Reviews+

Oprah selects Ocean Vuong’s novel The Emperor of Gladness for her book club. LA Times previews 30 books for summer. Audible opens AI narration to selected publishers. Original Sin by Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson gets buzz. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. Jeanine Cummins publishes a new novel, Speak to Me of Home, five years after the American Dirt controversy. LitHub celebrates 100 years of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. PW reports on the situation at Library of Congress. Plus, a federal judge orders the IMLS to be restored.

From works by Trevor Noah and Marjorie Liu to a foray into the secret lives of trees, these titles are most in demand by libraries and bookstores nationwide.

The British Book Awards are announced; Percival Everett is named Author of the Year and his book James wins Fiction Book of the Year; Patriot by Alexei Navalny wins Overall Book of the Year and best narrative nonfiction book; Margaret Atwood laments the threat to words as she accepts the Freedom To Publish Prize. The PEN America Literary Awards winners are announced, along with shortlists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Wales’s Book of the Year. HarperVia will launch a pocket-sized paperbacks imprint, Nomad Editions, in November. Plus, Trump names an acting librarian of Congress.

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Danielle L. Jensen, Ocean Vuong, Carl Hiaasen, and Ron Chernow. Seven LibraryReads and six Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is The Red House by Mary Morris. Plus, June’s Indie Next preview is out, featuring #1 pick Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab.

Trump has fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Winners of the Vermont Book Awards, winners of the Sarton and Gilda Women’s Book Awards, and shortlists for the UK Booksellers Association’s Indie Book Awards are announced. They Came for the Schools by Mike Hixenbaugh wins the NYPL’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Frank Herbert posthumously wins the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s Infinity Award. Plus, Page to Screen and interviews with Jennifer Hope Choi, Rachel Cockerell, Hamilton Nolan, and Jean Grae.

Finalists are announced for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Book Awards for writers from Ontario, Canada. Margaret Atwood wins the Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award. Carley Fortune recommends high-stakes romances. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with José Andrés, the hosts of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things, and Brendan Slocumb.

The Otherwise Award winners are announced. NYT explores the unusual process of awarding this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction to Percival Everett’s James. My Friends by Fredrik Backman is B&N’s May book club pick, while Good Housekeeping selects Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang. Baltimore romantasy festival A Million Lives is dubbed the “Fyre Fest of books.” Dua Lipa’s book club and author interviews earn high praise. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title The Tenant by Freida McFadden. Vanity Fair provides a first look at the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk. Andy West’s prison memoir The Life Inside will be adapted at BBC. Plus, Practical Magic 2 gets a release date.

All the September 2025 Prepub Alerts in one place, plus a downloadable spreadsheet of all titles from every post.

The Pulitzer Prizes are announced, with James by Percival Everett winning the top prize in fiction. Combee by Edda L. Fields-Black, Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal, Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts, New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe, Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls, and To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause by Benjamin Nathans also win Pulitzer Prizes. Earlyword’s May GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now. The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei is the May GMA book club pick. Diana Gabaldon’s 10th and final Outlander book will be titled A Blessing for a Warrior Going Out.