Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Kristin Harmel, Laura Lippman, Nikki Erlick, and Liv Constantine. Four LibraryReads picks and four Indie Next picks publish this week. Andrew Miller wins the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for his novel The Land in Winter. The James Beard Media Award winners are announced. People shares its must-read summer recommendations.

Acclaimed author and librarian Terah Shelton Harris portrays the healing power of storytelling in her new novel, Where the Wildflowers Grow.

Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the nonfiction prize goes to Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and the Medical Miracle That Saved a Child’s Life. Winners of the Reading the West Book Awards are announced. NYT updates its list of the best romance novels of the year. NYPL celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association will be subsumed into the Association for Library Service to Children. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with E. Jean Carroll, Peter Mendelsund, and Vikas Adam.

The longlist for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award is announced. LitHub publishes “The Ultimate Summer 2025 Reading List.” Oregon passes a law to protect access to books in school libraries. In spring 2026, Christian publisher Baker will launch Haven, an imprint it describes as “wholesome fiction without faith content.” Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Wally Lamb, V.E. Schwab, and Jess Walter.

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. 

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.

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.

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.