Comics play to their strengths this season, stressing layout and mood while also supporting reader interests in works of horror and adaptation.

Large library gatherings usually share city space with at least one other special interest group—who could forget the young dancers shivering in their spangled leotards during January’s LibLearnX Conference in sub-zero Baltimore? This year, those attending the Public Library Association (PLA) biennial conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, will be overlapping with a crowd of umbraphiles—eclipse chasers—getting a jump on the first visible total solar eclipse in the United States since 2017, occurring April 8. Columbus lies just south of the path of totality.

The key trends in crime fiction this year are the desire for immersive escape, a focus on genre blends, and new takes on traditional tropes.

The finalists for the inaugural Libby Book Awards (sponsored by the library app) are announced; the winners will be voted on by library workers. The longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is announced. U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón is among Time’s 2024 Women of the Year. CBC reports that calls to ban books are on the rise in Canada.

The Society of Authors Translation Prize winners and the UK’s Parliamentary Book Award winners are announced. The longlist is announced for the Plutarch Award for biographies. Novelist and Royal Society of Literature president Bernardine Evaristo defends the organization against recent criticism of its modernization efforts. Plus new title best sellers.

The shortlists are announced for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing and the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. The longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize is released. The owner of the Hugo Awards trademark has censured the administrators of the 2023 Chengdu Hugos and announced several resignations. Anne Edwards, the “Queen of Biography,” has died at 96. Horror writer Brian Lumley has died at 86. Plus new title best sellers.

The Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot is announced, as are the 2024 United States Artists Writing Fellows. Dan Hogan wins the Australian Book Review Peter Porter Poetry Prize. The Hugo Awards court controversy again. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Random in Death by J.D. Robb. Interviews arrive with Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Venita Blackburn, Robert Downey Jr., and Crystal Hefner.

From romantasy to retellings and from flying creatures to interstellar travel, the sweep of SFF continues to forge new reading pathways that expand the genres while reconfirming time-honored tales.

Diving into the delights of a genre that is growing fast and reinventing its stories and tropes.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim is the new GMA Book Club pick for September. The 2023 Dream Foundry Contest winners are announced. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner. Esquire has a feature profile of author Chuck Palahniuk. LitHub pairs “10 Books for Taylor Swift’s 10 Eras.” Ibram X. Kendi celebrates a cancer-free milestone. Plus, Crime 101, based on a novella by Don Winslow, sparks a bidding war between Netflix and Amazon.