Related

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.

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.

Mysteries to look forward to, including a list of new series titles.

Navigating the many facets of a heating planet.

Book lovers will delight in a display full of titles that feature books, bookstores, libraries, and writers across both fiction and nonfiction. 

It’s not all sugar plums and stockings in this holiday season’s mysteries.

Readers who like their historical mysteries embellished with plenty of gothic ambience and enhanced with an abundance of dry wit will adore this splendid debut.

The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.

Full of political intrigue and impressive worldbuilding, Jacobs’s superb debut launches this space opera trilogy.

From bookstores to small towns, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in these novels of charm, kindness, and corgis too.

Offering a satisfying slow burn that transforms into delightful heat, the dazzling chemistry in this life-altering rom-com shows how love that transcends dimensions is worth the risk. This debut is an essential purchase for romance shelves.

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.

From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War

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.

The National Book Awards announces its longlists for nonfiction and poetry. The Flow: Rivers, Waters and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer and The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole win the Wainwright Prize for nature writing. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with Leila Aboulela, John Manuel Arias, Kate Atkinson, and more.

October 2023 fiction audiobook titles most in demand.

October 2023 nonfiction audiobook titles most in demand.

Reading goes to the birds in these excellent works about birds, birding, and vanishing wildlife. 

Horror is amplified when fed directly into the ears.

The National Book Awards longlist for translated literature is announced; the longlists for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be announced later today and tomorrow. Finalists are announced for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQIA+ emerging writers and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Plus new title best sellers and interviews with David Diop, Franklin Foer, Zakiya Dalila Harris, London Hughes, Daphne Kalotay, Angie Kim, Marisa Meltzer, Maggie O’Farrell, and Sarah Ogilvie.

Soundscapes lead listeners into new words and future times.

The tension ratchets up when crime fiction spins out in soundscapes.

Swoony lines and great banter only get better on audio.

Starred audiobooks reviewed in our September 2023 Audio in Depth issue, spanning mystery and suspense, SF/fantasy, romance, arts, sciences, and more.

Books about books get even more meta when narrators read them aloud.

The National Book Foundation rescinds Drew Barrymore’s invitation to host the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony host after her talk show resumes during the WGA strike. Sandra Cisneros wins the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. Kirsty Whatley wins the 2023 Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers. Earlyword’s September GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now, featuring early buzz for Alex Michaelides’s forthcoming novel, The Fury. The Pulitzer Prizes officially expand eligibility to noncitizens. Michael Chabon joins other writers to sue Meta AI platform for copyright infringement. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Code Red by Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills.

Code Red by Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.

From astrophysics to robots.

History, psychology, economics, and politics.

Touring the past. 

Multiple-award-winning author Toni Tipton-Martin is a culinary journalist, a community activist, and the editor in chief of Cook’s Country magazine. She is the author of the forthcoming Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: A Cocktail Recipe Book; Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, as well as The Jemima Code and Jubilee. She is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and Foodways Texas. 

SFF takes on well-known tales, including “Aladdin,” “Hansel and Gretel,” The Nutcracker, and Slavic folklore.

Fall in love with Hollywood while reading these romance novels about the film industry.

Joanna Gaines, Miranda Lambert, and Alison Roman are just some of the names topping the charts.

Two forthcoming natural history titles feature birds and best practices for humans to interact with them. 

The pleasures of reading and eating combine in cookbooks focused on baked goods, vegetables, and getting better, and faster, in the kitchen.

The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding announces a shortlist. The 2023 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes are announced. PW rounds up September’s book club picks. Books by Lauren Groff, Walter Isaacson, Oprah Winfrey, and Arthur C. Brooks continue to buzz. Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing sequel, Iron Flame, will arrive November 7.  Water for Elephants musical, based on the novel by Sara Gruen, will open on Broadway this spring. Plus, a new Agatha Christie memorial statue is unveiled on a bench in Wallingford.

Code Red by Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills leads holds this week. Titles by James Patterson, Jill Duggar, Lauren Groff, Jennifer L. Armentrout, and Mick Herron also get attention. Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk arrives with buzz. The National Book Foundation will honor Rita Dove with a medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and LitHub announces the shortlist for 2023 American Library in Paris Book Award. People’s book of the week is Chenneville by Paulette Jiles. Oprah Winfrey and Arthur C. Brooks discuss their new book, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. Plus, Stephen King’s novel Christine and its film adaptation turn 40.

The Ned Kelly Award winners, celebrating the best in Australian crime writing, have been named. The winners of the Davitt Awards, recognizing the best crime and mystery books by Australian women, are announced. The same effort that promotes book bans is spurring some libraries to leave the ALA over its defense of books. Edith Grossman, eminent translator of Spanish literature by Cervantes and Gabriel García Márquez, dies at 87. Journalist and author Peter C. Newman, who chronicled Canada’s power brokers, has died at 94.

Reese Witherspoon chooses Nina Simon’s Mother-Daughter Murder Night as her latest book club pick. The winners of this year’s Anthony Awards, for outstanding mystery books, are announced. Winners are also out for the 2023 Dragon Awards, for SFF novels. The longlist has been announced for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize, honoring the best Canadian novel, graphic novel, or short story collection. SFF novelist Rich Larson wins the 2023 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction.

Holly by Stephen King is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.

The Baillie Gifford Prize longlist is announced. The 2023 National Translation Awards longlist arrives, along with the 2023 Washington State Book Award nominees. Jenna Bush Hager picks Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood for her September book club. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Stephen King’s Holly. Author Carl Hiaasen pays tribute to Jimmy Buffet. Plus, WSJ reports that the FTC will file an antitrust suit against Amazon later this month.

Highly recommended for fans of contemporary romances with strong social justice and family themes.

This prequel to Legends & Lattes is the perfect place for readers to start Baldree’s cozy fantasy series where folks band together for good, and evil is conquered through cleverness and friendship.

Starred titles reviewed in our September 2023 print issue, spanning audio, mystery and suspense, SF/fantasy, romance, and more.

Holly by Stephen King leads holds this week. The shortlist for the 2023 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award is announced. Audiofile announces the September 2023 Earphones Award winners. People releases its fall must-read preview. September’s Costco Connection is out, featuring an interview with Swedish author Karin Smirnoff, who continues Lisbeth Salander’s story in The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons. ShelfAwareness reports on strike news from Powell’s Books. Plus, Ernest Hemingway’s letter detailing a plane crash that he survived has sold for $237,055 at auction.

Future shock, present turmoil.

Growing up, learning about oneself, aging gracefully.

In 1990 Congress officially passed a joint resolution signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, designating a National American Indian Heritage Month. Since 1994, this monthlong celebration, often referred to as Native American Heritage Month or National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month, has been observed during the month of November. With a mix of literary fiction, mystery, history, and even a cookbook, this booklist recognizes the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples and marks their cultures and accomplishments.

Life, love, moving on. 

Newcomers with clout. 

Memoir, history, and religious thought. 

Max Lucado is the recipient of the 2021 ECPA Pinnacle Award for his outstanding contribution to the publishing industry and society at large. He is America’s bestselling inspirational author with more than 145 million products in print. His latest book is God Never Gives Up On You: What Jacob’s Story Teaches Us About Grace, Mercy and God’s Relentless Love. 

Suggest this enjoyable caper with its well-developed characters to Lee Goldberg’s fans.