Shortlists for the Booker Prize and the Financial Times/Schroders Business Book of the Year are announced. Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias by John Lorinc has won the inaugural Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award. A new PEN America report finds a 33% jump in school book bans. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with Aparna Nancherla, Jo Nesbø, Michael Wolff, and more.

Eileen Rhodes was named one of Library Journal’s 2021 Movers & Shakers for her work bringing Open Educational Resources to Capital Community College in Connecticut, enabling students who struggled with the cost of textbooks to continue pursuing their degree. We recently reached out to Rhodes and learned she’s currently the interim library director for Connecticut State Community College, a role that’s shifted her priorities and sent her in new directions.

A new Simon & Schuster program highlights the merits of books that have been subject to censorship and will provide resources for fighting book bans. The Academy of American Poets announces the winners of its annual poetry prizes. LeVar Burton will serve as the honorary chair of this year’s Banned Books Week. Amazon will require publishers on Kindle to disclose when any of their content is generated by artificial intelligence.

New American Library Association (ALA) President Emily Drabinski has her eye on ALA’s projects and goals, as well as the association’s ongoing work standing up for its organizational values. LJ caught up with her in between stops on her tour of U.S. libraries to hear more about what she has planned.

ALA’s data on 2023 book challenges shows a surge this year. Shortlists for the German Book Prize and BBC Young Writers’ Award are announced. The Mellon Foundation appoints historian and scholar Kelly Lytle Hernández as its 2023 Fellow in Residence. Prominent novelists, including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult and Elin Hilderbrand, sue OpenAI. The September LoanStars list is out, featuring top pick The Armor of Light by Ken Follett. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Richard Osman’s The Last Devil To Die. The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins, returns to select theaters in October.  Plus, a verdict is delivered on the “Bad Art Friend” case.

The American Library Association (ALA) has released its preliminary data on the attempted censorship and restriction of access to books and other materials in public, academic, and K–12 libraries during the first eight months of 2023. Between January 1 and August 31, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 695 challenges to library materials to 1,915 unique titles.

Oprah picks Wellness by Nathan Hill for her book club. Wayne Johnston wins the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his memoir, Jennie’s Boy: A Misfit Childhood on an Island of Eccentrics. The 2023 British Fantasy Awards winners are announced. Nihar Malaviya is officially named CEO of Penguin Random House. Russell Brand’s publisher has paused all new projects, including a self-help book that was slated to publish this December. NYT explores “How TikTok Is Reshaping the American Cookbook.”  Plus, Kate DiCamillo reflects on the 20th anniversary of her award-winning children’s book The Tale of Despereaux, at Washington Post.

Library telehealth programs launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are beginning to evolve and adapt to changing times.

The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman leads holds this week. The National Book Awards announces its longlist for fiction. The 2023 winners of the McIlvanney Prize and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize are announced. Rolling Stone cofounder Jann S. Wenner was removed from the Rock Hall of Fame board after an inflammatory interview with NYT while promoting his new book. People’s book of the week is Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. Anderson Cooper discusses his new book, Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune, with CBS Sunday Morning. And American Fiction, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, wins the Toronto Film Festival’s top prize.