News

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.

N.S. Nuseibeh’s essay collection Namesake wins the UK’s Jhalak Prose Prize for writers of color, while Mimi Khalvati’s Collected Poems wins the Jhalak Poetry Prize. Amazon editors pick the 10 best books of 2025 so far. The Guardian writes about how the U.S. far right is trying to spread its ideology through the publishing world and reports on Russia’s “Z literature,” a nationalistic subgenre of fantasy fiction that may be encouraging teens to enlist in the war on Ukraine. AI was the hot topic at this year’s U.S. Book Fair. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Susan Choi, Lynne Olson, and Melissa Febos.

Bernardine Evaristo is honored with the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award for her body of work. Dora Prieto, Jess Goldman, and Phillip Dwight Morgan win RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards. Allison King’s The Phoenix Pencil Company is the new Reese Witherspoon book club pick. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Baker & Taylor adds three distribution clients. Director James Cameron will cowrite a screen adaptation of Joe Abercrombie’s The Devils. Plus, best books of the year (so far) and titles for Pride Month.

Audiofile announces the winners of the Golden Voices Audiobook Narrator awards. Dmitri Strotsev and Nadia Kandrusevich are named the 2025 Prix Voltaire laureates. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere: A Love Story is the GMA June book club pick. Maggie Stiefvater’s The Listeners is the B&N pick. The annual Audio Publishers Association Sales Survey showed double-digit gains over 2023. Scholastic will integrate its trade publishing, book fairs, and book clubs. Interviews arrive with Melissa Febos, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Molly Jong-Fast, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Todd S. Purdum, and Jacinda Ardern.

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by James Patterson and Bill Clinton, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Molly Jong-Fast, and Claire Lynch. People’s book of the week, A Family Matter by Claire Lynch, is also the June Read with Jenna pick. New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association announces its Book of the Year awards. Judy Blume is presented with the Women’s National Book Association Award. The Anthony Awards nominees are revealed, as are Audiofile’s June 2025 Earphones Award winners. In The Guardian, Ben Okri remembers Kenyan novelist and scholar Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who has died at the age of 87.

Nam Le’s 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem wins the New South Wales Book of the Year Award. Winners of the League of Canadian Poets Prizes are revealed. Dawn Macdonald’s poetry collection Northerny wins the Canadian First Book Prize. Clare Pollard’s The Modern Fairies wins the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize. The shortlist is announced for the Leacock Medal for Canadian humor writing. The Community of Literary Magazines & Presses announces the finalists for the Firecracker Awards. NYT, Vulture, and CrimeReads preview titles coming out this summer. LJ offers beach reads. Plus, new title bestsellers and interviews with Madeleine Thien, Alison Bechdel, and Naomi Xu Elegant.

Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq wins the International Booker Prize, marking the first time a story collection has won the award. Sasha Vasilyuk wins the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her debut novel, Your Presence Is Mandatory. The Society of Authors’ Awards shortlists are announced, along with the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards winners. Several major newspapers recently published an AI-generated summer reading list featuring fake titles. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Nightshade by Michael Connelly. Plus, Quentin Tarantino will release books on three of his films.

Ann Cleeves reveals that her next Vera Stanhope book will be the last. Kevin Quigley, Kaitlynne Lowe, Sarah Moore, and Brianna Wolfe win the Donner Prize for Seized by Uncertainty: The Markets, Media, and Special Interests That Shaped Canada’s Response to COVID-19. Publishers Lunch’s Fall/Winter Fiction Buzz Panel is available to watch now. NYT catches up with “The Dresden Files” series author Jim Butcher after 25 years and 14 million books sold. Sourcebooks will publish new editions of Claire Legrand’s “Empirium” trilogy for adult readers. Plus, HBO Max’s It prequel, Welcome to Derry, gets a trailer today.

Nightshade by Michael Connelly leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Katherine Center, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, and Rachel Gillig. Haruki Murakami wins the Center for Fiction’s Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award. The Gotham Book Prize winners are announced, including Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough by Ian Frazier and Movement: New York’s Long War To Take Back Its Streets from the Car by Nicole Gelinas. Finalists for the Orwell Prizes are announced. People’s book of the week is Whistle by Linwood Barclay. Plus, June’s LibraryReads list is out, featuring top pick The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater.