News

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. 

Some libraries have tested WISP Networks and CBRS to explore providing home broadband to their communities, and new satellite technology shows promise for rural libraries.

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. 

There are announcements for the 35th Annual Lambda Awards finalists, the Jhalak Prize longlist, and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Featured on the best-sellers lists are the debuts of Worthy Opponents by Danielle Steel, Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner, and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell. Author interviews highlight the experiences of writers such as Sabrina Orah Mark, Richard Nuila, Sarah Thankam Mathews, Alissa Quart, Meredith Broussard, and Patti McCracken. There is adaptation news for Josie Silver’s One Day in December and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

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. 

Connecticut's Senate Bill 2, “An Act Concerning The Mental, Physical And Emotional Wellness of Children,” would, among many other things, allow every Connecticut municipality to designate a single sanctuary library—a place where patrons are promised access to books banned or challenged elsewhere.