Carol Shields Prize for Fiction Shortlist Revealed | Book Pulse

Shortlists for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the inaugural Libraro Prize are revealed. Stolen letters written by John Keats are returned after decades. Publishers Weekly releases a 2026 summer reads preview. Meryl Streep rules out writing a memoir. The Princess Bride, based on the novel by William Goldman, wins LitHub’s bracket-style competition to determine the best literary film adaptation of the last 50 years. Practical Magic 2, based on characters by Alice Hoffman, releases a new trailer. Plus, ALA reveals the 11 most challenged books of 2025.

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Awards & News

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction shortlist is revealed

The inaugural Libraro Prize shortlist is announced. The Bookseller has coverage. 

PRH & We Need Diverse Books announce the Black Creatives Fund Revisions Workshop winners.

The Writers & Illustrators of the Future Awards winners are announced. Locus has details. 

ALA reveals the 11 most challenged books of 2025. NPR, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly have coverage. 

Shelf Awareness rounds up last week’s top-selling self-published titles

Authors Guild says editors should not upload manuscripts to AI without permissionThe Bookseller reports. 

Stolen letters written by John Keats are returned after decadesNYT has the story. 

Reviews

NYT reviews Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh (Avid Reader; LJ starred review): Permanence, is less explicitly concerned with the structure of patriarchy, but it has the same erotic charge as her earlier work, the same preoccupation with social prohibitions and the thrill that comes from breaking them”; How It Feels To Be Alive: Encounters with Art and Our Selves by Megan O’Grady (Farrar): “The quietism of How It Feels To Be Alive, which presents art as a comforting religious substitute reflecting the personal struggles of the affluent, is exactly what stout critics ought to be battling right now”; and The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley (NYRB): “Among American writers, Riley resembles Lydia Davis for the fine calibration and fragility of her sentences.”

The Guardian reviews Ghost Stories: A Memoir by Siri Hustvedt (S&S): “Yet for all the loss and loneliness it itemises, what offsets the pervasive melancholy of Ghost Stories—gives it life—is its incandescent anger.”

Briefly Noted

LitHub highlights 20 new books for the week

Publishers Weekly releases a 2026 summer reads preview

The Guardian examines Freida McFadden’s bestselling appeal

People rounds up the best stories and revelations from Book Con

BookRiot previews forthcoming romance retellings.

NYT’s Poetry Challenge for the week centers on W. H. Auden’s “The More Loving One.”

Former Vogue editor Grace Coddington will publish a new book, Grace: Now (Phaidon), out October 14. 

Meryl Streep rules out writing a memoir, People reports. 

People previews Nara Aziza Smith’s forthcoming cookbookHomemade (Morrow Cookbooks), due out October 13. 

Authors on Air

Nobel winner Malala Yousafzai, author of Finding My Way: A Memoir (Atria), talks with NPR’s Fresh Air about “life before and after being shot by a Taliban gunman.”

The Princess Bride, based on the novel by William Goldman, wins LitHub’s bracket-style competition to determine the best literary film adaptation of the last 50 years.

Practical Magic 2, based on characters by Alice Hoffman, releases a new trailer. GMA has the story.

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