News of note for readers: February 20, 2025

Catch up quick with the bookish news of the past few days ... or take a deeper dive into each story. Your choice! 

• See the cover of Sonora Jha's Intemperance, which comes out October 14, and learn about the design process (Electric Literature).

• The 2025 Libby Book Awards, honoring the best literature published in 2024, has released the lists of finalists in twenty genres; the winners will be revealed March 5 (Libby).

• The 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees have also been announced; we'll learn the identities of the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and TV on May 1 (Mystery Writers of America).

• E. Lockhart’s 2014 YA novel We Were Liars is close to finally premiering as a TV show; with a spring premiere on Amazon Prime being teased, learn about its long journey to the screen and meet the cast members (Book Riot).

• If you were born on March 2, you're eligible to receive a free copy of The Cat in the Hat, because you share a birthday with author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss (Associated Press).

• The New York Times has obituaries of Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, and Gerd Stern, a Beat Generation poet and multimedia artist; Shoup died February 6 at age eighty-six, while Stern died Monday at age ninety-six.

• A Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen by Malinda Russell, which is the oldest known published cookbook by a Black American woman, has a new edition out this month (NPR).