Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: National Book Critics Circle Longlist

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.   

The National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists were announced, one category at a time, all this week. You can see the full announcement here and the specific category announcements in the linked list below.

Since 1974, the NBCC, made up of mostly literary critics, honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. 

The 2025 finalists are in 8 categories are:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Biography 
• Autobiography
• Poetry
• Criticism
• Gregg Barrios Book in Translation

The separation of nonfiction, biography, and autobiography not only allows for more nonfiction to be honored, but is acknowledges the big difference between biography and autobiography both the obvious distinction of how it is written and the fact that the appeal for readers is different as well.

I always like comparing the National Book Award finalists to the NBCC. They are fairly similar, but you can see distinctions, especially if you follow reviews as I do. The NBA is chosen by a group of mostly authors, while the NBCC is driven by the critics. You can especially see trends emerging over time if you look at both. Thankfully, both awards make the backlist easy to access. [There is a box on the top right gutter of the "Awards" page for the NBCC.]

This year for example, while some of the fiction books on the longlists overlap, the National Book Award Winner is not even on the NBCC list, the other nominees are all different. This is great because it gives you many more "best" options for readers. Add in the Booker Prize and you get the big picture view of the best books published in English in any given year.

While "best" books aren't always the most popular with readers, they are the harbinger of larger movements. For example, as award finalists have gotten more diverse, the demand for more titles by marginalized voices has made it way into the conversation about all books.

So use this award list as a resource, as I note in the introduction to this post above, but also, think about grouping similar awards together, consider their backlists from the last 5 years (NBCC has easy access here), and see if you can notice a few trends or changes yourself. When we embrace trends and larger movements as they are developing, we show our patrons we understand them. Anticipating what they want is not that hard if you pay attention and it leads to more check outs.

Editor's note: The blog will return on Monday (12/22) with some library specific year in review content and then on Tuesday (12/23) I will end the year of posts with my Best Books Becky Read in 2025. After that, the blog will be on vacation, returning Monday, January 5, 2026.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: National Book Award Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

All thought out this past week, the National Book Foundation released their long lists for the National Book Award, one list per day, ending with Fiction this morning. Along with my usual reminder to use these lists and their backlists especially to help patrons in a variety of ways, I want to point out the breadth of categories for this award.

Because it has categories in Fiction, Nonfiction, Translated Literature, Poetry, and Young People's literature, the National Book Award can help an extremely wide range of readers by default. 

As a resource, these longlists are extremely useful because of the work put in by the (human) staff at the National Book Foundation. Each category has an entire page that summarizes all of the nominees, even drawing connections between titles. These pages not only give us the longlist titles but also put them in context. This is work that cannot be replaced by AI and I am so grateful for it each and every year.

They also cap off each article for each category with a statement about the number of books that were considered and who the judges for that category are. Here are the direct links to those pages for 2025:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Translated Literature
• Poetry
• Young People's Literature

However, it is not just the range of categories, the nominees in these long lists are also among the most accesible of titles nominated for major awards. The fiction and nonfiction titles, as usual, are solid suggestions for a general audience, they are NOT overly literary or obtuse. And as usual the translated titles are excellent options, especially as interest in translated titles grow and our resources are not keeping up. 

From top to bottom, the books listed here (click honorees at the top of the page to reveal the lists) should be owned by every public library and handed out frequently to general readers.

Backlist access of nominees and winners is very easily accessible and pleasant to browse, here as well. Of course, because of the breadth of titles always considered, this backlist access is extremely helpful for displays and suggestions all year long. 

Use the links above to explore the National Book Foundations' excellent web presence and make sure you have all of these titles in your collections.

Attack of the Best Lists 2024: Library Journal

 This post is part of my year end "Attack of the Best Lists" coverage. To see every post in my "Attack of the Best Lists 2024" coverage [and more backlist best of the year options] you can click here.

Since I took last week off, there are MANY best book lists to catch up on this week. Today we will begin with one that released this morning! And it is one I played a small part in-- Library Journal's Best Books 2024!

FIND GREAT BOOKS EVERYWHERE

Reading is a resource. It creates community and connections; fuels joy, revelation, and immersion; is company for a quiet afternoon or a quick break; and underpins a life of endless discovery, imagination, learning, and illumination. We celebrate the wondrous activity of reading with this list of 144 titles, books that delighted LJ reviewers, columnists, and editors. These works made us put them down and think—and pick them up again at any free moment. The books on this list drove conversations at work, with friends, with the barista, the dog walker, and the dentist. They are the books that make us happy to be readers. We hope you find these great reads on your library shelves and in your communities, and we hope you find more great reads every day in the year to come.

Illustration by Susanna Harrison

I am very happy to have been part of the team who looked at the year that was and prioritized the reading experience of these titles as we weighed their status as best. It is a refreshing way to look at the "best" tag. As I went through the Horror selection experience over a couple of meetings with my editor and list mate, Melissa DeWild, the conversations we had about all of the titles we considered was enlightening. 

Please note, this is the LJ Best Horror list. It it is similar to, but not exactly, my personal Horror Best List for 2024. As we look at the genre, only titles that got a star in the Horror category in LJ can be considered. 

The experience of working on this list is very fulfilling. Plus, I had the pleasure of writing all the annotations for the Horror list.

But back to the entire Best Books 2024 portal, I hope you all take away more from these lists than merely which titles are included and which excluded, and rather use them as a jumping off point to consider your own "bests"- both yours and your patrons. Prioritizing the reading experience is such a helpful way to think about which books rise to the top. 

Below are the categories, linked to the lists. Each category is offered as a web page  that you can post and share with your patrons more easily. And there is a bonus category of "Captivating Covers" this year again as well.  [Reminder, we can judge books by their covers]

But first, here are the links to the 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 lists

Again, here is the portal page link, but you can also use the category links below.

• Crime Fiction
• Horror 
• Literary Fiction
• Pop Fiction
• Romance
• SF/Fantasy
• Nonfiction
• Life+Style
• Graphic Novels 
• Poetry

What I'm Reading: Booklist's Spotlight on SF/F/H Online Only Reviews

As I mentioned last week, I wanted to make sure that the August 2024 issue of Booklist had content for the Spotlight issue above and beyond the most obvious Horror novels. Working with my editor, Susan Maguire, I was able to find a NF collection of essays and a poetry collection to include in the online coverage.

(I still have a third online only review but it is not up yet, but it is Ellen Datlow's upcoming anthology. I will post it when I can but you know you are buying it, especially because it contains a long out of print SGJ story. But I digress.)

Below I have my draft reviews of 2 books with bonus appeal info and my three words, but please note, these reviews are longer than their print cohorts. Online allows for up to 300 words which means I can add more information to the official review. And in this case, since both are collections, it allowed me to go into detail about some of the essays and poems inside of the books.

Please check out all of the wonderful Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror content available for you all month over on Booklist Online. And click here to see more from me on how to use it to help readers.

The Horror Aesthetic: Essays from the Dark Corners of the Genre

By L. Marie Wood  

Oct. 2024. 232p. Mocha Memoirs, $25 (9781962353151); paper, $17.99 (9781962353144); e-book (9781962353168). First published August 9, 2024 (Booklist Online). 

Horror author and scholar Wood has collected dozens of her essays and lectures from the last decade into one volume centered around her thoughts on the genre from her perspective as an African American woman and professor. With essays on topics as broad as the genre as a whole to specifics about tropes, the use of African Folklore in Horror, the history of Horror and its popularity across time, Horror film, and more, Wood’s essay collection stands out as more than a book, rather it could be seen as a course on Horror, its readers and society as a whole. Of particular note to library workers and their readers is the excellent section outlining the various types of antagonists (e.g. mummies, vampires, werewolves, killers or the undead in general, even bugs) in Horror fiction with a detailed breakdown of their history throughout literature, film, and human storytelling, discussion as to how writers employ them and why readers enjoy them. Whether readers turn to this book for a specific essay or to read it in its entirety or something in between, this is a stellar entry point into the genre, told with a compelling mix of the authoritative voice of a well known teacher and the grace of a critically acclaimed fiction author, and suitable to die hard Horror fans and newcomers alike. As Horror is seeing a surge in interest from a more mainstream audience, this volume serves as a great companion to help libraries provide context to their Horror fiction collections both to assist library workers as they help readers and for curious readers themselves.

Three Words That Describe This Book: essays about Horror, authoritative, fascinating

Further Appeal: This book sells itself. I was able to capture the reason someone would read it-- either cover to cover- or consult it for a specific need or interest. What I like about this collection the most, is that while Wood is an expert, she is also a college professor. That comes through in the essays included here. She is sharing her knowledge but in a way that even someone new to these topics can understand. Anyone, from those just curious about Horror to hardcore fans, will enjoy this book.

Readalikes: I could not list in in the review itself but my book is a great readalike here. It is listed in the side bar of the online review. Also this collection of essays is the perfect companion to Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Film from 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman and the film made about it, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.

Tiny Oblivions and Mutual Self Destructions
Poems by Maxwell I. Gold
Aug. 2024. 96p. Raw Dog Screaming, paper, $13.95  (9781947879775). First published August 9, 2024 (Booklist Online).

Cosmic horror is having a moment as it separates itself from its virulently racist and hateful founder, H. P. Lovecraft. Authors—many from groups Lovecraft openly despised—are harnessing the subgenre’s powerful message of nihilism, of looking at forces whose power is so vast that human suffering is of no concern, and then using the terror of being forced to live in their marginalized identities as the root of their own horrific tales. Gold, fresh off a Bram Stoker nomination for his last horror poetry collection, Bleeding Rainbows and Other Broken Spectrums​, boldly inserts himself into this conversation, staking his claim as the voice of cosmic horror poetry and centering his own experience as a gay Jewish man. Many of the works in this collection of free-verse poems could chillingly stand on their own, as illustrated in “The Mirrored Ones,” featuring a protagonist who is trapped and repeatedly tapping, in a futile attempt at release. However, they are stronger together, united by an unnamed narrator, presenting a story of intense existential dread where the repetition of the small things, like needles and mirrors, are continuously juxtaposed with gaping mouths and unending voids. Take for example, the placement of the poem “2055,” which offers a clear picture of an Earth in extreme eco-distress, followed immediately by “I Was Nothing But A Dead Star in His Pocket,” which casts the narrator as a rat trapped by a cosmic being for millennia. Recurring places, situations, and events all build to a crescendo as they shift and change, carving out a space where the reader must grapple with immersive and visceral feelings underscored by the terrifying threat that all could “succumb to the pressure.”  Like the works of Stephanie M. Wytovich and Christina Sng, Gold's collection is a great option to showcase how poetry is an excellent format to elicit the tantalizing and unsettling feelings that are at the heart of horror’s popularity, or as an introduction to cosmic horror as it stands today.

Three Words That Describe This Book: cosmic horror, thought provoking, immersive

Further Appeal and Readalikes: It cannot be overlooked how important Cosmic Horror is at this moment in history-- both because we are living in tumultuous, existentially devastating times AND because even before the dumpster fire got lit, authors who Lovecraft would have HATED started using his works as an inspiration to both thank him for creating the subgenre AND to give him the middle finger. 

For example, a line I had to cut this line from the review: This has been a winning formula for authors like Lucy Snyder (in Garden of Eldritch Delights, 2018) and Victor LaValle (in The Ballad of Black Tom, 2016), among others, as new readers from diverse backgrounds find comfort in their bleak realities through these dark but awe-filled stories

This collection of poems is important for that first point because Gold is the leading writer of Cosmic Horror poetry right now. But also, Horror poetry in general is very popular. As poetry gains in popularity, Horror poetry in particular is rising to the top because of how accessible it is to a general audience. Horror is about how it makes you feel, and so is poetry. Using words and imagery to  make the reader feel emotions is the bread and butter of poets already. Combine that skill with the emotion that is Horror and you can see why Horror poetry is having a mainstream moment.

Above I mention 2 specific award winning Horror poets. It should be mentioned that they and Gold are all published by Raw Dog Screaming Press-- the leading publisher of Horror poetry, a small press that has been around over 20 years and that you can get through Ingram.

I also want to point you to the Bram Stoker Awards homepage where you can see every nominee and winner of the poetry award over the years.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Firecracker Awards

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Below is an award that is new to me-- The Firecracker Awards; in fact, I only heard of it because my kid's employer [The Common] is up for an award [below]. And then, it also made Library Journal's Book Pulse daily newsletter. And then, I saw one of the judges was-- Allison Escoto who along with being the Librarian at the Center for Fiction is also the Administrative Assistant for LibraryReads. 

So yes, all of those factors made me do a triple take on this award and give it a harder look and now I know it is 100% worth your time to explore this more. It is for all independently published literature and the presses they are considering are ones for which you already have titles in your collections. These authors in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are authors who you should be collecting and knowing about. 

And the link to their past winners and nominees was in the award announcement below, and here. A quick perusal of that link will confirm that the authors who are singled out here do go on to matter in terms of our collections and readers. 

Firecracker Awards

---

Celebrating the Best of Independently Published Literature

The CLMP Firecracker Awards for Independently Published Literature are given annually to celebrate books and magazines that make a significant contribution to our literary culture and the publishers that strive to introduce important voices to readers far and wide. Prizes are awarded in the categories of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Magazine/General Excellence, and Magazine/Best Debut. Each year, CLMP also awards the Lord Nose Award, given to a publisher or editor in recognition of a lifetime of work in literary publishing.

Each winner in the books category will receive $2,000–$1,000 for the press and $1,000 for the author or translator–and each winner in the magazine categories will receive $1,000. In addition, a national publicity campaign spotlights and promotes our winning titles each year. In partnership with the American Booksellers Association, promotional materials—including a press release and shelf talkers featuring the winning titles—are distributed to over 500 independent booksellers across the country. Winners are also promoted in CLMP’s newsletters, on our website, and through a dedicated social media campaign. The publishers of winning titles receive a free one-year membership to CLMP, and magazine winners receive a one-year CLMP Member subscription to Submittable. To read press coverage about the 2023 Firecracker Award winners, visit our Press Center.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on June 27, 2024, at 6 p.m. ET. Click here to RSVP for the Zoom.

2024 FIRECRACKER AWARDS FINALISTS:

FICTION
Landscapes by Christine Lai, published by Two Dollar Radio
You Were Watching from the Sand by Juliana Lamy, published by Red Hen Press
The Simple Art of Killing a Woman by Patrícia Melo, translated by Sophie Lewis, published by Restless Books
The Girl Before Her by Line Papin, translated by Adriana Hunter and Ly Lan Dill, published by Kaya Press
Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine, published by Tin House

CREATIVE NONFICTION
None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary by Travis Alabanza, published by Feminist Press
Holy American Burnout! by Sean Enfield, published by Split/Lip Press
On Community by Casey Plett, published by Biblioasis
The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush, published by Milkweed Editions
Otherwise by Julie Marie Wade, published by Autumn House Press

POETRY
The Limitless Heart by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, published by Haymarket Books
Village by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, published by Coffee House Press
Rebozos of love by Juan Felipe Herrera, published by FlowerSong Press
Hydra Medusa by Brandon Shimoda, published by Nightboat Books
Kaan and Her Sisters by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, published by Trio House Press

MAGAZINES/BEST DEBUT
Changing Skies
Folly
Mister Magazine
Short Reads
SWING

MAGAZINES/GENERAL EXCELLENCE
The Common
Lampblack
LIBER: A Feminist Review
Virginia Quarterly Review
Words Without Borders

2024 Firecracker Award Judges

Fiction

Zeyn Joukhadar, author of The Thirty Names of Night, published by Atria Books
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, author of What We Fed to the Manticore, published by Tin House
Kevin Sampsell, events coordinator and small-press book buyer at Powell’s Books

Creative Nonfiction

Edgar Gomez, author of High Risk Homosexual: A Memoir, published by Soft Skull Press
Raquel Gutiérrez, author of Brown Neon, published by Coffee House Press
Gaël LeLamer, head book buyer at Books & Books

Poetry 

Allison Escoto, head librarian and education director at The Center for Fiction
Crystal Wilkinson, author of Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, published by Clarkson Potter
Shelley Wong, author of As She Appears, published by YesYes Books

Magazine

Sam Campbell, managing editor, The Arkansas International
Manuel Gonzales, fiction editor, Bennington Review
Dana Isokawa, editor in chief, The Margins

 

Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: Pulitzer Prize Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.   

Last week, I warned you that the Pulitzer Prize announcements were coming today. And here is the access to the link with this year's winners in every category as well as the the statement for why they won ( an addition I always enjoy).

I will post the text for the book specific awards below, but please note, all of these awards have implications for your collections and patrons. For example, this year's general nonfiction winner is about George Floyd, and a few years ago, the same topic won journalism prizes. No let's think about all of the award that went to coverage of the war in Ukraine. I would wager that in a few years, books on this war will be winning in those categories. 

And the Pulitzer Prizes also have awards for drama, music, and poetry. There is a lot to use here to help readers.

Please note, this link take you to this year's winners with access tot every winner right on the page.

Fiction: Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)

A masterful recasting of “David Copperfield,” narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them.

And

Trust, by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead Books)
A riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king.

Drama: Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie (Basic Books)

A quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and also represent a new life

History: Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie (Basic Books)

A resonant account of an Alabama county in the 19th and 20th centuries shaped by settler colonialism and slavery, a portrait that illustrates the evolution of white supremacy by drawing powerful connections between anti-government and racist ideologies.

Biography: G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, by Beverly Gage (Viking)

A deeply researched and nuanced look at one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history that depicts the longtime FBI director in all his complexity, with monumental achievements and crippling flaws.

Memoir or Autobiography: Hua Hsu of Stay True

An elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.

Poetry: Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020, by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

A masterful collection that chronicles American culture as the country struggles to make sense of its politics, of life in the wake of a pandemic, and of our place in a changing global community.  

General Nonfiction: His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa (Viking)

An intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown. (Moved by the Board from the Biography category.)

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: National Book Awards Judges Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.   

Beginning today and going through the 16th, the National Book Foundation will be slowly releasing their long lists of nominees in 5 categories. There will be whirlwind of books being added to our toolbox as "best" options during that time. On a side note: I love how they stage their announcements to build excitement for the award.

But one of the downsides of all of that excitement is that people will be itching for the announcements and eager to get their hands on all of the books at once. Add into the fact that they save the top nominations-- fiction and nonfiction-- for last. By the time we get to Friday, we will have already handled requests for the titles already announced and queries about when the others are coming. And often, we get a request seconds after the lists come out. I know all of this from experience. We will need some readalike options and display ideas, and fast.

So here's an idea. Start your display and build your suggestion lists today, even before the first titles are announced.

But Becky, how can I do that? Ahh, it is easier than you think if you begin with the judges and their works first. Click here to see the 5 judges per category-- that's 25 judges who all have works that fall into each of the categories. 

Start with the judges' works and then build in the long list titles as the week goes on. You can draw interest by building excitement and anticipation for the new announcements each day. And then as the current nominees get checked out, click here and use the "Browse By Year" page to add past winners and nominees to your displays and suggestion lists.

This would be an easy and fun display [in person or online]. It capitalizes on a story that will dominate the book atmosphere for the next few days. And it shows you patrons that you care about matching them with a great read.

And don't forget to include this year's Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Art Spiegelman, to your displays. He was already announced here. You an also click here for a quick list of the lifetime award winners from the past few years as well.

Have fun with this. It is fairly easy if you use the judges and backlist to get yourself started. Your patrons will notice and appreciate it. 

Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: The International Booker Prize and The Whiting Award

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

I really enjoy finding awards that are broad and useful. Yes, the major literary and genre awards get a lot of attention and bring readers into our libraries seeking the winning titles, but there are so many other awards that alert us to titles that we can use to fill out our collections, giving us a wider range of titles to suggest to our readers.

Two such awards made announcements recently. The first you probably heard about: The International Booker Prize. The titles on the shortlist for this award are considered the very best books translated into English in the last year. And you can click here to get all of the titles throughout the history of the award-- long list, short list, and winners. 

Use this award and its nominees to flesh out your "in translation" offerings and/or to build a display. What is wonderful about a display of the very best titles translated into English is that just by pulling the titles and displaying them together you are sure to get a display that represents many different cultures and types of stories. The titles that get the International Booker distinction often are not straight up literary fiction [like we tend to see with literary prizes here in America]; rather they tend have strong genre influences. Click here to see what I mean. You can also click here for other resources I have written about in order to identify titles in translation that are worth considering for your public library collection.

The second was one I was vaguely aware of, and when it was announced I ended up spending a good 30 mins browsing through the backlist of winners: The Whiting Award. From the award webpage: 

Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Read about the most recent cohort below, browse the 37-year history of Whiting Award-winning writers, or search the full list of winners.

Okay, so you may not know the 10 writers getting the 2022 distinction, but that is sorta the whole point of the award. However, go browse the history of writers who have earned this distinction and wowza!, you will see literal household name authors there.

The time I spent perusing that list of past winners made me realize this is an award we all need to pay more attention to. And with 10 each year, across the spectrum of publishing-- fiction, nonfiction, poetry, an drama-- you are sure to have a wide range of stories that will appeal to many different readers.

While you may not be able to add entire books by these emerging writers yet, you can go back to the last 2-8 years of winners and see what they have published. At the very least, they are worthy of considering an add to most public library collections.

The #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway Celebrates Its First Year and National Poetry Month.

It's #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway day over on the horror blog. But today is a special one too. It has been almost an entire year since I began this giveaway, which in and of itself a feat, but also, I began this endeavor with a horror poetry collection since it was April and National Poetry Month. That book was A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng. Click here for my review.

Flash forward a year and A Collection of Dreamscapes is a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for best poetry collection. This clearly did not surprise me based on my review.

And today, to celebrate a year of these giveaways, National Poetry Month, and the upcoming Bram Stoker Awards ceremony [which is free to all on 5/22 here and I am getting some hardware during the ceremony so you are going to want to watch], I am giving away another book by one of the nominees. This time a poetry collection by Cynthia Pelayo. Details below but first...

Here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #37. Our winner was Kate from Woodford County [KY] Library.

Now to this week's giveaway with a review. 

Into The Forest And All The Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo is a striking, thought provoking, and social justice focused poetry collection; in fact those are my official "three words," but it is also devastating, haunting, and necessary. It exists in a terrifying space where nonfiction and lyricism collide. 

The concept of these linked poems is very simple. As stated here on Goodreads:

"Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a collection of true crime poetry that explores the cases of over one hundred missing and murdered women in the United States."

It is that deceptively simple to describe and yet, the emotions Pelayo conveys are impossible to put into words. You feel every bit of pain, sadness, injustice, horror, anger, etc..... She is able to evoke it all in language that flows perfectly. 

Here's the main point though. I don't think this book would ever work as series of essays. IT has to be in poems. These missing women have been written about before and yet, they have still be forgotten and their murders unsolved. Pelayo's poetry makes it clear that she has done the research into the women, their lives, and their deaths, but rather than rattle it all off, she creates poems that get at the emotion of it all.

She asks you to spend time with her words, words she chooses carefully and links together into captivating poems. There is no way this way easy for her to write.

These poems will effect you. You cannot look away. They are participatory and terrifying. They also also 100% real and true. This is not a book for the timid, but it is also a book of truth.

I have been very general here on purpose. This is a book you need to enter when you are ready as a reader. Just its existence is important. And, personally, I read it over a month. I could not sit and consume it in one sitting, but that is a good thing. I spent a little bit of time with it, over time. That made me ponder it more though too.

Redalikes: Novels in verse that deal with social justice issues like Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds and The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo are great comp titles. The first is about cycles of violence and the second about a young girl's coming of age in Harlem and the sexual harassment she must constantly deal with.  

But also any true crime that is about female victims, especially unsolved one [and unfortunately too many are about this] like Lost Girls by Robert Kolker. 

However, these true crime books, while popular and well written [the example was a NYT Notable Book], are not going to distill the essence of the pain and feelings as well as Pelayo's poetry collection.

Enter today to win a finished copy of Into The Forest And All The Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo. And then log in to see who wins the Bram Stoker Awards on 5/22.