News

Ann Cleeves reveals that her next Vera Stanhope book will be the last. Kevin Quigley, Kaitlynne Lowe, Sarah Moore, and Brianna Wolfe win the Donner Prize for Seized by Uncertainty: The Markets, Media, and Special Interests That Shaped Canada’s Response to COVID-19. Publishers Lunch’s Fall/Winter Fiction Buzz Panel is available to watch now. NYT catches up with “The Dresden Files” series author Jim Butcher after 25 years and 14 million books sold. Sourcebooks will publish new editions of Claire Legrand’s “Empirium” trilogy for adult readers. Plus, HBO Max’s It prequel, Welcome to Derry, gets a trailer today.

Nightshade by Michael Connelly leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Katherine Center, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, and Rachel Gillig. Haruki Murakami wins the Center for Fiction’s Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award. The Gotham Book Prize winners are announced, including Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough by Ian Frazier and Movement: New York’s Long War To Take Back Its Streets from the Car by Nicole Gelinas. Finalists for the Orwell Prizes are announced. People’s book of the week is Whistle by Linwood Barclay. Plus, June’s LibraryReads list is out, featuring top pick The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater.

Yasmin Zaher’s The Coin wins the Dylan Thomas Prize. Carys Davies’s Clear wins the Ondaatje Prize. Paul Reitter wins the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of Marx’s Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. The Atlantic publishes its 2025 summer reading guide. Film studio Somesuch launches its own book imprint. Netflix is adapting S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed as a series. Plus, Page to Screen and a Time magazine feature on Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The mission of the California State Railroad Museum (CSRM) in Sacramento, CA, is to collect, preserve, and share the deep history of railroads and railroading in California and the rest of the western United States. The organization is also home to a large 19th-century reconstruction of a railroad station and railroad depot, with a still-functional train that gives tours to patrons.

Abi Daré’s And So I Roar wins the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize. Winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize are announced. Don Winslow comes out of retirement to publish a new collection of crime novellas, The Final Score. Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben team up to write a thriller. Joe Sacco suggests that The Once and Future Riot could be his last work of graphic nonfiction, a genre he pioneered. Iranian novelist Nahid Rachlin has died at age 85. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Prabal Gurung, Daniel Kehlmann, Wendy Corsi Staub, and Michelle Young.

UPDATE: On May 13, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. issued a sweeping preliminary injunction blocking Trump administration officials from acting on the March 14 executive order to dismantle the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Furthermore, the court ordered the administration to immediately takes steps to restore the agency’s employees and grant funding activities.

Oprah selects Ocean Vuong’s novel The Emperor of Gladness for her book club. LA Times previews 30 books for summer. Audible opens AI narration to selected publishers. Original Sin by Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson gets buzz. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. Jeanine Cummins publishes a new novel, Speak to Me of Home, five years after the American Dirt controversy. LitHub celebrates 100 years of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. PW reports on the situation at Library of Congress. Plus, a federal judge orders the IMLS to be restored.

The British Book Awards are announced; Percival Everett is named Author of the Year and his book James wins Fiction Book of the Year; Patriot by Alexei Navalny wins Overall Book of the Year and best narrative nonfiction book; Margaret Atwood laments the threat to words as she accepts the Freedom To Publish Prize. The PEN America Literary Awards winners are announced, along with shortlists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Wales’s Book of the Year. HarperVia will launch a pocket-sized paperbacks imprint, Nomad Editions, in November. Plus, Trump names an acting librarian of Congress.

President Donald Trump has fired Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. In a two-sentence email obtained by the Associated Press, sent on the evening of Thursday, May 8, Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse wrote, “Carla, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”