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A pair of bills making their way through the Connecticut state legislature both aim to set parameters on the licensing terms and contracts for ebooks and e-audiobooks that libraries will be able to accept from publishers and aggregators. The bills are the legislature’s most recent attempt to make publishers offer ebooks and e-audiobooks to the state’s libraries on more favorable terms.

The longlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is revealed. Oakland, CA, poet laureate Ayodele Nzinga receives a Rainin Arts Fellowship. Abrams ComicArts is launching a new adult-geared manga imprint, Kana. Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti will rerelease their BookTok-beloved self-published “Zodiac Academy” romantasy series under their new publishing company Dark Ink. Plus interviews with Robinne Lee and Salman Rushdie and new title best sellers.

PEN America announces two award winners: Javier Fuentes’s Countries of Origin for debut novel and The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer, tr. by Patty Crane, for poetry in translation. The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist is announced, featuring books by Anne Enright, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Kate Grenville, Isabella Hammad, Claire Kilroy, and Aube Rey. NYPL’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers selects its class of 2024–25 fellows. A climate fiction prize will launch at Hay Festival on June 2. The U.S. Senate passes the TikTok bill, setting up legal and First Amendment challenges. Plus, LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Funny Story by Emily Henry, the top holds title of the week. 

PEN America cancels its 2024 literary awards ceremony, originally set for April 29, due to controversy over its stance on the war in Gaza. The LA Times Book Prizes are announced. Yoko Ono is honored with the MacDowell Medal. The 2024 Age Book of the Year Award shortlists are announced. Actor Josh Brolin announces a new memoir, From Under the Truck, which arrives in November. Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley will star in the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. Plus, Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom will be adapted for film.

Shavonn Matsuda, head librarian at the University of Hawai‘i Maui College Library, was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her efforts to incorporate traditional Hawaiian languages and cultures into the academic library and cataloging system to guide Hawaiian scholars and community members more efficiently and robustly. LJ recently followed up with her to learn more about her work.

Many librarians lauded the development of Open Access (OA) publishing models, which offered, at least initially, to help solve the problem of an unsustainable and inequitable scholarly communications ecosystem while simultaneously addressing a growing interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In the past year, the idea that, with appropriate guardrails, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also play a role in changing scholarly communications has risen to the fore. But can OA, DEI, and AI ever live up to their promise of an affordable, equitable and sustainable publishing ecosystem?

Funny Story by Emily Henry leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Sally Hepworth, Elly Griffiths, Douglas Preston, and Nancy Thayer. People’s book of the week is Real Americans by Rachel Khong. Winners of the O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction are announced, as are the CWA Dagger longlists. Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians is headed to Broadway as a musical. And philosopher Daniel C. Dennett has died at the age of 82.

Fady Joudah, author of the collection […], wins the Jackson Poetry Prize for American poets. Winners of the Tolkien Society Awards are announced. Finalists are also announced for NYPL’s Young Lions Fiction Award and the Jhalak Awards. Nominees for the CrimeFest Awards are out. Actor Viola Davis and her husband are launching a publishing company to champion underrepresented voices. Facing criticism for its response to the war in Gaza, PEN announces plans to review the organization’s work going back a decade.

Winners are announced for the Publishing Triangle Awards for LGBTQIA+ books. Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia, tr. by Zoë Perry, wins the UK Republic of Consciousness Prize for small press books. The shortlist for the Donner Prize, recognizing the best public policy book by a Canadian, is announced. There’s more reporting on the turmoil surrounding the PEN Awards. Plus new title bestsellers and interviews with Marjane Satrapi and Emily Henry.

Rebecca Yarros will publish a stand-alone novel, Variation, in October. Kemi Ashing-Giwa wins the Compton Crook Award for The Splinter in the Sky. Oren Kessler wins the  Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist is announced. The May LibraryReads list arrives, featuring top pick The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci. Mick Herron’s Down Cemetery Road and Don Winslow’s City on Fire are slated for adaptations.

A new PEN America report out today, Banned In The USA: Narrating the Crisis, documents nearly 4,000 accounts of book banning in the first half of the current school year. Major publishers have joined Penguin Random House in supporting a suit challenging Iowa’s book ban. Finalists are announced for the  Gotham Book Prize, the Nova Scotia Book Awards, and the Atlantic Book Awards. Washington Post reports on the growing popularity of silent book clubs. Author Robin Cook has two new film/TV projects, including an adaptation of his forthcoming book Bellevue and a procedural featuring his iconic characters Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery.

A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by James Patterson and Candice Fox, Anthony Horowitz, Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke, and Sara Paretsky. People’s book of the week is My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me by Caleb Carr. Salman Rushdie speaks about the attack that almost took his life and writing his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. As Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns 50 this year, fans will re-create his famous motorcycle ride. Plus, NYT celebrates 100 years of Simon & Schuster.

The winners of the Oregon Book Award are announced, as are the shortlists for the Tolkien Society Awards for excellence in Tolkien scholarship and fandom. PBS News Hour reports on the librarians fighting attempts to ban books. Plus Page to Screen.

The Greater Columbus Convention Center’s exhibit halls were full of activity during this month’s Public Library Association (PLA) 2024 conference in Ohio. Here are a few of the topics LJ had the opportunity to discuss in person at the show, as well as other vendor announcements within recent weeks.

By all accounts the 2024 Public Library Association (PLA) conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, was a resounding success. The 7,573 participants—including 5,702 attendees, 1,518 exhibitors, and 353 virtual registrants—packed the show floor, programs, and speaker sessions with palpable enthusiasm.

At the 2024 Public Library Association (PLA) conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, presentations were notably targeted and useful. And, as a number bore out, those concerns overlap in many areas. 

The winners of the Whiting Award for emerging authors are announced. Also announced are the shortlists for the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards for British food writing and the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards, the longlists for the League of Canadian Poets Prizes, and the nominees for the Doug Wright Awards for best Canadian comics.

Michael Reynolds, editor-in-chief of Europa Editions, saw libraries and publishers as star-crossed lovers that have been kept far apart for as long as possible, finally meeting in one room in Columbus, OH, at IndieLib, a conference hosted by the Independent Publishers Caucus and the Digital Public Library of America on April 2.

The International Booker Prize shortlist and PEN America Literary Awards longlists are announced. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump will write a series of crime novels. How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin and Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra go head-to-head for a chance to be named the new Fallon Book Club pick. Earlyword’s April GalleyChat roundup arrives. Ina Garten previews her forthcoming memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Renée Zellweger will return as Bridget Jones in a new adaptation, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, based on the novels by Helen Fielding. 

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction shortlist and the Plutarch Award longlist are announced. Heinz Janisch and Sydney Smith win Hans Christian Andersen Awards. NYPL announces 21 winners of its national teen writing contest on the freedom to read. Interviews arrive with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Percival Everett, Lauren Wesley Wilson, and Anne Lamott. Dolores Redondo’s “Baztan” novel series will be adapted for television. And Raymond Pun is elected to the ALA presidency for 2025–2026.

It’s National Library Week, and ALA releases a list of the top 10 most challenged books of 2023, along with the “State of America’s Libraries Report 2024.” The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo leads holds this week. Also buzzing are books by John Sandford, Megan Miranda, Yulin Kuang, and Amanda Montell. People’s book of the week is Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles. James Patterson, The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading, and librarian Mychal Threets discuss book bans, bookstores, and libraries with USA Today. The Ondaatje Prize releases its 2024 longlist.

Academic librarians are helping both students and instructors navigate the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence.

The winners of the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards are announced. The shortlist is announced for the Stella Prize. Horror novel sales have boomed recently. BookTok-favorite romance novelist T L Swan launches a publishing venture. Plus a report from PLA.

Reese’s Book Club selects Claire Lombardo’s The Most Fun We Ever Had as its next read. Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah is the 2024 pick for the One eRead Canada book club. This year’s Independent Bookstore Day will be held on April 27. Fantasy novelist Sharon Green has died at age 79.

Claire Jiménez wins the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez. The Windham-Campbell Prizes are announced. Remembrances arrive for writer John Barth, who has died at age 93. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will publish a two-part memoir this fall, and Joan Baez will publish her first book of poetry later this month. LitHub reports on the fallout from the collapse of Small Press Publishing. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. 

Bethany Jacobs wins the Philip K. Dick Award for These Burning Stars. The Chesley Award winners are announced, as are Audiofile’s April 2024 Earphones Award winners. April book club picks include The Husbands by Holly Gramazio (Read with Jenna), Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez (GMA), and I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (B&N). Don Winslow discusses his new novel, City in Ruins, and why it will be his final book. TV adaptations are on the way for Alexandra Tanner’s Worry, and Liza Palmer’s Family Reservations.

Library entertainment platforms offering movies and TV shows gain on commercial streaming services as consumers balk at subscription costs. With “subscription fatigue” on the rise, libraries are seeing a growing popularity in streaming services—and deciding how best to provide them.

It’s April, which means that in addition to celebrating spring’s arrival, I’ll be joining libraries across the nation in celebrating National Library Week.

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Amor Towles, Mary Kubica, Brandon Sanderson, and Sarah Adams. Seven LibraryReads and nine Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan. The Hugo, Astounding, and Lodestar Awards finalists are announced. Plus, Washington Post explores how new mysteries featuring autistic women challenge old stereotypes.

The Publishing Triangle announces the finalists for its annual awards. Sabrin Hasbun’s forthcoming memoir Wait for Her: A Family Memoir Between Italy and Palestine wins the Footnote x Counterpoints Writing Prize for writers from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Librarian and LJ reviewer Marlene Harris and LibraryReads win RUSA’s CODES Louis Shores Awards. EarlyWord publishes a round-up of the March 7 GalleyChat. Plus, Page to Screen.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has announced the appointment of Deputy Director for Library Services Cyndee Landrum as Acting Director, effective March 21, following the conclusion of former Director Crosby Kemper’s four-year term. Landrum will lead the agency until a new director is nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. LJ caught up with her to hear her take on her past four and a half years at the agency, and what her new role will entail.

The finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards and the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction are announced. Fantasy novelist James A. Moore has died at age 58, and Kate Banks, a children’s author who wrote about grief, has died at 64.

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners are announced, including books by Ned Blackhawk, Teju Cole, and Monica Youn, plus a lifetime achievement award for Maxine Hong Kingston. Paul Yoon wins the Story Prize for The Hive and the Honey. Shortlists for the Dublin Literary Award, James Tait Black Prizes, Australian Book Industry Awards, and Dinesh Allirajah Prize are announced. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline. Cynthia Erivo will narrate the audiobook of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Anguish and Anarchy. Hoopla launches a new BingePass featuring TV content from UK gardening icon Monty Don.

Library development deserves to be on par with university and hospital fundraising. Yet many libraries find this work difficult, and few resources exist in the sector to support the professional development needed to be successful. But this is starting to change thanks to the Library Support Network.

The Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist and the SERAPH winners are announced. Jimmy Fallon announces the return of his book club, with bracket-style voting. Apple TV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me will get a second season, based on a forthcoming sequel novel by Laura Dave, due out in 2025. Cillian Murphy will star in a film adaptation of Mark A Bradley’s Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America. And sci-fi author Vernor Vinge has died at the age of 79.

It sounds like a story from Jack London or Jon Krakauer: In 1966, two men traveled down the Yukon River in Alaska by canoe to recover papers from abandoned cabins. Paul McCarthy and H. Theodore “Ted” Ryberg were concerned that the generation of former gold miners who came to Alaska in the late 19th century were dying off, and they wanted to preserve that piece of Alaska history. Those explorations would prove pivotal to the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives formally founded by McCarthy in 1965 at the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Kristen Perrin, Jonathan Haid, Heather Gudenkauf, and Dervla McTiernan. Six LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week. Svetlana Sterlin wins the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award. At NYT, Margaret Atwood explains the enduring appeal of Stephen King’s Carrie as it turns 50. And Babar heir and author Laurent de Brunhoff has died at the age of 98.

The National Book Critics Circle Award winners are announced. Daniel Finkelstein wins the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize for Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival. Chris Newens’s Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Meals wins the Jane Grigson Trust Award for New Food and Drink Writers. Dreamscape’s audiobook program expands its ambit. Plus, Page to Screen.

Baker & Taylor and Library Ideas have announced an exclusive partnership that will see Baker & Taylor distributing Library Ideas’ VOX and IR [Immersive Reality] Books to libraries and schools. VOX Books are hardcover print fiction, nonfiction, and picture books with permanently attached VOX Readers that transform the titles into all-in-one read-along audiobooks. IR Books are hardcover nonfiction print books featuring virtual reality and augmented reality elements.

The Horror Writers Association announces its Summer Scares reading list, including Jackal by Erin E. Adams, Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, and This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno. Ebru Ojen’s Lojman wins the Republic of Consciousness Prize for independent-press books. Ajibola Tolase wins the Cave Canem Prize fellowship for Black poets. The shortlist for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the longlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize are announced. Primatologist and best-selling author Frans de Waal has died at 75. 

The National Book Foundation announces its 2024 5 Under 35 Honorees: Antonia Angress, Maya Binyam, Zain Khalid, Tyriek White, and Jenny Tinghui Zhang. Jonathan Eig wins the New-York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize for King: A Life. Tom Crewe, The New Life, wins the Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle. Mary L. Trump will publish Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir. Karin Slaughter will adapt and executive-produce The Good Daughter for a Peacock series starring Jessica Biel.

On Saturday, March 16, a standing-room-only crowd—especially notable for one of the first warm days of spring and the day of New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade—packed into Queens Public Library's (QPL) Queensbridge Tech Lab, a makerspace in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. Drawing them to the space was the Queens Name Explorer Edit-a-Thon, hosted by QPL’s Memory Project, Wikimedia NYC, OpenStreetMap US, and Urban Archive.

Libraries are incorporating collaboration, creativity, and a steadfast commitment to create accessible and inclusive spaces. Also, LJ looks at EBSCO's academic ebook accessibility findings.

The J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Award winners are announced, with Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America winning the Mark Lynton History Prize and Dashka Slater’s Accountable winning the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the first young adult book to achieve the honor. Finalists for the ITW Thriller Awards, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and the Publishing Triangle Awards are announced. ALA president Emily Drabinski will receive the Torchbearer Award. Interviews arrive with Percival Everett, Natasha S. Alford, Rahiel Tesfamariam, Zibby Owens, Holly Black, and Téa Obreht. LJ’s Galley Guide for PLA 2024 is available now.

People’s book of the week, Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle, leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by James Patterson and Nancy Allen, Percival Everett, Chris Bohjalian, and Steve Cavanagh. The 2024 Future Worlds Prize shortlist is announced. The April LibraryReads list arrives, featuring top pick The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. People highlights Dua Lipa’s book club. Christine Blasey Ford discusses her new memoir, One Way Back. Plus, author Jo Nesbø will adapt his Harry Hole series for Netflix.

On March 14, the American Library Association (ALA) released its most recent book challenge data for 2023. According to ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF), which tracks challenges and acts of censorship in public schools and libraries across the United States, the number of targeted titles rose 65 percent from 2022—once again, the highest levels ever documented by ALA. In public libraries, numbers increased 92 percent over the previous year; school libraries saw an 11 percent increase. Challenged titles featuring the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47 percent of those targeted in censorship attempts.

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is named the Nero Gold Prize Book of the Year. The shortlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the longlist for Jhalak Prize for British writers of color, and the longlist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction are announced. PEN International is among signatories of a joint statement on freedom of expression and the freedoms to read and publish. Zando has launched a romance imprint called Slowburn. Dan Wakefield, “multifaceted writer on a spiritual journey,” has died at 91.

The winners of the Writers’ Prize are announced: Book of the Year The Home Child by Liz Berry, The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright, and Thunderclap: A Memoir of Life and Art and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming. Elizabeth McCracken wins the Wingate Literary Prize for The Hero of this Book. The finalists are announced for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards for small-press books. Tanith Lee is the recipient of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s Infinity Award, a posthumous lifetime achievement award. The Atlantic launches “The Great American Novels” project. Book ban efforts continued to surge last year, reaching the highest levels ever recorded by the American Library Association.

The Inaugural Libby Award winners are announced, as are the Edgar Award finalists. The 2024 Tournament of Books opening round is underway. The 2024 LA Times Festival of Books kicks off on April 20. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner. Tennis star Björn Borg will publish a memoir in 2025. Plus, interviews arrive with Debbie Urbanski, Zefyr Lisowski, Cameron Russell, Emmeline Clein, Mark Kurlansky, Roxane Gay, Tommy Orange, and Tamron Hall.

Large library gatherings usually share city space with at least one other special interest group—who could forget the young dancers shivering in their spangled leotards during January’s LibLearnX Conference in sub-zero Baltimore? This year, those attending the Public Library Association (PLA) biennial conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, will be overlapping with a crowd of umbraphiles—eclipse chasers—getting a jump on the first visible total solar eclipse in the United States since 2017, occurring April 8. Columbus lies just south of the path of totality.

The literary NAACP Image Awards are announced, ahead of the televised awards show on March 16. The International Booker Prize 2024 longlist is announced. Kylie Needham wins the 2024 MUD Literary Prize. Al Pacino will release his memoir, Sonny Boy, in October. Zando launches the new romance imprint Slowburn. ALA Cancels LibLearnX 2026. Author and actor Malachy McCourt dies at 92.

Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are new titles by Lynn Painter, Scarlett St. Clair, Deanna Raybourn, and Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, wins the 2024 BIO Award. Oppenheimer and Poor Things, both based on books, win big at the Academy Awards. People’s book of the week is Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman. The April Indie Next List is out, featuring #1 pick James by Percival Everett.

Catherine Leroux’s The Future is selected as the 2024 Canada Reads book. Kathryn Scanlan wins the Gordon Burn Prize for Kick the Latch. Shortlists are announced for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the British Book Awards 2024 Book of the Year, and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The longlist is announced for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Akira Toriyama, creator of manga including the “Dragon Ball” series, dies at 68.

In the past two years of semi-occupation and warfare, public libraries in Ukraine have established themselves as actors in state defense. Among the first institutions to reopen after the war began, libraries continue to operate despite a shortage of funds and staff, and in the areas close to the front line, continuing shelling.

UPDATE: The ALA-SLI National Climate Action Strategy Working Group will hold an open forum to introduce a draft Climate Action Strategy for Libraries to ALA members, and to solicit feedback from the field, on Thursday, March 14. All library workers and trustees are invited.

The American Library Association and the Sustainable Libraries Initiative have teamed up to create a National Climate Action Strategy for Libraries to be released later this year. Both organizations have been working to raise awareness in the profession for the need to act with urgency to create communities of practice that can help library workers understand the issue and that can provide the practical approaches to manage the predicted impacts and systemic nature of climate change.

Reese’s Book Club picks Xochitl Gonzalez’s Anita de Monte Laughs Last as its next read. The winners of the Bancroft Prize for history books are announced: Elliott West’s Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion and Carolyn Woods Eisenberg’s Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast Asia. Julian Jackson wins the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain. Baen Books has announced the finalists for the 2024 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. 

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist is announced. Tom Doherty, founder of Tor Books, wins the Robert A. Heinlein Award. Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera is the new GMA book club pick. Liza Mundy’s The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA will get a series adaptation. A Gentleman in Moscow, based on the novel by Amor Towles, gets a trailer. Plus, Haruki Murakami’s first book in six years, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, will arrive in November.

Ry Moran, associate university librarian for reconciliation at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for his work bringing the university’s reconciliation department to fruition and developing a podcast called Taapwaywin, which means “truth” or “speaking truthfully” in Michif, a language of the Métis people. LJ recently touched base with Moran to learn more about his work with truth and reconciliation, and how the podcast is going.

To help break down the relevant library issues in this election year, LJ convened a roundtable of experts including John Chrastka of EveryLibrary; Nick Grove of Meridian Library District, ID; Jason Kucsma of Toledo Lucas County Public Library, OH; and Representative Ashley Hudson from the Arkansas House of Representatives. They covered everything from voter engagement strategies for libraries on the ballot to book ban advocacy in challenging districts to engaging the electorate in an important presidential election year.

The Audie Award winners are announced, with Surrender, written and narrated by Bono, winning Audiobook of the Year. The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses announces its 2024 shortlist. RuPaul starts a new online book marketplace and book club and sends the Rainbow Book Bus to deliver banned books. A new publisher, Authors Equity, backed by former Penguin Random House U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh and others, launches with a profit-sharing financial model. Plus, Chicago Tribune calls Percival Everett’s new book, James, “a masterpiece.”

In January 2020, Crosby Kemper III stepped into a four-year term as director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). At the time, one of the main concerns at IMLS was then-President Donald Trump’s repeated efforts to zero out the agency’s budget; less than two months later, libraries across the country would shut down for COVID-19 safety precautions, and, soon after they began to reopen, a surge of intellectual freedom challenges would escalate. Kemper’s term ends on March 8; LJ caught up with him to hear his take on the past four years and find out what’s next.

As the 2024 election year heats up, positive framing will be increasingly important for libraries. I’m certainly guilty of falling into a “doom loop” of negativity when I think about what the future might hold for libraries—or even democracy itself. But we cannot be our smartest, most strategic selves if we focus only on negating anti-library rhetoric. We need to advance a positive pro-library narrative—one that is grounded in the history of our good work—to unite us as advocates and connect with voters across the spectrum.

The Hunter by Tana French leads holds this week. Also getting attention are titles by Lisa Unger, Elle Cosimano, Danielle Steel, and Holly Black. Jenna Bush Hager picks two books for her March book club: The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The Stella Prize longlist is announced. Nine LibraryReads and 11 Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris is being adapted for film.

Shortlists are announced for the J. Anthony Lukas Prizes, which honor the best in American nonfiction writing. Lucinda Riley has been posthumously awarded publisher Pan’s Golden Pan award. Lily Tuzroyluke, author of the novel Sivulliq: Ancestor, is USA Today’s Woman of the Year honoree from Alaska. The UK is seeing new interest in book clubs from Gen Z readers. Hachette’s parent company outlines plans to cut costs in the publishing division. Plus page to screen.

The third edition of Lee & Low Books’ quadrennial “Diversity Baseline Survey” found that the publishing industry has made incremental progress in broadening its workforce. AudioFile shares the best audiobooks of February. British poet and novelist Alan Brownjohn has died at age 92. Plus new title best sellers.

West Virginia legislators recently advanced a bill that would remove criminal liability protections for public library, museum, or school employees accused of displaying “obscene matter to a minor." Under House Bill 4654, which passed the West Virginia House of Delegates on February 16, in an 85–12 vote mostly along party lines, any adult who knowingly and intentionally displays obscene matter to a minor could be charged with a felony, fined up to $25,000, and face up to five years in prison if convicted.

The New York Public Library has announced finalists for the 37th annual Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association names F.J. Bergmann the 2024 Grand Master. The Barry Award nominations are announced. Savannah Guthrie speaks out as her new book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, is targeted in online workbook scam. Anna Quindlen’s After Annie is the new B&N book club pick for March. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Three-Inch Teeth by C.J. Box. Atria launches Primero Sueño, a new bilingual imprint. Plus, Merriam-Webster gives the OK to end a sentence with a preposition.

Oprah’s next book club selection is The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing by Lara Love Hardin. Debra Magpie Earling wins the Montana Book Award for The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. CBC previews this year’s Canada Reads, which kicks off March 4. NYT calls Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars “a towering achievement.” Kara Swisher’s Burn Book: A Tech Love Story gets buzz. An uncorrected proof copy of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sells for £11,000 at auction.

Voting for the American Library Association (ALA) 2025–26 presidential campaign opens March 11, and ALA members in good standing can cast their ballots through April 3. LJ invited candidates Sam Helmick, community and access services coordinator at Iowa City Public Library; and Ray Pun, academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education, Redwood City, CA, to weigh in on some key issues.

C.J. Box’s latest Joe Picket book, Three-Inch Teeth, tops holds this week. Three LibraryReads and seven Indie Next picks publish this week, including People's book of the week, After Annie by Anna Quindlen. The 2023 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer Award shortlist is out, and the 2024 Prix Bob Morane finalists are announced. Oppenheimer, based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird, continues its awards streak, winning the Darryl F. Zanuck Award.

The final ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards is announced. The winners of England’s PEN Translates Awards, for books in translation, are announced. Interviews arrive with Jared Cohen, John Keene, Sigrid Nunez, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. Plus Page to Screen.

Unite Against Book Bans—the national initiative launched by the American Library Association (ALA) in 2022 to help readers, libraries, publishers, and other institutions in the fight against censorship—this week launched a free collection of book résumés “to support librarians, educators, parents, students, and other community advocates in their efforts to keep frequently challenged books on shelves.” Separately, OverDrive subsidiary TeachingBooks last month announced the launch of a new Book Résumés Toolkit at ALA’s LibLearnX conference in Baltimore.

The finalists for the inaugural Libby Book Awards (sponsored by the library app) are announced; the winners will be voted on by library workers. The longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is announced. U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón is among Time’s 2024 Women of the Year. CBC reports that calls to ban books are on the rise in Canada.

Finalists for the 44th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are announced; Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jane Smiley will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Claire Dederer will receive the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose for Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. In September, Richard Osman will publish We Solve Murders, the first novel in a new crime series. Actress Jenny Slate’s new essay collection, Life Form, arrives in October, and Tony Award–winning actress Kelly Bishop will publish a memoir, The Third Gilmore Girl, in September. Plus, LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for End of Story by A.J. Finn.

End of Story by A.J. Finn leads holds this week. Washington Post reviews and charts the twisty circumstances preceding its publication. Also getting significant holds are titles by Mark Greaney, B.A. Paris, Steve Berry, and Charles Duhigg. Two LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison. The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction announces its longlist. Savannah Guthrie talks about her new book, Mostly What God Does, and Gisele Bündchen will publish a cookbook in March. Plus, The Atlantic will unveil a major initiative that “attempts to establish a new American literary canon,” at this year’s New Orleans Book Festival.

When politics come for literacy, how do libraries ensure it’s the kids who win? Public libraries have a critical role to play.

A Georgia senate bill aimed at detaching the state from the American Library Association (ALA) could send ripples throughout Georgia’s public library system and the state university that trains librarians. Senate Bill 390 would put a firewall between Georgia libraries and ALA. Effective on July 1, 2025 if enacted, it would remove ALA as an accrediting organization within the state and would ban ALA and its affiliates from receiving taxpayer—and even privately donated—funds for the association’s materials, services, or operations.

The winners of the AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books and the Southern Book Prize are announced. Margaret Atwood wins the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference Writer in the World Prize. CBC explores how social media is influencing the romance genre. Bloomsbury is reporting revenue that exceeds expectations, driven by fantasy novels. Leaked emails reveal 2023 Hugo Awards ineligibility details. Plus new title best sellers.

Since its founding in 1984, the University of Mississippi’s Blues Archive has collected virtually everything related to the Blues, from sheet music, concert tickets, and recordings to record label business files and even clothing. Thanks to a website revamp and a multiyear grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize materials, this year the archive is starting its 40th anniversary in style.

Shortlists for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction are announced. Sally Kim is named president and publisher of Little, Brown. The Writing Freedom Fellowship announces inaugural fellows. Earlyword’s February GalleyChat roundup is out now. The February Loanstars list is out, featuring top pick The Women by Kristin Hannah. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Tessa Bailey’s Fangirl Down. Lucy Sante’s new memoir gets buzz and reviews. Booklists arrive for Valentine’s Day.

The Compton Crook Award finalists are named. Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman win the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (a.k.a. the Skylark Award). Publishers Weekly reports from Winter Institute 2024. What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life by Billy Dee Williams gathers buzz. Kelly Link discusses her new novel, The Book of Love. Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is being adapted as an animated TV series.

Most library measures passed in 2023, but the year also saw confusingly worded ballots and little new funding.

On January 30, in response to pressure from Gov. Kay Ivey, the Alabama Public Library Service—the agency that advises and administers funds to the state’s 220 public libraries—announced its official decision not to renew its membership with the American Library Association (ALA). But advocates are urged to look beyond the controversy over ALA to the larger issues in play, notably the growing influence that the state’s elected officials have on library freedoms.

The Kansas City Public Library (KCPL) and San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) last Thursday announced that they would team up on a Tackle Censorship campaign with a friendly wager on the game. As a result of Kansas City's 25–22 win last night, a library representative from SFPL will wear Kansas City gear and post a recording of themselves reading from a banned book on the library’s social media channels.

Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by James Patterson and James O. Born, Susan Mallery, Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Nine LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is The Book of Love by Kelly Link, which NYT calls “profoundly beautiful.” Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians, based on the books by Rick Riordan, will return for a second season.

Budgets grew across all areas in 2023, and while it’s too early to predict what those gains bode, the upward trend is largely encouraging.

Susan Cooper wins the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. EmpathyLab has unveiled its 2024 Read for Empathy book collection. Spotify is introducing more listeners to audiobooks. Purpose-Led Publishing is a new coalition of nonprofit physics-society publishers in the U.S. and the UK that will put all of its revenues back into research. Arcadia Publishing acquires Belt Publishing.

The Society of Authors Translation Prize winners and the UK’s Parliamentary Book Award winners are announced. The longlist is announced for the Plutarch Award for biographies. Novelist and Royal Society of Literature president Bernardine Evaristo defends the organization against recent criticism of its modernization efforts. Plus new title best sellers.

On January 22, the Library of Congress (LOC) announced the launch of the COVID-19 Archive Activation website, an online tool created in collaboration with national oral history nonprofit StoryCorps, which will allow members of the public to submit audio accounts of their pandemic experience. Anyone wishing to share their story or interview others can take part. These oral histories will become part of LOC’s American Folklife Center collections and be made accessible at archive.StoryCorps.org.

The PEN/Faulkner Award longlist arrives and includes novels by James McBride, Alice McDermott, and Jamel Brinkley. WNBA player Brittney Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, will be published May 7 by Knopf. Author Saul Bellow is honored with a postal stamp. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for The Women by Kristin Hannah.  Memoirs by filmmaker Ed Zwick and HGTV star Tarek El Moussa get buzz. B&N offers up a list of song-to-book pairings for Taylor Swift’s Midnights.

Soho Press launches a new horror imprint, Hell’s Hundred. Emma Heming Willis, wife of actor Bruce Willis, will publish a caregiving book in 2025. A new posthumous picture book from Maurice Sendak is published. Sabrina McCarthy is named president of Bloomsbury US. Interviews arrive with Roger Rapoport, Lisa Olstein, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Sheila Heti, Michele Norris, and Kaveh Akbar. USA Today features Pulitzer Prize winner Connie Schultz’s new picture book with cross-generational appeal, Lola and the Troll. And CBC Radio’s Unreserved reflects on 10 years of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.

I’ve been worried about library visits for a while now, but my concerns have largely focused on the effect fewer visits will have on the future of libraries. What I learned is that I had it backwards. Yes, there’s a danger to libraries when fewer people use them; but the bigger threat in decreased library use is to the community itself.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency in May 2023, many libraries reported a transition back to what felt like pre-pandemic days, with children joyfully attending story times and crowds reconvening to hear their favorite authors. Yet, just as we breathed a collective sigh of relief at the formal end of one emergency, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new advisory warning of a pernicious health risk: loneliness.

Kristin Hannah’s The Women leads holds this week and is also People’s book of the week. Other buzzy books include titles by Ali Hazelwood, Freida McFadden, and Jonathan Kellerman. Michelle Obama wins the Grammy for best spoken word album, for the narration of her book, The Light We Carry, and J. Ivy’s The Light Inside wins for best spoken word poetry album. Audiofile announces the February 2024 Earphones Award winners. The March Indie Next preview is out, featuring #1 pick Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. B&N’s book club selects Dolly Alderton’s Good Material for February, and GMA picks Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It.

Hachette’s parent company, Vivendi, will put the publisher on the stock market. Tieshena Davis is elected board chair of the Independent Book Publishers Association; she will be the first person of color to lead the board. In Germany, a nationwide reading competition offers evidence that parents will read more if their children ask to read together. European publishers call on EU committee to approve AI act. National Book Foundation Announces its spring events. Lawrence Langer, “Unblinking Scholar of Holocaust Literature,” dies at 94.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was a hot topic at this year’s American Library Association LibLearnX conference in Baltimore, January 19–22, with multiple presentations, panels, and workshops covering the technology and its impact on libraries and the people they serve, touching on both AI’s potential and its current flaws.

The Collaborative Institute for Rural Communities Librarianship (CIRCL), Gigabit Libraries Network, and 14 state libraries announce the launch of the State Libraries and AI Technologies (SLAAIT) Working Group, 

Rhiannon Sorrell, assistant professor and instruction and digital services librarian at the Kinyaa’áanii Charlie Benally Library at Diné College in Arizona, was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her work preserving and digitizing Native films and storyteller narration. We recently spoke with Rhiannon to find out more about what she’s working on.

The shortlists are announced for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing and the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. The longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize is released. The owner of the Hugo Awards trademark has censured the administrators of the 2023 Chengdu Hugos and announced several resignations. Anne Edwards, the “Queen of Biography,” has died at 96. Horror writer Brian Lumley has died at 86. Plus new title best sellers.

Finalists for the 2024 Audie Awards are announced. Good Material by Dolly Alderton is February’s Read with Jenna pick. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas. Interviews arrive with Kiley Reid, Dolly Alderton, Emily Nagoski, Sarah Ditum, Alexander Sammartino, and Amina Akhtar. Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places will be adapted as a limited series at HBO. And remembrances pour in for Broadway legend and author Chita Rivera, who died at the age of 91.