Jill Cox-Cordova

Best Books is almost here! On December 2 we announce our winning titles. To celebrate we are counting down to our big reveal by highlighting some of our 2023 picks, titles we still treasure, reread, and suggest widely. This week, in advance of Thanksgiving, we offer two choices, a van life adventure and a cozy-adjacent crime fiction debut.

Salem Press, 75 years old this year, offers multivolume resources that meet the needs of many readers. LJ talked to Leslie Mackenzie, Salem’s president and publisher, about Salem’s vision for reference and its approach to making its materials accessible to all.

LJ interviews the editors of The Oxford Dictionary of African American English. This first-of-its-kind resource of 1,000 words (planned for publication in 2025) aims to record the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date picture of African American English yet.

Forty in-depth reviews of travel series, spanning hikes in national parks to a perfect day in Positano. To help manage selection, we provide full bibliographic data for 533 individual titles that make up this series review, along with a downloadable spreadsheet of every title, sortable by BISAC.

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, first declared a federal holiday in 2021. This book list 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.

Stephen A. Marshall’s latest book, Hymenoptera: The Natural History and Diversity of Wasps, Bees and Ants, was one of LJ’s Best Print Reference picks for 2023 and also won the prestigious Dartmouth Medal. LJ invited Marshall to reflect upon the definition of reference, his approach to writing and research, and his fieldwork.

Reference works contain entire worlds, arranged, indexed, and designed to support research and exploration. These aids—hefty both in physical form and in depth and resonance—provide new interpretations, offer access into decades of academic work, and foster fresh ways of thinking.

In 1926, Carter G. Woodson envisioned a weeklong commemoration to increase awareness of Black history and culture. In the 1960s, protests against racial injustice transformed it into a monthlong celebration, but Black History Month wasn't formally recognized by the U.S. until 1976. This celebration is a collective part of American history, which this list spotlights. 

Anjelica Rufus-Barnes consistently conveys with concision and clarity all that our readers want to know about titles.