News

Hisham Matar’s My Friends and Matthew Longo’s The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain win Orwell Prizes. Poets & Writers publishes its 24th annual roundup of the summer’s best debut fiction. South Carolina censorship law goes into effect. Plus, Page to Screen.

On Thursday, June 27, at the American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego, CA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the launch of its nationwide Information Literacy Initiative. The multipartner project provides a website, InformationLiteracy.gov, that offers a wide range of ready-to-use tools and resources for library and museum professionals—trusted educators—to engage their communities to find, understand, evaluate, and share accurate information.

Arundhati Roy wins the PEN Pinter Prize amid prosecution threat over Kashmir comments. The longlist for the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime novel and the shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize for memoir and autobiography are announced. Authors Against Book Bans officially launches. Plus, new title bestsellers.

The Colorado Book Award winners and RSL Christopher Bland Prize shortlist are announced. Lambda Literary announces new fellows for the 2024 Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Chris Whitaker’s buzzy book All the Colors of the Dark. Adaptations are forthcoming for Emily Henry’s Happy Place and Lindy Ryan’s Bless Your Heart, plus a long-awaited Green Lantern series. The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, turns 20 this week. Plus, ALA’s Annual Conference kicks off in San Diego tomorrow.

On November 2, 1929, at Curtiss Airfield in Valley Stream, NY, 26 female licensed pilots, mostly from the East Coast, gathered to form the Ninety-Nines, an organization dedicated to support and advance women in aviation. Famed aviator Amelia Earhart, the first president of the Ninety-Nines, came up with the name in honor of the 99 charter members. Almost 95 years since its founding, the Ninety-Nines has about 7,000 members in 44 countries.

A Minnesota bill with a section prohibiting book bans in public libraries, and libraries or media centers in public postsecondary institutions and schools, was signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz on May 17. Senate File 3567, an omnibus education reform bill—which also includes rulings on cell phone use in schools, student performance data, and student journalism, among other items—went into effect immediately.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anne Applebaum is awarded the German Book Trade Peace Prize. Patrick deWitt wins the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel The Librarianist. Alicia Elliott’s And Then She Fell and Brandi Bird’s The All + Flesh: Poems win Indigenous Voices Awards. Hillary Clinton will release a new book, Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, on September 17. Plus, authors recommend books for Pride Month.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by Ashley Poston, Danielle Steel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and Beatriz Williams. Five LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Bear by Julia Phillips. The Glass Bell Award longlist is announced. NYT profiles physician Freida McFadden’s rise as the fastest-selling thriller writer in the U.S. Plus, Washington Post celebrates audio narrators for Audiobook Appreciation Month.

Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark is the new Read with Jenna book club pick. Jackie Wullschläger’s Monet: The Restless Vision wins the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. Jamaluddin Aram’s Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday, Jérémie Harris’s Quantum Physics Made Me Do It, and Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers win the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes. Shortlists are revealed for the Taste Canada Awards for the best in Canadian food writing. The lineup for the Library of Congress’s National Book Festival is announced.