Book News

Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the nonfiction prize goes to Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and the Medical Miracle That Saved a Child’s Life. Winners of the Reading the West Book Awards are announced. NYT updates its list of the best romance novels of the year. NYPL celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association will be subsumed into the Association for Library Service to Children. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with E. Jean Carroll, Peter Mendelsund, and Vikas Adam.

The longlist for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award is announced. LitHub publishes “The Ultimate Summer 2025 Reading List.” Oregon passes a law to protect access to books in school libraries. In spring 2026, Christian publisher Baker will launch Haven, an imprint it describes as “wholesome fiction without faith content.” Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Wally Lamb, V.E. Schwab, and Jess Walter.

Maurice Vellekoop’s memoir I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together wins the Doug Wright Award. Canisia Lubrin’s Code Noir wins the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for best Canadian debut short story collection. Authors Gary David Crew and Garth Nix receive the Medal of the Order of Australia. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. Annie Leibovitz will reissue a new edition of her 1999 book Women in November. Gill Hornby’s The Elopement will be adapted for TV.

Kendra Coulter is a professor of management and organizational studies at Huron University College at Western University. As an anthropologist, she has become a leading voice in animal ethics and sustainability and written many academic works, including Defending Animals: Finding Hope on the Front Lines of Animal Protection. The Tortoise’s Tale marks her fiction debut. She talks with LJ about her philosophy, her inspirations, the role of music in her book, and her forthcoming projects.

Oprah’s new book club pick is The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb. Finalists for the Ignyte Awards for SFF are announced. David Means wins the PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Jurors for the Kirkus Prize are named. The Nation and OR Books partner to launch a new progressive imprint, Nation Books. Scribd’s Everand has acquired social reading app Fable. Award-winning thriller writer Frederick Forsyth has died at the age of 86.

V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil leads holds this week and is also People’s book of the week. Also in demand are titles by Riley Sager, S.A. Cosby, Wally Lamb, and Jess Walter. Winners of the Nebula Awards and the Biographers International Organization’s Plutarch Award are announced. The July Indie Next preview is out, featuring #1 pick The Irresistible Urge To Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley. Earlyword shares the June GalleyChat spreadsheet. Plus, former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden speaks out on her firing on CBS Sunday Morning.

Karen Leeder’s translation of Durs Grünbein’s Psyche Running wins the Griffin Poetry Prize. Valérie Bah’s Subterrane wins the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. The shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is announced. New Circana BookScan research shows the growth over the last year of “dark romance.” The New Press has layoffs due to decreased sales and funding, partly attributed to book bans targeting progressive titles. After selecting James Frey’s novel Next to Heaven, Book of the Month responds to criticism about Frey’s use of generative AI. Tomorrow is Teach Truth Day of Action, a planned nationwide day to fight bans on books and on teaching certain subjects in schools. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with Ocean Vuong, Susan Choi, and Jacinda Ardern.

N.S. Nuseibeh’s essay collection Namesake wins the UK’s Jhalak Prose Prize for writers of color, while Mimi Khalvati’s Collected Poems wins the Jhalak Poetry Prize. Amazon editors pick the 10 best books of 2025 so far. The Guardian writes about how the U.S. far right is trying to spread its ideology through the publishing world and reports on Russia’s “Z literature,” a nationalistic subgenre of fantasy fiction that may be encouraging teens to enlist in the war on Ukraine. AI was the hot topic at this year’s U.S. Book Fair. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Susan Choi, Lynne Olson, and Melissa Febos.

All the October 2025 Prepub Alerts in one place, plus a downloadable spreadsheet of all the titles.