Maurice Vellekoop’s memoir I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together wins the Doug Wright Award. Canisia Lubrin’s Code Noir wins the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for best Canadian debut short story collection. Authors Gary David Crew and Garth Nix receive the Medal of the Order of Australia. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. Annie Leibovitz will reissue a new edition of her 1999 book Women in November. Gill Hornby’s The Elopement will be adapted for TV.

In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared more than 3.5 million enslaved people living in Confederate states to be “forever free.” It wasn’t until Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, TX, on June 19, two years later, however, that the enslaved first learned of their freedom. That date became known as Juneteenth, first celebrated in 1866 and declared a federal holiday in 2021. This booklist is a Juneteenth commemoration in the form of fiction and nonfiction about its history and the long-standing implications of enslavement and the Jim Crow era. 

Kendra Coulter is a professor of management and organizational studies at Huron University College at Western University. As an anthropologist, she has become a leading voice in animal ethics and sustainability and written many academic works, including Defending Animals: Finding Hope on the Front Lines of Animal Protection. The Tortoise’s Tale marks her fiction debut. She talks with LJ about her philosophy, her inspirations, the role of music in her book, and her forthcoming projects.

LJ talks with the bestselling authors about their collaboration creating and editing the anthology The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand.

Historical fiction was never so timely as right now, with current themes and genre blends traversing all eras.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.

Oprah’s new book club pick is The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb. Finalists for the Ignyte Awards for SFF are announced. David Means wins the PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Jurors for the Kirkus Prize are named. The Nation and OR Books partner to launch a new progressive imprint, Nation Books. Scribd’s Everand has acquired social reading app Fable. Award-winning thriller writer Frederick Forsyth has died at the age of 86.

V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil leads holds this week and is also People’s book of the week. Also in demand are titles by Riley Sager, S.A. Cosby, Wally Lamb, and Jess Walter. Winners of the Nebula Awards and the Biographers International Organization’s Plutarch Award are announced. The July Indie Next preview is out, featuring #1 pick The Irresistible Urge To Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley. Earlyword shares the June GalleyChat spreadsheet. Plus, former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden speaks out on her firing on CBS Sunday Morning.

Karen Leeder’s translation of Durs Grünbein’s Psyche Running wins the Griffin Poetry Prize. Valérie Bah’s Subterrane wins the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. The shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is announced. New Circana BookScan research shows the growth over the last year of “dark romance.” The New Press has layoffs due to decreased sales and funding, partly attributed to book bans targeting progressive titles. After selecting James Frey’s novel Next to Heaven, Book of the Month responds to criticism about Frey’s use of generative AI. Tomorrow is Teach Truth Day of Action, a planned nationwide day to fight bans on books and on teaching certain subjects in schools. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with Ocean Vuong, Susan Choi, and Jacinda Ardern.