Kate Merlene

Colson Whitehead, Amy Tan, Ann Patchett, Bryan Stevenson, and others receive National Humanities Medals. Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation, and Deborah Cohen, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War, win 2023 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards. Questlove launches a new publishing imprint. There is adaptation news for Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo, Cesca Major’s Maybe Next Time, two titles by J. Newman, and Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These. Plus, James Patterson signs an exclusive deal with Skydance Television.

Will Sharpe will direct the movie adaptation of Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. Today is World Poetry Day. Award winners and shortlists arrive from the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards, the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award, and the Yoto Carnegie Medals. Hachette v. Internet Archive has a key hearing. Biography of X by Catherine Lacey gets buzz. At LA Times Matthew Desmond discusses his new book Poverty, by America and “the ways we can move the needle on poverty.” 

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear leads library holds this week. The April LibraryReads list is out, featuring top pick, In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune. Four Indie Next picks publish this week, including Flux by Jinwoo Chong, Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin, American Mermaid by Julia Langbein, and Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash. People’s book of the week is The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew by Maggie Bullock. Author profiles and interviews arrive with Catherine Lacey, Jeannette Walls, Mona Simpson, and Matthew Desmond. 

Ling Ma has won the Story Prize for Bliss Montage. Other awards announcements include the New York Public Library’s 36th annual Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and the V S Pritchett Short Story Prize shortlist. Conversations delve into the experiences and processes of authors such as Richard Mirabella, Elizabeth McKenzie, Vibhuti Jain Jenny Jackson, Nazli Koca, Nita Prose, Gina Frangello, and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. There is adaptation news for Leigh Bardugo’s “Six of Crows” book series. 

This year’s Tournament of Books has begun, Oprah’s Book Club pick continues to buzz, and the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses announced its longlist. Author John Jakes has died at the age of 90. Leigh Bardugo inks a blockbuster deal with Macmillan, and Vulture profiles Kelly Link, whose new collection White Cat, Black Dog, publishes March 28. Oscar Isaac will play Kurt Vonnegut in a new crime series. 

Oprah makes her 100th book club pick with Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful. The International Booker Prize longlist is announced. London Review Bookshop launches the Martha Mills prize. Becca Rothfeld is the new nonfiction book critic at The Washington Post. Interviews arrive with Benjamin Hall, Claire Jimenez, Margaret Atwood, Jenny Jackson, Ann Napolitano, Karen Fine, and Laurel Braitman. Booklists arrive for fans of HBO’s The Last of Us, which surpasses House of the Dragon in full-season viewers. Plus, NPR’s Short Wave celebrates National Pi Day with 𝝅 and pie. 

I Will Find You by Harlan Coben leads holds this week. Three LibraryReads and two Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Künstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine. The Oscars were awarded last night, including honors for the adaptations All Quiet on the Western Front, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, Women Talking, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Simon Parkin wins the 2023 Wingate Literary Prize for The Island of Extraordinary Captives. The 2022 Aurealis Awards shortlist is announced. Horror Spotlight announces its picks for Best Books of 2022. The California Book Awards finalists are announced. And Nobel Prize–winning Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe has died at the age of 88.

Toni Morrison is honored on USPS’s newest Forever Stamp. NYT Magazine offers a guide to “The New Black Canon: Books, Plays and Poems That Everyone Should Know.” The Women’s Prize for Fiction announces its longlist. The 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize finalists are announced. Laurie Halse Anderson wins the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson. The March Loanstars list features I Will Find You by Harlan Coben, and April’s Indie Next List Preview features No. 1 pick, Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez. March’s EarlyWord GalleyChat spreadsheet arrives. The U.S. Book Show presented by Publisher’s Weekly opens registration in hybrid format. And Ian Falconer, author of the “Olivia” series, has died.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson is the new GMA Book Club pick. The Aspen Words Literary Prize shortlist is announced. S. & S. halts publication of The Book of Animal Secrets by David B. Agus, due to accusations of plagiarism. The Bookseller previews a new book by E L James, due out in June. Nora Ephron’s Heartburn turns 40. Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry book tour is now available as an Audible podcast. Margaret Atwood, Eleanor Catton, Donal Ryan, Joanna Schwartz, Rafael Frumkin, and Dan Kois discuss their new books. Hulu kills its adaptation of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City. Thriller writer Christopher Fowler has died at the age of 69.