Most of the 381 books that the U.S. Naval Academy removed from its library in April after an order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office resulted in a purge of titles are back on the shelves. The Associated Press reported that the decision marks "the latest turn in a dizzying effort to rid the military of materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs."

Approximately 20 books from the academy's library have now been pulled aside to be checked, including some that weren't identified or removed in the initial purge, according to defense officials. The AP noted that earlier this month, the Pentagon issued a new detailed directive to all military leaders and commands to pull and review library books addressing diversity, anti-racism or gender issues, but the order contained more specific search words than earlier guidance and verbal orders from Defense Department leaders, which has resulted in far fewer banned books.

In a statement, the Navy said it reviewed the library collections at all of its educational institutions to ensure compliance with the directives, noting that materials have been "identified and sequestered." The Army and Air Force also have reviewed their collections.

A temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department to oversee the process provided a list of search terms to use to determine which books to pull and review, including: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, and white privilege.

Chris Lick has been appointed executive v-p, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Scholastic, effective June 1. He succeeds Andrew Hedden, who held the position for 17 years and is retiring and becoming senior counselor. Lick joined Scholastic in 2008, and had held several senior positions within the legal group, most recently senior v-p and deputy general counsel.

Chris Lick

President and CEO Peter Warwick said, "Chris has become a key strategic partner to Scholastic's executive leadership, providing sound judgment that best serves both our values as a company and our growth-oriented business goals. We are eager to have him in this new role and grateful to Andy for his previous service."

Lick said, "Since day one at Scholastic, it has been a privilege to be part of an incredibly talented legal team and play my role in the company's mission to bring books to kids. We are growing the ways in which we do just that and I look forward to working closely with Peter, the managing executive committee and the board to achieve our goals."

Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing is launching Sarah Barley Books, an imprint that will be part of the Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers imprint, led by publisher Justin Chanda. The new imprint will publish "vibrant literary and commercial books that appeal directly to readers eight and up. It will focus on innovative titles with distinctive writing and great storytelling that instill wonder, inspire conversation, and above all, entertain teens and children." The first titles will appear in the spring of 2026.

Editorial director Sarah Barley joined S&S last year and earlier created the YA line at Flatiron Books and worked in children's publishing at HarperCollins Children's Books, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, and Random House Children's Books.

Sarah Barley

She said, "I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join Simon & Schuster, whose list I've long admired, to publish a broader range of books. I was ready for a new challenge and to have a bigger palette!... I'm starting with YA on this first list, but I've got some terrific middle-grade titles forthcoming that I can't wait to talk about soon. I hope the list will grow organically, but I'd like to publish around ten books a year."

Chanda said, "I have long been a fan of Sarah's work--her editorial vision, passion for books, and market savvy. I had a hunch that she'd be an incredible asset to Simon & Schuster, but now having worked with her and having seen the range of books she is about to bring to shelves... that hunch was an understatement! So very proud to have Sarah Barley Books on our list!"

Sarah Barley Books' initial acquisitions include three YA novels:

Beth Is Dead by Katie Bernet (January 6, 2026), a contemporary reimagining of Little Women in which Beth dies in the first chapter, and her sisters will stop at nothing to track down her killer--until they begin to suspect one another.

Love Me Tomorrow by Emiko Jean (February 3, 2026), a funny and deeply moving rom-com about a girl who starts receiving letters from the love of her life, writing to her from years in the future, by the author of Tokyo Ever After.

Heiress of Nowhere by Stacey Lee (March 17, 2026), a gothic mystery about a girl racing to uncover a killer--who may or may not live in the sea--before she is the next victim, from the author of The Downstairs Girl.

Barnes & Noble will celebrate the opening of two new bookstores today, May 28. 

In Dublin, Ohio, B&N will officially mark the relocation of its Dublin Sawmill store, which had closed May 4. The new bookstore is in Sun Center at 3708 W. Dublin-Granville Road, a space formerly occupied by Bed Bath & Beyond. The opening will feature author Margaret Peterson Haddix cutting the ribbon and signing copies of her books. The bookstore offers an updated B&N Café.

Also on Wednesday, B&N will host the grand opening of its new Lakewood, Wash., bookstore, which is another relocation. The former Lakewood Mall store has moved to a new space in Lakewood Towne Center, at 10330 59th Ave. Southwest, and will have a an updated B&N Café. The celebration will feature fantasy authors Terry Brooks, Robin Hobb, and Shawn Speakman cutting the ribbon and signing copies of their books. 

Leslie Epstein, a celebrated novelist and writing teacher "who was born into Hollywood royalty--his father and uncle collaborated on the script for the classic 1942 film Casablanca," died May 18, the New York Times reported. He was 87. Epstein's best known book was the novel King of the Jews (1979), "a powerful, biting, and at times humorous story about the leader of a Judenrat, or Jewish Council, in a Polish ghetto during the Holocaust."

Leslie Epstein

Writing about the book in the New York Times Book Review, Robert Alter praised Epstein's focus on "the morally ambiguous politics of survival" practiced by Council leaders "who were both violently thrust and seductively drawn into a position of absolute power and absolute impotence in which no human being could continue to function with any moral coherence."

There were some negative reactions as well. Also writing in the Times, critic Anatole Broyard contended that the Jews in the novel "come very close to appearing silly or childish.... Many of them are manic, as if manic behavior were the Jew's cliché, as if he is shrill, excitable, the stand-up comic, the nudnik of history."

Although Epstein did not define himself as a Jewish writer, several of his stories and novels featured "the tragicomic adventures" of the character Leib Goldkorn, who appears in The Steinway Quintet: Plus Four (1976); Goldkorn Tales (1985); Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail (1999); and Liebestod: Opera Buffa with Leib Goldkorn (2012). In 2003, Epstein explored his family history in San Remo Drive: A Novel from Memory, five interrelated stories about the Jacobis, a Hollywood family. 

In an interview with Newsday in 1999, Epstein explained the 14-year gap before resurrecting Goldkorn in Ice Fire Water by saying that "his voice kept speaking to me," and the author's motivations had changed: "The fight against old age drives him. In Goldkorn Tales, it had been music and his magic flute. But in this book, it's the unsublimated Goldkorn, and his phallus has taken the place of his flute."

Epstein was born in Los Angeles, where his father, Philip Epstein, and Philip's twin brother, Julius, were screenwriters of popular movies that included The Man Who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace, and the Oscar-winning Casablanca (written with Howard Koch).

Epstein's son Theo is the baseball executive who in 2004 helped the Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918.

Leslie Epstein received a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University in 1960; studied anthropology as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford; and earned a master's degree in theater arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1963, and a Ph.D. in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama in 1967.

He had launched his teaching career at Queens College in 1965, and in 1978 moved to Boston University, where he directed the creative writing program for 36 years. His students included award-winning authors Jhumpa Lahiri and Ha Jin. He taught his final class during this year's spring semester.

Lahiri said Epstein carefully analyzed his students' stories in single-spaced reviews, a page or two long, adding: "He was honest, sometimes to the point where it was hard to absorb the impact. But he would tell you why something was false and pinpoint what was off about it. You never approached your work in the same way."

Claudia Rowe, author of Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care (Abrams) at her launch event on May 23 at Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash. She was in conversation with Mike Lewis, contributor to Seattle NPR affiliate KUOW.

"May you all sleep as soundly as this cat during a 57-person strong book club," Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, La., posted on Facebook.

"One stop shop for your next favorite beach read." That was the cheery, pre-summer sidewalk chalkboard message outside Posman Books, New York, N.Y., which noted: "The official start of Summer calls for some new sandwich board art outside our shops! What's your sign that Summer has kicked off?"

At the University of North Carolina Press:

Sonya Bonczek has been promoted to director of publicity and communications. She was previously director of publicity.

Helen Kyriakoudes has been promoted to publicist. She was previously associate publicist.

Na'dayah Pugh has joined the press as publicity assistant. A recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pugh interned at UNC Press during her senior year.

Beast by Richard Van Camp (Douglas & McIntyre).

Tomorrow:
Today: Florence Knapp, author of The Names: A Novel (Pamela Dorman, $30, 9780593833902).

Newcomers Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout, and Arabella Stanton have been cast as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in HBO's upcoming Harry Potter TV series, based on J.K. Rowling's books. Deadline reported that a "whopping 32,000 kids had auditioned for what are undoubtedly three of the biggest TV roles of the coming decade." The trio will now prepare for the start of filming, which is set for this summer at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, in England, with the first season airing in 2026. 

"After an extraordinary search led by casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann, we are delighted to announce we have found our Harry, Hermione, and Ron," said showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director Mark Mylod. "The talent of these three unique actors is wonderful to behold, and we cannot wait for the world to witness their magic together onscreen. We would like to thank all the tens of thousands of children who auditioned. It's been a real pleasure to discover the plethora of young talent out there."

They will join an adult cast that so far includes Paapa Essiedu as Snape, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.

The series is written and executive produced by Gardiner, with Mylod executive producing and directing multiple episodes for HBO in association with Brontë Film and TV and Warner Bros. Television. Also serving as executive producers are Rowling, Neil Blair, and Ruth Kenley-Letts of Brontë Film and TV, as well as David Heyman of Heyday Films.

The Adversary by Michael Crummey (published by Doubleday and Vintage in the U.S.) won the €100,000 (about $113,610) Dublin Literary Award, which is sponsored by Dublin City Council to recognize a single work of international fiction, whether originally written in English or translated into it. The announcement was made as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin. Nominations are chosen by librarians and readers from a network of libraries around the world. 

The jury commented: "Michael Crummey's The Adversary compellingly and convincingly immerses its readers in a world previously lost to fiction, and almost lost to memory: a Newfoundland outport from the early years of the colony, connected to the world outside only by the occasional supply ship."

photo: Susan Yates

Kristy Woodson Harvey is the author of a dozen novels, including A Happier Life, The Peachtree Bluff Series, and Beach House Rules (Gallery Books, May 27, 2025), which is about a mother-daughter duo learning to lean on their community of women--and each other. Harvey is the winner of the Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. She is also the co-creator and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast, Friends & Fiction, with fellow authors Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, and Patti Callahan Henry.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Full House meets Gossip Girl with a glamorous beachfront setting and a Southern twist.

On your nightstand now:

The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline. Lisa is such a pro, and this novel is totally riveting. It's such a twisty psychological thriller that I'm reading it during the daytime, not before bed, and Lisa deftly incorporates a stunning Italian setting and a dash of history as well. I can't stop recommending it!

Favorite book when you were a child:

Matilda by Roald Dahl. I think I related to being a bookish child, and I loved the agency that she finds over her life--and the magic she finds within!

Your top five authors:

Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Patti Callahan Henry, Elin Hilderbrand, and Emily Giffin. Mary Kay, Kristin, and Patti were three of my favorite authors long before they were my Friends & Fiction co-founders and co-hosts, and Elin and Emily were two of the other authors that made me want to become a writer. Each of these women tells her stories in a very different way, but I love all their voices and always look forward to what's next from them!

Book you've faked reading:

Look Homeward, Angel, which is shameful for a North Carolinian--and a UNC grad, at that--to even admit! I need to give that one another go! I love Thomas Wolfe, but for some reason, this one just didn't get into my hands at the right time.

Book you're an evangelist for:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This was the book that really made me realize how much books have the power to connect people. I read it for the first time when I was in fourth grade and have read it probably a dozen times since. Francie Nolan and I were the same age when I read the book the first time, and I remember reading it again at 29 and realizing I was the same age as her mother, who I thought was so old the first time I read it! But the book is still so resonant every time I read it, no matter my age.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Gilt by Jamie Brenner. I loved this cover so much, and, lucky for me, the saga about a family of jewelers inside the cover was just as delicious. Jamie is a favorite author of mine, and I always look forward to her new titles!

Book you hid from your parents:

Francine Pascal's The Morning After, an installment of the Sweet Valley High series, which my mom and my best friend's mom forbid us from reading! I think we were in fifth grade, and some of those high school iterations of Sweet Valley were pretty advanced. As I remember, this one involved a drunk-driving accident and some prom-night activities a little too mature for fifth graders!

Book that changed your life:

Well, I feel like perhaps this isn't in the spirit of the question, but if you really want to know the book that changed my life most, I'd have to say my debut novel, Dear Carolina. I was a kid who grew up loving to read but who never imagined she would be a writer. Holding that book in my hands for the first time changed everything for me. Eleven books later, with three more on the way, I never could have imagined that this would be my career. I love it every single day!

Favorite line from a book:

"The world was hers for the reading," from my favorite book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I feel like that could be my one-line memoir!

Five books you'll never part with:

Little Women--largely because I will always think of reading about Louisa May Alcott's first editor telling her to stick with her teaching because she would never be a writer! A signed first edition of Madeleine L'Engle's The Summer of the Great-Grandmother a friend gifted to me. A tiny leather-bound edition of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet a dear family friend who has since passed away gave me as a wedding gift (she marked inside of it for me, "Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course"). The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. And An Affair with a House by Bunny Williams. Interior design is my other great love, and this book really encapsulates how I feel about my own historic home.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I can't remember how old I was when I read this one, but I think it was seventh or eighth grade. The writing is so lush, the story so powerful, and India springs to life in a way I had never experienced before. Love and family and joy and sadness all intertwine so beautifully. When the sequel came out years later, I bought it the very first day--and now I'm thinking I really need to read The God of Small Things again!

Adult author Paul Tremblay (The Beast You Are; The Cabin at the End of the World) makes his middle-grade debut with the eerie, uncanny Another.

Twelve-year-old Casey Wilson and his family are adjusting to life during the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid talk of "bubbles and pods," Casey started middle school. Two days a week he attends school in-person, where "everyone seemed to have grown bigger and older than he had." Anxiety from the pandemic and the changes to his schedule led to Casey developing occasional facial tics--which a bully filmed and set to music. While Casey has made it past the "Zoom Incident" (as his father calls it), Casey's closest friends have stopped inviting him to things, and he still has facial tics.

When the old-fashioned rotary phone his mother found at the antiques store begins to ring--despite the ringer being turned off--Casey's mom answers and agrees to a visitor. A man arrives with "a large, lumpy, light brown burlap bag" covered in dust, which opens to reveal a boy. Or rather something "shaped like a boy": it is "like a living mannequin," with skin the "pinkish-gray color of Silly Putty" and a face that has only the "outlines of facial features." The boy's name is Morel, the man says, and he's Casey's "new friend." Casey is sure it's all a joke, but his parents readily agree to take Morel and then wander off, telling "the boys to have fun but to not make too much noise." Days pass, and Casey's parents and Morel begin to change--as Morel becomes more defined and human-like, Casey's parents seem to fall into a haze. Soon, Casey's own mind starts getting fuzzy. The boy must figure out what the man wants and what Morel is before the distortion becomes reality.

Another is filled with an uneasy, growing dread. Casey's increasing alarm is contrasted with his parents' continued calm, and his lack of control heightens tension in a way that will certainly be accessible (and likely terrifying) to young readers. Black-and-white illustrations by Sam Wolfe Connelly build tone and add important texture to the plot. Tremblay honors middle-grade readers in his first work for children by speaking directly to their intelligence and telling a downright scary story. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Twelve-year-old Casey is given a living mannequin as a friend in this uncanny and eerie middle-grade horror novel.