| Programming note: we’ll be off next week while attending a library conference, so look for the Communiqué back in your inbox on April 9. Thanks! —Jordan
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Hot News This Week
March 26, 2026
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Last year, North Sun was a National Book Award finalist, a nominee for both the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and named a best book of the year by Barack Obama, Vanity Fair, Kirkus, and more.
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| More Award News
Alongside Ethan Rutherford, other winners of 2026 Literature Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters include:
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The finalists for the 2026 Publishing Triangle Awards, which honor the best LGBTQ+ books published last year, include seven titles from Consortium publishers:
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| Kid-Favorite Children’s Books
The Children’s Book Council’s 2026 Kids Favorite honorees include six titles from Consortium publishers:
- Dinosaur Pie by Jen Wallace, illus. Alan O’Rourke (Little Island Books)
- Let’s Get Spooky by Stepanka Sekaninova, illus. Lukas Fige (Albatros Media)
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“A beautiful, strange rollercoaster of humanity’s interconnectedness, this gem of a book changed the way that I think about caregiving, loss, mental health, and the everyday ghosts that follow each of us.” — Ramona Flores, White Whale Bookstore (Pittsburgh, PA)
“This is one I could unpack for ages. I absolutely love it and plan to sell it to anyone who will take the journey!” — Jenny Ford, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC)
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| | Bloodline
by Lee Clay Johnson
County Highway / Panamerica • April 2026 • 9798999146700
“The perfect pick for fans of Demon Copperhead and John Steinbeck. This novel follows the stories of two brothers who are neglected by their stoner mother, resented by their ever-scheming con-artist-turned-local-politician father, and left to fend for themselves in backwoods Tennessee.” — Jessy Blanchard, Carmichael’s Bookstore (Louisville, KY)
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“What makes a person want to EAT another person? Are you sure you want to know? Descend into the darkest depths of the human psyche with Dr. Nathalie von Zelowitz as she conducts a daring case study of a real-life cannibal. Instantly captivating.” — Kat Yslas, Changing Hands Bookstore (Tempe, AZ)
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FICTION
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, trans. Ros Schwartz (Transit Books)
ABA, MPIBA, PNBA, SCIBA, NCIBA, MIPA, NEIBA, and Indie Press Top 40 (#2) Bestseller
NONFICTION
The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
New York Times (#12), Bookshop.org, ABA, NCIBA, NEIBA, PNBA, SCIBA, NAIBA, MIBA, MPIBA, SIBA, GLIBA and Indie Press Top 40 (#3) Bestseller
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| | New Digital Review Copies
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“Lisa Robertson is one of those writers who seems to invent a new genre with each book. Riverwork follows 2020’s The Baudelaire Fractal, her extraordinary debut novel—if you can call it that—and centres on the laundresses who once worked in the now-underground river Bièvre in Paris.” Riverwork by Lisa Robertson (Coach House Books) is one of Frieze’s top reading picks for spring.
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In a recent roundup of the best new thrillers, the Financial Times highlighted two Bitter Lemon Press titles, Saïd Khatibi’s The End of the Sahara (trans. Alexander Elinson) and Joseph Incardona’s Holy F*ck (trans. Sam Taylor).
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