Yael van der Wouden and Rachel Clarke Win Women's Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction | Book Pulse | Library Journal
Yael van der Wouden’s wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the nonfiction prize goes to Rachel Clarke’s . 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.
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Yael van der Wouden’s (Avid Reader/S. & S.) wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the nonfiction prize goes to Rachel Clarke’s (Scribner). The Guardian has coverage.
Winners of the Reading the West Book Awards are announced.
NYT updates its list of the best romance novels of the year.
ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association will be subsumed into the Association for Library Service to Children, Publishers Weekly reports.
June 13
How To Train Your Dragon, based on the children’s books by Cressida Cowell. Universal. Reviews | Trailer
Washington Post reviews by Bryan Burrough (Penguin Pr.; LJ starred review): “This is no weighty, soporific tome of history, but a gallop through the years 1869 to 1901”; and the audiobooks of by Belinda Bauer (Dreamscape), by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Books on Tape), and by Jemimah Wei (Books on Tape).
The Guardian reviews by Claire Adam (Hogarth): “This sense of uncertainty and unease continues to the end. The final pages, which unfold at the family’s beach house on Tobago, are as gripping as any thriller, and the ending, when it comes, feels as right as it is devastating”; and by Daniel Yon (Grand Central): “This is a complex area of psychology, with a huge amount of new work being published all the time. To fold it into such a lively read is an admirable feat.”
LA Times reviews by Kelly Ramsey (Scribner): “Sometimes her struggles with ordinary life threaten to take over the narrative, but while they humanize her, they are not the most interesting part of this book. What resonates instead is fire and all that it entails—the burning forest and the hard, mind-numbing work of the Hotshots.”
LitHub gathers the best-reviewed books of the week.
NYMag has a profile of E. Jean Caroll, author of (St. Martin’s).
Book designer and novelist Peter Mendelsund, author of (Farrar), shares his bookshelves with Washington Post.
In The Guardian, Helon Habila honors the late Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of (New Pr.).
Amy Odell has written a biography of Gwyneth Paltrow; is due out from Gallery on Jul. 29, People reports.
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Heather Ann Thompson’s new book is , due out from Pantheon on Feb. 10, 2026, Kirkus reports.
Rainbow Rowell has written an adult second-chance romance, , to be published by HarperCollins on Apr. 14, 2026, People reports.
People shares an excerpt from Alan Siegel’s (Grand Central).
NYT Magazine asks whether biography is the one AI-proof genre of publishing.
Public Books examines the future of climate fiction.
CrimeReads explores “why the crime fiction world is embracing the cozy mystery.”
NYT has “7 New Books We Recommend This Week.”
CrimeReads offers seven books and one play about marital murder.
Kirkus recommends “21 great biographies for deep-dive reading” and three LGBTQIA+ books that “you’ve never read anything like.”
After shuttering in 2023, the literary journal Lapham’s Quarterly is being revived, NYT reports. LitHub offers a remembrance of the magazine’s late founder, Lewis H. Lapham.
NPR’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn interviews Mary Randolph Carter, author of (Rizzoli).
The Behind the Mic podcast features an interview with audiobook narrator Vikas Adam.
Mary Harron will direct The Highway That Eats People, a film adaptation of Grace Krilanovich’s 2010 novel , Screen Daily reports.
