The Women’s Prize for Fiction was established in 1996 to highlight and celebrate exceptional fiction by women, which for too long was overlooked in favor of fiction by men. It has since become one of the most influential and popular literary prizes in the English-speaking world. Each year, it awards £30,000 (about $40,000) to "the author of the best full-length novel of the year written in English and published in the UK." Award-winners also receive the "Bessie," a bronze statuette designed by the artist Grizel Niven.

This year’s shortlist is full of debuts, independently published works, and books by publishers that have never been nominated for the prize before. These titles explore themes of agency, human connection, and the joy of literature in a variety of styles, settings, and timelines.

The nominees are:

• Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Europa Editions UK)
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House UK)
• The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson (Cassava Republic Press)
• Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Saraband)
• Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate)

The winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on Thursday, June 11, 2026. —EE

More than 2,000 indie bookstores across the U.S. will celebrate Independent Bookstore Day this Saturday, offering exclusive special editions, literary swag, games, and (if you’re lucky) snacks.

Available goodies include:

• For grown-ups: exclusive editions of Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalex, Crowntide by Alex Aster, Black AF History by Michael Harriot, and Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
• For kids: exclusive editions of Partypooper (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #20) by Jeff Kinney, Warriors: The Adventure Game, based on the series by Erin Hunter
• A "Fight Evil, Read Books" mini tote from Out of Print
• Independent Bookstore Day pencils from Blackwing
• Shop Indie, Shop Local totes, tees, and sweatshirts

Participating stores may also offer a selection of free bookmarks, activity books, and stickers. But it’s not just about the shopping. Josh Christie, co-owner of Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine, notes:

As fun as the exclusive products are (and they get better every year), the best part of Independent Bookstore Day is getting to celebrate our store with our community. It has really started to reach a critical mass where people mark it on their calendars like Free Comic Book Day and Record Store Day, and feeling all the love from our customers is a great reminder of why we do what we do every day.

📍 Use this interactive map to find an indie near you, or make a day of it with a bookstore crawl.

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It only takes three things to make a trend, and for 2026, it’s becoming clear that one of the biggest—and most bizarre—trends in the book world is the unlikely collaboration. We’re not talking about a bookstore collaborating with a library or an author teaming up with a book club here. We’re talking brands that have nothing to do with books or reading getting into the game of books and reading.

→ 🍝 Prego—yes, the people who make pasta sauce—is teaming up with StoryCorps to help capture your dinner table conversations. Those who take part will get a recorder to capture stories while slurping down a pile of penne, and the recordings uploaded to the StoryCorps site will eventually be archived through the Library of Congress. 

→ 🕯️ Yankee Candle wants you to pick up new scents to create ambiance in your reading nook. They’re working with Reese Witherspoon to share a new candle every quarter, inspired by the books picked for her Book Club. 

→ 🥪 Hellmann’s Mayonnaise got into the “trending on BookTok” game this year by working in conjunction with author Jennifer Armentrout. The mayo brand created a one-of-a-kind garlic aioli inspired by the author’s latest release, The Primal of Blood and Bone. Note the disclaimer on this one!

→ 🍹 Beverages, but make them bookish: Crystal Light is launching a series of three limited-edition, book-inspired drink flavorings this year to coincide with “book club season.” Readers can sip on Hibiscus Lemonade (Romance), Prickly Pear Lemonade (Mystery), and Passion Fruit (Fantasy). The company is teaming up with author and book influencer Brooke Averick to promote the drink mixes. 

Legacy companies are looking for ways to not just stay relevant, but to capture attention in an era of Brand Awareness. These collaborations, weird as they are, feel of the zeitgeist, particularly as we live through a time of books as luxury items . It’s also likely that younger people are entering into marketing and publicity positions at these companies and bring their own passion for literature with them. —KJ

Random House Children’s Books announced today that there will be a new Berenstain Bears (not Berenstein, I know we are all in this together about trying to get that right) book coming out this fall.

Too Loose, Too Tight, Just Right was discovered by Mike Berenstain, son of Berenstain Bear creators Stan and Jan Berenstain, while going through an old file cabinet in 2020. Mike Berenstain says that the manuscript has sat untouched for more than 50 years, but is very much in the vein of Berenstain stories that readers know: "It was funny, clever, educational, and entertaining, a classic children’s book."

As you might imagine from the title, the story is about trying to find just the right sweater, hat, and cup of cocoa on a winter day. The 48-page book, publishing October 6, will be a deluxe hardcover that includes the story of how this book came to be and other bonus content for fans of this series.

There are more than 300 million copies of Berenstain Bear books in print.

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Listen up, Audible+ subscribers! We’re here to help you get the most out of your subscription. Here are a few new additions worth checking out, from a rom-com set in the tech world to a locked room thriller in a tropical island setting.

• The Devoted Wife by Sarah A. Denzil - This Audible Original psychological thriller follows a wife whose devotion to her politician husband is tested when a dead body is discovered in their backyard and he’s arrested for murder. Is someone trying to frame him right before an upcoming election? Or is he not the man she thought she married?
• Five Liars by D.L. Fisher - Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley, this locked room thriller is narrated by a dynamic cast of characters. It was supposed to be a fun joint bachelor-bachelorette weekend in the Dominican Republic. But when the maid of honor organizes a "White Lie Party," shocking secrets are revealed, and someone isn’t going to make it through this weekend alive.
• The Code of Love by Katy Summers - In this You’ve Got Mail meets Succession rom-com, Sydnie is a girlboss with no time for romance whose dad is selling their not-for-profit tech firm. Nathaniel is the CEO of the company looking to buy them out. Neither one of them is enthusiastic about the deal, which hinges on a chatbot that isn’t ready for market. Wary of their futures and mired in family drama, they both do what anyone would do in this situation: they tell all of their problems to the chatbot.

The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America is a YA nonfiction book about the history of the AIDS crisis in the USA that is out this week from Knopf Books for Young Readers. Below, co-author David Levithan discusses how queer memory is a form of resistance.

At a time when politicians are trying to pull our stories off shelves, at a time when our humanity is questioned, tested, and argued, it is paramount that we tie queer memory to queer history, that we as individuals tell our collective story. This is, ultimately, a form of resistance, defying those who would want to erase us. And it is a form of strategic survival, as we remember and thwart the tactics of those who would prefer us dead.

There’s nothing intrinsically “queer” about HIV—it’s just a dangerous virus. But LGBTQ+ people were targeted and ostracized because of our association with AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. Honoring our stories and experiences as a community is a profoundly moral thing to do.

Even our recent history threatens to disappear if we do not tell and retell it. When Gabriel Duckels and I interviewed people about their experiences with HIV/AIDS for The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America , there was a constant refrain, particularly from people in their sixties and seventies talking about the 1980s and 1990s: We cannot forget what was done to us. And we cannot forget the ways we fought back. Because we need those tactics today—as well as that sense of being a community with a common goal.

Queer collective memory must counterbalance American collective memory. American history has been written by unreliable narrators, and American collective memory is astonishing in its desire to forget harms and wrongs. When we talk to younger readers, readers who weren’t born in the 1980s or 1990s, we state it plainly: “At the height of the AIDS pandemic, over half a million Americans died, roughly the same number who died in World War II. This was because of a government that didn’t care about finding a treatment or a cure until they were forced by activism to do so.” We also point out that we still don’t have a cure, and that the current government is the first in decades to dramatically cut funding for health care and medical research for HIV/AIDS.

SILENCE = DEATH was not just a slogan; it was a fact. The only way to honor those who died and those who fought is to remember what happened and to keep up the fight. It is not enough for our history to exist on a shelf or in an archive. We must speak it, over and over again.

50,000+ audiobooks. Every genre. No commitment.​

74% of audiobook listeners have quit a book because of the narrator’s voice. ElevenReader lets you choose from 1,000+ natural-sounding voices for any title — or design your own. Plus the freedom to upload your own docs, PDFs, and ebooks and hear them in studio-quality audio.

Plans start lower than Audible, with no credits to track or expire.

Try it free for 3 days. Available on iOS, Android, and web.

Did you know? Shakespeare wrote his own epitaph:

"Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones..."

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