Booklist Reader

Published by Booklist, an imprint of the American Library Association. Booklist Reader features diverse book and audiobook recommendations, for readers and listeners of all ages. Filled with high-interest, themed lists that showcase books for your family or book discussion group.

From the Editor & Publisher

Booklist Reader

Fashion in Historical Fiction • In historical fiction, the clothes help make the characters, so it’s no surprise that there are a good number of novels about characters who make the fashion. From tales about well-known designers to those about seamstresses just trying to make ends meet, these books give us an up-close look at the people who go to great lengths to make others look good.

To Beach Their Own • We here at Booklist believe that a beach read is in the eye of the beholder. Any engrossing book that transports the reader to anywhere but where they are qualifies as a quality beach read. To that end, we present a selection of off-the-beaten-path beach reads for all kinds of readers who just want to take a little vacation in their minds.

Family Secrets and Surprising Connections • Kate Morton is known for writing about deeply held family secrets—usually centered around a once-fabulous house—and for using parallel narratives, a technique that tells two different stories, in two different time lines, in alternating chapters. In Homecoming (2023), she juggles south Australia in 1959, when a young family is discovered dead and a baby disappeared, with 2018, when the grand-niece of the victims learns of the crime. Here are a few books that use parallel narratives to reveal family secrets and lost connections.

Transcending Heartache • Like Maggie Smith’s memoir about the end of her marriage, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, these books move through love and loss, alchemizing art from pain and offering readers intimate and breathtaking narrative companionship.

Alexandria Bellefleur • A Pacific Northwesterner at heart, Alexandria Bellefleur has a weakness for good coffee, Pike IPA, and Voodoo doughnuts. The bestselling author of four and counting swoony contemporary romances, Alexandria’s debut novel, Written in the Stars, was a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner and a 2020 winner of The Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romantic Fiction.

Women Scientists and a River of Adversity • Brave the Wild River chronicles a daring 1938 scientific expedition in the Grand Canyon conducted by two women botanists who faced the challenges of nature and sexism. These gripping works portray other against-all-odds women scientists and chronicle other Colorado River explorations.

Adult • Get your hands on these hotly anticipated books, all out this month.

June 2023 • The Top Ten Adult Fiction and Nonfiction Chosen Monthly by America’s Library Staff

June 2023 • The LibraryReads Hall of Fame designation honors authors who have had multiple titles appear on the monthly list since 2013. As of the October 2018 list, when an author’s third title places on a monthly list via library staff votes, the author moves into our Hall of Fame.

PBS Program Feature • Celebrating Pride and Immigrant Heritage Month

Audio Originals • Audio-exclusive and audio-original titles are being published with increasing frequency. Why are publishers jumping straight to audio for some of their hottest authors, and how are audio originals changing the way we hear audiobooks? Audio publishing professionals share their thoughts and knowledge about this growing trend.

Audio Exclusives • William Kent Krueger’s The Levee is his first audio-exclusive title. “I’m a huge fan of audiobooks and I can’t say enough about how excited I am to be offering listeners my first original audiobook,” said Krueger. Listeners eager to learn more about audio-original titles and all of...