Books News

“The Talk” by Darrin Bell (Henry Holt & Company) Seeing the other children at the park playing with water guns, Darrin asks his mom for one. Her immediate response: No.

“George: A Magpie Memoir,” by Frieda Hughes (Avid Reader Press) Frieda Hughes in an English poet and painter who has built a following on birding Instagram (@friedahughes) with her beguiling videos of owls.

“Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces” by Patrick Mackie (Macmillan Publishers). Writing a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart nowadays is no easy task.

TORONTO — All five poets shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize this year write in the first person, oftentimes about their lives. But they say it would be a mistake to take their work as non-fiction.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Friday challenges an Arkansas law that would subject librarians and booksellers to criminal charges if they provide “harmful” materials to minors.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut board of education has voted two keep two books on its town's high school shelves after weeks of acrimonious debate over book-banning that culminated in the resignation of two Republican board members.

“The Celebrants” by Steven Rowley (G.P. Putnam's Sons) Steven Rowley is one of those authors where if you read one of his novels, his name gets added to a mental “TBR” (to-be read) list.

TORONTO — An intergenerational saga about a family that runs a beachfront hotel has won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Jasmine Sealy took home the $60,000 prize for "The Island of Forgetting.

TORONTO — Among the five works nominated for this year's Griffin Poetry Prize is a collection from Iman Mersal, whose unflinching poems put in stark terms the realities of everyday life.

Time is a precious commodity and some readers need to be hooked from page one. T.J.