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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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting and Fern Brady’s Strong Female Character win inaugural Nero Book Awards. James McBride wins Association of Jewish Libraries Jewish Fiction Award for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. The International Dylan Thomas Prize longlist is announced. NYT explores Spotify’s foray into the audiobook market. RBMedia acquires Berrett-Koehler’s audiobook publishing business. Pulitzer-winning Indigenous novelist N. Scott Momaday has died at the age of 89.

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas leads holds this week. Four LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Come and Get It by Kiley Reid, which garners buzz and reviews. The CALIBA Golden Poppy Awards are announced. Scotland’s Highland Book Prize shortlist is announced. Whoopi Goldberg announces a new memoir, due out in May.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards finalists and the nominees for the NAACP Image Awards are announced. Mimi Khalvati is awarded Britain’s King’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Bernie McGill wins the Edge Hill Short Story Prize for her collection This Train Is For. The Bookseller reports that BookTok has remained a key driver of fiction sales.

British graphic novelist Posy Simmonds wins the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. The shortlist for the Gordon Burn Prize is announced. The longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers, aged 39 or under, is released. Plus, new title best sellers.

The Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot is announced, as are the 2024 United States Artists Writing Fellows. Dan Hogan wins the Australian Book Review Peter Porter Poetry Prize. The Hugo Awards court controversy again. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Random in Death by J.D. Robb. Interviews arrive with Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Venita Blackburn, Robert Downey Jr., and Crystal Hefner.

The Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award has been awarded to Lynda La Plante and James Lee Burke, who will share the honors. The Nielsen BookData Bestseller Awards are announced, as are the ALA 2024 Youth Media Awards. Interviews arrive with David Grann, Brad Stulberg, Alex Michaelides, Kaveh Akbar, Olivie Blake, Common, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, Jeanne Mackin, and Uché Blackstock. Plus, the 2024 Oscar nominations are announced.

The 2024 RUSA Book and Media Awards are announced, including the Notable Books List, Reading List, Listen List, Essential Cookbooks, Dartmouth Medal, and Outstanding References Sources List. James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store wins the Sophie Brody Medal. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters and We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian win the Andrew Carnegie Medal. Random in Death by J.D. Robb leads holds this week. People’s book of the week is Muse: Cicely Tyson and Me; A Relationship Forged in Fashion by B Michael.

The longlist for the Dublin Literary Award is announced. Margaret Atwood is named commander in French Order of Arts and Letters. Scotiabank Giller Prize to feature 2023 longlisted writers in an online book club. Poet and memoirist Brian Brett has died at 73. Plus Page to Screen.

David Baldacci has been named the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. The 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations are out. The shortlist is announced for the Wingate Literary Prize. A Texas law requiring books to be rated for sexual content has been blocked by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Association of American Publishers announces its support for Fairly Trained, a nonprofit that certifies generative AI providers for training without copyright infringement.

A new musical based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby opens on Broadway in March. The 2024 Indie Book Awards shortlists are announced. Canada Reads names this year’s contenders. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for The Fury by Alex Michaelides. And the internet asks: “Who is Elly Conway?”

The Fury by Alex Michaelides leads holds this week. Jason Allen-Paisant’s poetry collection Self-Portrait as Othello wins the T.S. Eliot Prize. February’s LibraryReads features top pick A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen. People’s book of the week is Where You End by Abbott Kahler. Earlyword’s January GalleyChat roundup is out now. Riley Keough will finish her late mother Lisa Marie Presley’s untitled memoir. Plus, Judy Blume will receive the inaugural Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award for Bravery in Literature.

Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine are named 2024 Grand Masters by the Mystery Writers of America. Belly Woman: Birth, Blood & Ebola—The Untold Story by Benjamin Black wins the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. The audiobook of Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths wins the Listening Books Members’ Choice Award. New best sellers arrive. Sci-fi novelist Terry Bisson has died at age 81. 

The 2024 Philip K. Dick Award nominees are announced, along with the finalists for the Story Prize. Bobby Finger wins Crook’s Corner Book Prize for The Old Place. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins.  Keanu Reeves is collaborating with author China Miéville on a new novel, due out in July. Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, based on the novel by Cixin Liu, gets a new trailer. And a Florida county school district bans the dictionary, among 1,600 other titles.

PBS Books has launched the national PBS Reader’s Club, featuring inaugural pick Horse by Geraldine Brooks. The Writers’ Prize, formerly known as the Rathbones Folio Prize, announces its shortlist, including titles by Zadie Smith and Paul Murray. Jeremy McCarter is named literary executor of playright Thornton Wilder’s estate. The publication of Salman Rushdie‘s forthcoming Knife postpones the trial of Rushdie’s alleged attacker. Plus, Ann Patchett booktalks her two freshly banned titles, while Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One franchise heads to the metaverse.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins leads holds this week. Audiofile announces the January 2024 Earphones Award Winners. The Silvers-Dudley Prize winners are announced. January book club picks arrive, along with The Millions' Great Winter 2024 Preview. People’s book of the week is Invisible Woman by Katia Lief. February’s Indie Next List Preview features #1 pick Bride by Ali Hazelwood. Literary adaptations took home honors at a revamped Golden Globes. Oprah options the rights to Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water. Plus, the Los Angeles Public Library gets into book publishing with the acquisition of Angel City Press.

CBC releases its lists of the best Canadian nonfiction and the best Canadian fiction of 2023. Washington Post book review editors share the books they treasured in 2023. Esquire publishes its list of the best horror novels of 2023. Arabic translator Cara Piraino has won the Emerging Translator Prize 2023. NPR reports on a new Illinois anti-book-ban law that would withhold funding from libraries that remove books because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

The longlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction is announced. Tor.com releases its Reviewers’ Choice list of the best books of 2023. Vanity Fair shares its 20 favorite books of 2023. The Millions publishes more of its annual Year in Reading series. CrimeReads selects the best espionage novels of 2023. Poets&Writers publishes its “Nineteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets.” Plus new title best sellers.

Del Rey announced it will no longer publish Cait Corrain’s debut, Crown of Starlight, as the author admits to review-bombing on Goodreads. The Canada Reads 2024 longlist is announced. The UK’s Nero Book Awards shortlists are announced. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Brynne Weaver’s Butcher & Blackbird. Penguin Random House acquires Hay House. Plus, author Lauren Groff will add “bookseller” to her resume in 2024.

Adaptations feature prominently in this year’s Golden Globes nominees. Jennifer Finney Boylan is elected president of PEN America. Judy Clain will join Simon & Schuster to relaunch Summit Books. Earlyword’s December GalleyChat spreadsheet is out. Amy Adams will star in and executive produce the adaptation of Graham Moore’s The Holdout series.

Butcher & Blackbird, Brynne Weaver’s first book in “The Ruinous Love Trilogy,” leads holds this week. People’s book of the week is Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen. Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting wins the An Post Irish Book of the Year. The 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards are announced. 

Time lists the 10 best nonfiction books of the year. Vulture highlights the best comedy books of 2023. NYT profiles Nobel Prize-winning author Jon Fosse. Andy Cohen relaunches a new book imprint with Crown. Poet Benjamin Zephaniah has died at the age of 65. Plus, page to screen.

Simon & Schuster announces a new board of directors. More Best of the Year lists arrive, including crime novels and memoirs. The Penguin Random House Winter Book & Author Festival 2023 is today. A California book club finishes Finnegans Wake 28 years after it starts. Megan Follows directs an all-star Canadian cast in a new audio edition of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Influential writer, director, and producer Norman Lear dies at 101. Plus, new title bestsellers.

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.

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.

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.

NYT selects the 10 Best Books of 2023. Ed Yong wins the Royal Society Science Book Prize for An Immense World. Robbie Arnott wins the Voss Literary Prize for his novel Limberlost. NPR’s Morning Edition reports on how some groups are hoping to change how selection is handled in public libraries. Interviews arrive with Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, Nita Prose, Sam Wasson, Maru Ayase, Kenneth Womack, and more. Anon Pls. by Deuxmoi will be adapted for TV. Plus, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

Paul Lynch wins the Booker Prize for Prophet Song. The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose leads holds this week. Jenna Bush Hager picks We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein (also People’s book of the week) for her book club. Two LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. NPR releases Books We Love, NYPL publishes its Best Books of 2023, and NYT announces its 100 notable books of 2023. Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying turns 50. Plus, a new documentary, The ABCs Of Book Banning, explores the impact of book bans in Florida public schools.

John Vaillant wins the Baillie Gifford Prize for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World. Kim Stanley Robinson wins the Hans Carl von Carlowitz Sustainability Award for The Ministry for the Future. The winners of the National Outdoor Book Awards are announced. Waterstones shares its books of the year for Scotland and Wales; Blackwell’s also announces its books of the year. The shortlist for the CBC Poetry Prize is released. Washington Post and Book Riot name their best books of 2023.

The winners of the National Book Award are announced: Justin Torres’s Blackouts, Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, Craig Santos Perez’s from unincorporated territory [åmot], and Stênio Gardel’s The Words That Remain, tr. by Bruna Dantas Lobato. Halik Kochanski wins the Wolfson History Prize for Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939–1945. Kirkus lists its best fiction of 2023. Washington Post shares more picks for the best books of 2023. Plus new title best sellers.

Sarah Bernstein wins the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel Study for Obedience. ALA unveils the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals finalists. Two sponsors have withdrawn ahead of tonight’s National Book Award ceremony, due to planned author statements over the Israel-Hamas war. Amazon selects its best books of 2023, including #1 pick The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Time reveals its 100 must-read books of 2023. Plus, Publishers Weekly reports on Hachette’s “major and largely unprecedented” restructuring.

James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is named the 2023 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. B&N’s Author of the Year is David Grann. The Edge by David Baldacci leads holds this week; titles by Martha Wells, Mitch Albom, Michael Cunningham, and Jonathan Karl are also in demand. Six LibraryReads and six Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan. Plus, the singer Pink announces she will distribute banned books at her Florida concerts.

Benjamin Myers wins the Goldsmiths Prize for his novel Cuddy. Mosab Abu Toha wins the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry for Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Tania Branigan wins the Cundill History Prize for Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution. The winners of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards are announced. The longlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize for issue-driven fiction is also announced. Librarians are filing workplace discrimination claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to oppose book bans and their firings.

The Pacific Northwest Book Awards shortlist is announced, along with shortlists for the Nature Writing Prize, the Foyles Books of the Year, and the DRF Writers Award. Luis Mateo Díez wins Cervantes Prize. Earlyword’s November GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, while Time explores how Rebecca Yarros’s novels became a “romantasy Booktok phenomenon.” Plus, Shakespeare’s Folio turns 400.

Jean-Baptiste Andrea wins France’s Prix Goncourt for his novel Watching Over Her. Finalists for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year are announced. The 2022 Endeavour Award shortlist is announced. Barbra Streisand’s memoir, My Name Is Barbra, gets reviews and buzz. Interviews arrive with Stephanie Land, Shannon Sanders, Philip Norman, and Sigrid Nunez. Entertainment Weekly shares an excerpt from Stephen King’s forthcoming story collection, You Like It Darker, due out in May. And Wall Street Journal stops publishing its best seller lists.

Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing sequel, Iron Flame, leads holds this week. NYT profiles Yarros and her best-selling series. Michael Connelly’s Resurrection Walk and Barbra Streisand’s long-awaited memoir, My Name Is Barbra, also buzz. Nine LibraryReads and nine Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Above the Salt by Katherine Vaz. Audiofile announces the November 2023 Earphones Award winners. Class by Stephanie Land is the November GMA book club pick.

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy by Marie-Claire Amuah wins the adult division of the Diverse Book Awards. Winners are announced for Bookshop.org UK’s inaugural Indie Champions Awards. Poets&Writers issues its “5 Over 50” list of the best debut poetry authors. Shortlists are announced for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Second Collections and the Waterstones Book of the Year Award.

Winners are announced for Taste Canada Awards for cookbooks and food writing. Finalists are announced for Canada’s National Business Book Awards. Southern Book Prize finalists are revealed, representing “bookseller favorites from 2023 that are Southern in nature—either about the South or by a Southern writer.” Plus new title best sellers.

Nandini Das wins British Academy Book Prize for Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire. The co-winners for this year’s Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award are announced. November book club picks arrive, including The Sun Sets in Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe (Read with Jenna), Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major (Reese Witherspoon), and  Absolution by Alice McDermott (B&N). People shares the latest known photo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, from Kenneth Womack’s new book, Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans. A You.gov online poll shows that nearly half of Americans have not tried ebooks.

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters wins Barnes and Noble’s 2023 Discover Prize. The World Fantasy Awards winners are announced. Spooky booklists arrive just in time for Halloween. Rebecca Yarros’s best-selling book Fourth Wing and its forthcoming sequel, due out next week, are headed to TV. Plus, KKR finalizes the deal to buy Simon & Schuster.

Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich leads holds this week. Jenna Bush Hager’s November book club pick is The Sun Sets in Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe. People’s book of the week is Absolution by Alice McDermott. Publishers Weekly releases its list of the best books of 2023. Booklists help to support understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Plus, beloved actor Matthew Perry, who released his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing last year, has died at the age of 54.

Rebecca Campbell’s Arboreality wins the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. The shortlist is announced for Scotland’s National Book Awards. Salman Rushdie says that if authors are only allowed to write characters similar to themselves and their own experiences, “the art of the novel ceases to exist.”

Maria Stepanova wins the Berman Literature Prize for her family saga In Memory of Memory; the award honors works “in the spirit of the Jewish tradition.” The shortlist is announced for the Nan Shepherd Prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing. Finalists are announced for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. Plus new title best sellers and interviews with Tananarive Due, Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, Margaret Renkl, and more.

Scholastic reverses course on a controversial decision to separate books about race and gender at elementary book fairs. Tian Yi wins 4thWrite prize for her short story “The Good Son.” The Woman in Me by Britney Spears continues to buzz. Norton will distribute Yale University Press and Harvard University Press books starting in 2025. Interviews arrive with Tim O’Brien, John Stamos, Thurston Moore, Michael Harriot, and more. T&C gives a progress update on George R.R. Martin’s forthcoming book, The Winds of Winter. Plus, a third Paddington film, based on the character created by Michael Bond, is in the works.

Oprah picks Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend for her book club. Interviews arrive with John Stamos, Melissa Newman, McKay Coppins, and Tan Twan Eng. CrimeReads hosts a roundtable on indigenous horror, and Shondaland considers “The Long Legacy of Book Clubs.” Plus, Marisa Meltzer’s Glossy will be adapted for TV.

The 2023 Hugo Awards are announced; Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher wins best novel, and Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire wins best novella. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Lee Child and Andrew Child, John Stamos, Adam Grant, and Jesmyn Ward, whose Let Us Descend is also People’s book of the week. Four LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. Lee Child passes the baton to his brother Andrew, and James Patterson talks about the art of collaboration with USA Today. Plus, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the book by David Grann, is out now.