy adaptations in the works include modern-day reimaginings of Jane Austen novels and The Island of Dr. Moreau, plus a feature adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across the Table that will be directed by Michel Gondry.

Library Journal covers many projects initiated within libraries, but occasionally a great idea is born of sheer fandom. The Library Land Project emerged from consultants Greg Peverill-Conti and Adam Zand’s love of libraries, and their goal to visit as many in their home state of Massachusetts as possible—and kept growing from there.

The Iowa City Public Library (ICPL) has embedded concrete, quantified steps toward equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) into its three-year strategic plan, released on September 23.

Time picks 100 must-read books for the year. Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich tops this week's bestsellers lists. The 2020 Dayton Literary Peace Prize honors The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman and Know My Name by Chanel Miller. The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison wins the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize. Forthcoming book news arrives from NYT reporter Maggie Haberman and Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Barack Obama has TV appearances lined up ahead of next week's release of his memoir, A Promised Land.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi are among the 15 books on the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist. A film adaptation of The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates is set to be produced by Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt, with Coates writing the screenplay. Cameran Eubanks, former star of Bravo's Southern Charm, is working on the memoir One Day You'll Thank Me. Also, EarlyWord’s GalleyChat for November is posted.

From The Boston Globe: The Board of Trustees of the Boston Public Library announced Tuesday that it unanimously ratified an action plan to make the library an antiracist organization.

The short stories collection How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa wins the $100,000 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of Beyoncé and Jay-Z, narrates the audiobook Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, which is also headed to HBO Max as a series. The Con Queen of Hollywood, based on a Hollywood Reporter article by Scott Johnson, has been picked up by HarperCollins. Plus, print books sales were up for the last week of October, compared to the same week last year, with the newest Wimpy Kid title leading the rise.

Whether librarians are providing services in-person or virtually, reference has changed with the pandemic.

The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly tops holds this week, and LibraryReads and Indie Next offer several recommendations for additional buzzy new releases. Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases—San Francisco, New Orleans, New York by Rebecca Solnit, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, and Rebecca Snedeker wins the 2020 Alice Award. This weekend saw increased interest in books by Kamala Harris and Stacey Abrams. The Three-Body Problem adaptation is encountering problems for comments by its author, Liu Cixin.

Work has wrapped up at DC, Boston, and Brooklyn Public Library branches; construction proceeds on schedule at Spokane and Mid-Continent Public Libraries, and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library has chosen Snøhetta as its design firm.

News that legendary game show host and broadcaster Alex Trebek has passed away. He was 80. Infodocket has assembled a small collection of interviews/profiles and a documentary with/about Trebek curated from various sources.

Luster by Raven Leilani, Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream by Mychal Denzel Smith, and I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James, win the 2020 Kirkus Prize. Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May tops the December Indie Next List. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media is up for sale. Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer, due out April 2021, will be adapted as a series for Netflix.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the Charleston Conference took place virtually from November 2–6. Appropriately, many of the sessions focused on the changes in and around academic libraries wrought by the pandemic. A panel titled “Getting Back to Business,” sponsored by the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s Scholarly Kitchen blog, offered opinions from a range of scholarly publishing stakeholders, including representatives from a university library, research society, nonprofit, and publishing consultant.

Carl Grant, former president of Ex Libris North America and interim dean of the University of Oklahoma Libraries, this summer became managing director of The Revs Institute, a Naples, FL–based not-for-profit dedicated to the research and historical study of automobiles.

The Sentinel: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child and Andrew Child and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End by Jeff Kinney top the fiction bestsellers lists this week. The best-selling audiobooks of the month are A Time for Mercy by John Grisham, read by Michael Beck, and Greenlights, written and read by Matthew McConaughey. R.B. Lemberg, The Four Profound Weaves: A Birdverse Book, is the 2020 Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellow. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman wins the 2020 WHSmith Book of the Year. The estate of Truman Capote has filed a lawsuit over rights to develop prequels, sequels, or series related to Breakfast at Tiffany's.