Tyriek White wins the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize for We Are a Haunting. Patricia Engel wins the Dos Passos Prize. Ten writers receive Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants. Christianity Today announces its 2024 Book Awards. Reese Witherspoon selects Ella Berman’s Before We Were Innocent for her December book club. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney, which shot to #1 on Amazon yesterday, even selling out for a short time. Interviews arrive with Alexis Soloski, Gabrielle Korn, Christine Platt and Catherine Wigginton Greene, Margo Steines, Cynthia Manick, Debbie Urbanski, Tariq Trotter, Samantha Harvey, and Liz Cheney.

On December 6, Urban Librarians Unite (ULU) announced a $1 million general operating grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The four-year grant, made through Mellon’s Public Knowledge program, is the largest ever received by ULU and will allow the grassroots library advocacy organization to expand operations, find other sustainable funding sources, and employ staff.

Best of the Year booklists and recommendations arrive from The Atlantic, Slate, The Millions, Vogue, LA Times, The New Yorker, and more. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is December’s GMA Book Club pick. January's Indie Next Preview features #1 pick The Fury by Alex Michaelides. Plus, Liz Cheney's Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, publishes today.

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney leads holds this week. Thirteen LibraryReads and 12 Indie Next picks publish this week, including Hall of Fame pick and People book of the week The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. December’s Costco Connection features a new paperback edition of Never Lie by Freida McFadden. Audiofile announces the December 2023 Earphones Award Winners. Longlists for the Wingate Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize are announced. “Rizz” is named Oxford’s Word of the Year. Plus, more best of the year lists, including LJ’s Best Books of 2023.

If you're seeing this, chances are you’re someone who identifies as a reader. And, as a reader, you may be shocked to discover that there are many American adults who just aren’t.

On November 15, the American Library Association (ALA) announced that it had selected Leslie Burger as interim executive director, effective immediately. She succeeds Tracie D. Hall, who resigned on October 6. LJ caught up with Burger as she began settling into her new role to talk about the experience she brings and her plans going forward.

Sandra Day O’Connor, author and the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, has died. Penguin Random House sues Iowa over book banning. David R. Samson wins the $60K Balsillie Prize for Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good. Amazon's editors recommend the best books of December. Andrew Miller is named president and publisher of Henry Holt. Plus, Page to Screen.

Katherine Rundell wins Waterstones Book of the Year 2023 for her “instant classic” Impossible Creatures. AudioFile showcases the Best Audiobooks of 2023. Best Books of the Year lists also arrive from Publishers Lunch, The New Yorker, and WSJ. New title best sellers include Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Danielle Steel and more. Liz Cheney's forthcoming book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, arrives next week. Plus, author and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100. 

Julia Armfield and Jon Ransom win Polari Prizes. Ransom’s book The Whale Tattoo will also be adapted for film. Apple reveals its top books of 2023. Omid Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival courts reviews and controversy. Two pop culture books arrive with buzzy details: Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History by Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage & Alan Sepinwall, and Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars. Savannah Guthrie announces her forthcoming faith-based book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, due out in February. And Paul Greengrass is set to direct a film adaptation of T.J. Newman's novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421.