Awards announcements include the Center for Black Literature Octavia E. Butler Awards and the Romantic Novel Awards shortlists. Also, the Romantic Novelists Association names A Christmas Celebration by Heidi Swain as the winner of the 2023 Popular Romantic Fiction Award. Starting at the top of the best-seller lists are Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love by Mike Pompeo and Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens by Richard Haass. There are interviews with authors Natasha Lester, Siddharth Kara, Hafizah Geter, Eleanor Shearer, and Annalee Newitz. Toni Collette stars in the new adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s The Power; meanwhile, the adaptation Kindred, based on the work of Octavia Butler, has been canceled after one season.

The Robert L. Parkinson Library & Research Center at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI, and the Archives at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL, have extensive circus collections, from posters and programs to performers’ scrapbooks and diaries.

Library budgets continued to rebound in 2022, with the largest upticks in a decade—and a continued focus on pandemic-era community needs.

Sometimes taking the long path fits the work.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards finalists are announced. LJ’s Barbara Hoffert is named the inaugural NBCC Service Award winner. Joy Harjo and City Lights receive lifetime achievement awards. The Rathbones Folio Prize shortlists are announced. Coverage continues for Madeline McIntosh’s resignation from PRH. February’s Read with Jenna Pick is Maame by Jessica George. GMA picks River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer, and B&N selects The Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz. Plus, Penguin Random House Audio acquires Playaway. 

On January 31, in a virtual event produced by Wildbound Live, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced 30 finalists in six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, and poetry—for the best books of 2022. In addition, finalists were announced for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, nominated by the organization’s regular members, and winners were announced for several annual prizes.

In May 2022, Elizabeth Szkirpan was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her advocacy work promoting technical services professionals within libraries. LJ recently reached out to Szkirpan, director of bibliographic services and federal depository coordinator for the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, to learn more about why this work is important and needs more institutional support.

ALA’s Youth Media Awards are announced. Longlists for the Dublin Literary Award, International Dylan Thomas Prize, and Plutarch Award are announced. The CEO of Penguin Random House U.S. will step down. HarperCollins will cut 5% of its North American workforce. Donald Trump sues Bob Woodward and Simon & Schuster over The Trump Tapes audiobook. Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code will be adapted as a TV series. Kindred, based on the novel by Octavia Butler, has been canceled by FX.

Rebuffing a move to ban so-called “socially divisive” material from its collection, the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library in eastern Kansas got a new lease for its main branch last month. But its longtime director says it was alarming to see the usually routine lease renewal process used as leverage in a months-long battle over censorship.