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This month’s historical fiction limns the 20th century, with a focus on the World Wars.

From retired judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, to Congo-born, Rwanda-raised refugee Dogon Mondiant, to Pulitzer Prize winner Farah Stockman, personal perspectives on social justice issues worldwide.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges discusses the creation and staging of a play written by his students at East Jersey State Prison. Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods expand on their Pulitzer Prize finalist podcast, Ear Hustle, launched at San Quentin State Prison. Two books in the surge of publications addressing the serious crisis of incarceration. 

A long list of fan favorites will compete for readers’ attention as the holly is hung, with key reissues from Robyn Carr and Nora Roberts included in the mix.

Two powerhouses join to write a political thriller. 

Wide-ranging chills for autumn. 

An award-winning journalist, a U.S. Poet Laureate, actors with stories, and a man redeemed. 

From the American Revolution and Africa and the African diaspora, to the Middle Ages and the Middle East, to history itself, new views on what happened. 

All the September Prepub Alerts in a central index.

Top reads ranging from Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s The House of Rust, a Graywolf Press Africa Prize winner, to NYPL Young Lion Claire Vaye Watkins’s I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, which is autofiction like Violaine Huisman’s multi-award-winning debut The Book of Mother. Plus more award winners.

Titles in science, political science, and medicine reflect on what we've learned from the pandemic and what happens next. 

Titles about social justice and those who seek it. 

Lots of cozies for October, including the start of the holiday mysteries, though Emmy Award–winning journalist Tamron Hall's debut goes the crime reporter route. 

Key titles on our world today. 

Environmental issues and the future of artificial intelligence predominate among these titles. 

Dostoyevsky and Toni Morrison, John Mellencamp and Black women in pop music, and The Heroine with 1,001 Faces.

Books on the Holocaust and early U.S. history. 

A book that will make news. 

LIterary magic from multiple award winners.

Holiday titles are already surfacing, World War II reverberates through historical fiction, and big-print-run titles predominate in sf/fantasy.  

Memoirs that address key issues.

Early fall chills for a variety of readers. 

Big-print, big names thrillers for September. 

From Conquistadores to war in Afghanistan. 

Four authors purveying suspense and one offering military chills. 

Pandemic and politics, two issues that mightily shaped 2020, will feature strongly in 2021 book publishing. 

In a strong year for World War II historical fiction, a novel about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion—the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps at the time—is of special interest. Plus, a book by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. 

A new book from Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, activism from Mansoor Adayfi and Rafia Zakaria, a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and more. 

A range of books about women, friendship, family life, touring authors, and take-charge animals, with two books starring librarians.

Series start-ups and wrap-ups will keep fans busy at summer’s end.

There’s something for every history buff in August’s variegated lineup.

Moving tales of family, friendship, and loss dominate August’s memoir list.

Complementing LJ’s “Books and Authors To Know: Titles To Watch 2021,” which focuses on fiction and nonfiction, the nearly 100 key poetry titles featured here represent some of the most important and dynamic writing being done today. 

From James Lee Burke to Paula Hawkins to Preston/Child, big names with big print runs for maximum thriller pleasure.

CIA and DEA agents tackle the world.

The consequences for everyone when young women disappear.

When trouble starts close to home. 

Timely thrillers and historical suspense, with psych wards and fancy fishing retreats as settings. 

Stars like David Grossman, Caroline De Robertis, and Charlotte McConaghy are joined by up-and-comers from Nawaaz Ahmed to Meredith Westgate, and August literary fiction also tours the world from Paris to Cuba to Namibia and South Africa. 

From literary star Juan Gabriel Vásquez to  Anthony Veasna So, a rising star whose life was tragically cut short, five collections for fans of fiction, short or long. 

Old hands like Donna Andrews and Louise Penny are joined by rising stars Naomi Hirahara, Camilla Trinchieri, and more. 

Key titles in a brave new world marked by pandemic and political upheaval. 

Register at https://storeapi.libraryjournal.com/magento2-ib/customform/form.php?name=2021-lj-ala-galley-signing-guide.  A big mailing is being assembled now and will come to you soon. 

From personal crisis to epic perceptions of our culture, top July reading in literary fiction.

Big-name authors and 100,000-copy first-printing newbies provide top summer reading.

From Troy to 1950s Cold War America but focusing on World War II, a big historical sweep.

Historically and politically informed sf/fantasy.

Science titles have become increasingly prominent, but three major books on the sea in a single month is a standout. 

Register now for the forthcoming ALA Midwinter Galley & Events Guide at https://storeapi.libraryjournal.com/magento2-ib/customform/form.php?name=2021-lj-ala-galley-signing-guide

Lots of cozies for beach reading, but don’t miss Icelandic star Arnaldur Indridason’s The Darkness Knows and debuter Greg Buchanan’s Sixteen Horses.

Big-name authors—and mostly women—fill the thriller list for July.

Eight wide-ranging history titles for July.

Literary fiction for July launches with award-winning authors. 

Top pop fiction in July ranges from historicals to horror to bittersweet love.

July reading for an engaged political future. 

Two leading figures in world history get a very different kind of treatment. 

Finding love, facing death, and getting rescued by dogs in town, in the country, and on the beach. 

Leading off with a thriller from Stacey Abrams that publishes in May, this list offers 13 recent fiction discoveries, publishing in April through June. 

Big names like Pat Barker, Francine Prose, Jonathan Evison, and Brandon Taylor, plus a host of fledgling writers often addressing coming of age. 

From Bentley/Clancy to J.A. Jance to Stuart Woods: chills for the summer. 

Ranging from debut authors to authors who have claimed big sales or awards with their first few books, here are rising stars in the thrillersphere. 

June memoir leads off with key #ownvoices narratives. 

Great June reading, often from LJ-starred authors, with Janet Evanovich introducing her first new series on her own in a while.

From demythologizing the Alamo to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan’s significantly far-reaching dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson to the British battling the Germans over Malta during World War II, plus talking about the impact of books in American history.

Top June fiction with authors ranging from veterans Lionel Shriver and Beatriz Williams to newcomer Tom Lin. 

New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg on doctors doing their residencies during COVID-19, George Packer on the narratives that have made America lose its way, Imani Perry on how the South defines America, and Clint Smith on slavery as central to the American experience. 

May pop fiction opens the season for beach-set beach reads, but there are more heartwarmers here. 

From Lincoln to Nixon and key events in between: five key history titles. 

Four stories of resistance and courage. 

Along with social justice issues and arts titles embracing Bob Dylan and Salman Rushdie, May brings a history and future of quarantine to give us context.

This month's literary gems include a long-lost novel by John Oliver Killens, a founding father of the Black Arts Movement. 

Spring is a big time for debut novels, as this list reveals. 

Historical fiction ranging from a feminist retelling of Ariadne's story to  different views on World War II. 

Journalism, boxing, soldiering, and more: recalling the past to understand the present. 

Some of your favorite actors and social media stars talk about their lives. 

Disclosing oneself to help others. 

Six key nonfiction titles for May, dominated by memoirs that aren't just personal. 

Eight top May titles in multiple genres. 

Plenty of domestic suspense this month, but the next in the late Clive Cussler’s Det. Isaac Bell series brings early 1900s action and adventure.

Mysteries from cozies to historicals to international affairs, with Ashley Weaver introducing a new series.

A senator, a refugee, and a performer tell their stories.

Morgan Jenkins writes a first novel, Eleanor Morse breaks out with the story of a Maine widow and her family, and Jeff VanderMeer continues crossing genres—lots happening in April. 

Four novels about the complexity of relationships.

From debuters Dewes and Walter to award winners Kim and Szpara.

From a tenth-century Polish queen and two 15th-century female mystics to a poison-dealing apothecary and a celebrated biracial violinist in 1700s Europe, to a bookshop during the Blitz. 

A CIA spy in Africa, Sandford fan favorites Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers on the seven seas, and lots of family suspense.

From the Colonial murder of an Indigenous hunter to Klondike gold to two views of the Cold War, from its underpinning ideas to the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Advice on navigating life's ups and downs, often folded into memoir. 

April’s mystery parade leads off with big-print-run offerings from Hillerman and Rosenfelt, but the list is not all contemporary; readers will also enjoy visits to 19th- and early 20th-century London and New York.

Stories of birth, coming of age, flailing marriage, and death, plus the fictionalized lives of artists Leonora Carrington and Dorothea Lange.

Significant moments in history and literature plus a look at being a Black friend today. 

Carol Edgarian’s latest, Andrea Lee’s first novel in 15 years, and China expert Orville Schell’s first novel ever.

From the dangers posed by the strong Black woman image and how imprisoned veterans are regaining confidence by training dogs to immune malfunction as the cause of exhaustion and the best way to do laundry.

Big print runs, big auctions, and TV rights are signs that these novels will be buzzing.

Immediate eye-catchers for nonfiction readers today.

Seven lead titles for spring that are already buzzing.

From James Rollins to exciting new debut authors—March thrills. 

History embracing social justice, serious milestones, and strong women.