Booklist Archives | American Libraries Magazine

ALA Unveils 2023 Carnegie Medals Shortlist

November 15, 2022

The 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction shortlist titles include: Fiction Greenland, by David Santos Donaldson (Amistad). While working on a historical novel about British author E. M. Forster’s Egyptian lover, Mohammed el Adl, writer Kip confronts his own trauma and alienation. Donaldson delivers a psychologically acute portrayal of a queer Black … Continue reading ALA Unveils 2023 Carnegie Medals Shortlist →

Reading Ukraine

By Donna Seaman | March 15, 2022

Nonfiction All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin, by Mikhail Zygar (PublicAffairs, 2016) Russian journalist Zygar portrays four Putins—“Putin I the Lionheart,” “Putin II the Magnificent,” “Prince Dmitry,” and “Putin the Terrible”—while presenting a thorough accounting of his many crimes against humanity. What Zygar discovered is that Putin’s inner circle has been … Continue reading Reading Ukraine →

ALA Unveils 2022 Carnegie Medals Shortlist

November 8, 2021

The 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction shortlist titles include the following: Fiction The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (W. W. Norton & Company). Amadeo Padilla filled the role of Jesus during the re-creation of the Crucifixion as part of Holy Week. He also has heavy burdens to bear in his real … Continue reading ALA Unveils 2022 Carnegie Medals Shortlist →

Call Number Podcast episode 63: Getting Outdoors

Call Number Podcast: Getting Outdoors

June 22, 2021

First, ALA Editions Senior Acquisitions Editor Rachel Chance speaks with Web Administrator and Local History Specialist Erin Rothenbuehler and Programming Director and Local History Specialist Sean Duffy from Ohio County (W.Va.) Public Library about a series of programs they offer on bugs, most notably the Brood X cicadas. Next American Libraries Associate Editor Sallyann Price … Continue reading Call Number Podcast: Getting Outdoors →

2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal Winners Announced

February 4, 2021

The selections were announced February 4 at the Reference and User Services Association’s (RUSA) Book and Media Awards virtual event, sponsored by NoveList. McBride’s novel takes place in a vibrant, multicultural 1969 Brooklyn neighborhood, and introduces readers to Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin, the titular deacon and least likely of heroes. When Sportcoat shoots Deems Clemens, the … Continue reading 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal Winners Announced →

2020 National Book Award Winners

November 19, 2020

Listed below are the winners and finalists in each category, with excerpts from the winners’ Booklist reviews (where available). Fiction Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (winner) “Although the cover claims that Yu’s (Sorry Please Thank You, 2012) latest is a novel, his fiction, as always, defies easy labels. This hybrid conflates history, sociology, and ethnography … Continue reading 2020 National Book Award Winners →

Longlist for 2021 Carnegie Medals Announced

October 26, 2020

“This was unquestionably a challenging year for all the obvious reasons,” said 2021 Selection Committee Chair Bill Kelly in an October 26 statement. “And yet, in the end, reading proved to be just the balm one needs to sustain us, to give hope and strength and resilience in the face of an oppressively uncertain future. … Continue reading Longlist for 2021 Carnegie Medals Announced →

Lauren Francis-Sharma, author of Book of the Little Axe (Photo: Anna Carson DeWitt)

Libraries Transform Book Pick: Lauren Francis-Sharma

By Vanessa Bush | August 10, 2020

This interview was first published in Booklist’s August 2020 issue. A historical novel set in Trinidad in 1796 and the Crow Nation of the Great Plains in 1830, Francis-Sharma’s second novel (after ‘Til the Well Runs Dry) follows the struggles and adventures of Rosa Rendón, who pushes back against the restraints associated with her sex and … Continue reading Libraries Transform Book Pick: Lauren Francis-Sharma →

Reading for Change

By the Booklist staff | June 5, 2020

Booklist recently compiled a list of antiracist books and other resources for librarians and readers. The full list is reprinted below. It can, of course, also mean reading. We’ve seen the antiracist reading lists; there’s New York magazine’s roundup, Betsy Bird’s comprehensive piece for Fuse8, the Stacks’ collection of nonfiction, the list goes on. There’s … Continue reading Reading for Change →

Judged by the Cover

By S. A. Cosby | May 15, 2020

The following guest column is a reprint from the rereleased May 1 issue of Booklist. This is an opportunity to have substantive conversations about our perceptions, as well as the changing face of the publishing world and the paucity of diverse crime writers. In their desire to be socially conscious, many may have missed that … Continue reading Judged by the Cover →

Setting the Record Straight: Panic and Pandemics

By Briana Shemroske | February 14, 2020

On February 13, Booklist compiled a list of resources for librarians looking for information on the coronavirus and other epidemics and pandemics. The full list is reprinted below. Adult Books ★ Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come by Richard Preston Preston, who first … Continue reading Setting the Record Straight: Panic and Pandemics →

Latest Library Links

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The American Library Association (ALA) released new data today documenting 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 757 challenges reported in 2021. A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.

ALA, Mar. 22
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Joshua Kim writes: “Mary Jane Petrowski, associate director of ALA’s Association of College and Research Libraries, reached out in regard to my piece on academic library staffing trends. In that piece, I shared some Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) findings that seem to demonstrate a steep drop in academic library staffing since 2012. As Petrowski is ideally positioned to unpack academic library staffing trends, she agreed to help us figure out what is going on.” Petrowski answers whether IPEDS data is adequate for telling the story of staffing trends, contextualizes staff reductions, and shares ideas for how nonlibrarians can be allies to academic librarians.

Inside Higher Ed, Feb. 21, Feb. 12
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Maggie Laurel Boyd writes: “What happens when time doesn’t heal us the way we expect? Is healing possible in the terms we have laid out for it? This reading list features eight books published in the last 20 years, plus one book published 50 years ago (it’s worth the trip back in time, though, I promise) that challenge traditional healing narratives. In the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions about health and healing remain all too relevant; many of us are realizing that illness permeates many of the spaces we exist within, and still more of us are reckoning with our vulnerability to illness. Reading these texts helps us recognize that if our arc of recovery deviates from the template, then at least we’re in good company.”

Electric Lit, Feb. 23
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ALA’s Reference and User Services Association will host its second-annual RUSA Virtual Forum March 28 and March 30. Under the theme “Reference and User Services Reimagined,” the forum’s two nonconsecutive days of programs will showcase best practices for library workers in reference, user services, adult readers advisory, collection development, resource sharing, genealogy and archives, business reference, and reference technology. The opening keynote will be delivered by Nicole A. Cooke, Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and associate professor at University of South Carolina’s School of Information Science. Early bird registration ends March 11.

ALA’s Reference and User Services Association, Feb. 22
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Paisley Rekdal, Peter Bromberg, and Rebekah Cummings write: “Utah is the latest state hit by the national wave of bills targeting public education. A new public school curriculum bill introduced in the Utah legislature (House Bill 427) would ‘prohibit the use of instructional materials and classroom instruction inconsistent with the principle of inalienable rights, equal opportunity, and individual merit.’ Vacuous as this description might seem, the bill is hardly empty of meaning. If passed into law, this bill would effectively shelter students from the past, spoon-feeding them versions of the world that make no one feel uncomfortable about anything, least of all actual facts. It’s not only a paternalistic attitude, but one that would stultify the classroom.”

The Hill, Feb. 24; The Guardian (US), Feb. 14; Utah State Legislature
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Jodi Fortino and Kate Grumke write: “The ACLU of Missouri is challenging a new state law that bans ‘sexually explicit material’ from schools and has resulted in districts pulling hundreds of books from their shelves. The suit, filed on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association, asks the circuit court in Kansas City to find the law unconstitutional. The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Jean Peters Baker in her capacity as the Jackson County Prosecutor and on behalf of all county prosecutors in Missouri. In its lawsuit, the ACLU argues that the law violates educators’ due process rights because it uses vague language that invites government overreach and does not differentiate school employees’ official capacity from their personal capacity.”

KCUR-FM (Kansas City, Mo.), Feb. 23
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ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall writes: “Having visited, worked or consulted for, and spoken at hundreds of libraries, I don’t believe there is any educational or public service institution that more ably facilitates personal growth and community access than libraries. They place the acts of discovery and changemaking within reach of everyone. The library’s proven ability to stimulate people and ideas into action is what fueled ALA’s new Civic Imagination Stations project, a pilot supported by the Estée Lauder Companies’ Writing Change program, a three-year initiative designed to advance literacy as a pathway to equality, access, and social change.”

American Libraries column, Mar./Apr.

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