2026 National Book Festival & Great Reads Selections!

 The 2026 National Book Festival is Saturday, August 22, 2026!

Discover Great Reads from Great Places with the Roadmap to Reading at the 2026 Library of Congress National Book Festival! The 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book each selected one book for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers to celebrate the people and places around our nation. Visit each stop on the Roadmap to Reading in Hall D of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. from 9 a.m-8 p.m.

For a link to the author lineup of more than 80 authors at the festival, click here.

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully as our 2026 selection for Young Readers. 

Mattie could make almost anything – toys, sleds, kites, and a foot warmer. When she was just twelve years old, Mattie designed a metal guard to prevent shuttles from shooting off textile looms and injuring workers at the mills in Manchester, New Hampshire. Later, as an adult at the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts, Mattie invented the machine that makes the square-bottom paper bags we still use today. Over the course of her life, Marvelous Mattie earned the title of "the Lady Edison." This is the incredible story of the first woman to receive a U.S. patent.

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving as our 2026 selection for Adult Readers.

In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County—to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto—pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” --Publisher’s blurb

Ann Patchett to Receive 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction

The Library of Congress has announced that the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction will be awarded to Ann Patchett at the National Book Festival on Aug. 22, 2026!

The annual Prize for American Fiction, one of the Library’s most prestigious awards, honors an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished by its mastery of the art, as well as its originality of thought and imagination.

The award seeks to recognize strong, unique, enduring voices that, throughout long and consistently accomplished careers, have told us something about the American experience.

Patchett is the author of 10 novels, including “The Dutch House” (Pulitzer Prize finalist), “The Patron Saint of Liars,” “Bel Canto,” “Commonwealth” and “Taft,” as well as nonfiction and children’s books. She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and received the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

For more information about the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, including past winners click here.

Arthur Sze to serve 2nd term as U.S. Poet Laureate

This National Poetry Month, the Library of Congress has appointed Arthur Sze to serve a second term as the nation’s 25^th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2026-2027! Congratulations Arthur! 

   

 Click here for more details.

Library of Congress Card Catalog Kiosks

The Library of Congress is celebrating National Library Week (April 19-25) with Card Catalog Kiosks Across the Country! These kiosks help remind library patrons – especially during National Library Week – that the Library of Congress is a library for all. 

The front of each drawer of the kiosks includes the name of a Library of Congress service or program. Inside each of the 15 drawers is a card containing a brief description of the featured initiative, along with a QR code leading to the page on the Library’s website that contains more information.

Come check out your local Library of Congress Card Catalog Kiosk in the NH Author's Room at the New Hampshire State Library!

Click here for more details about the project!

Arthur Sze is the Nation's 25th U.S. Poet Laureate

The Library of Congress recently announced the appointment of Arthur Sze as the nation’s 25th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2025-2026.

The winner of the Library’s 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, Sze will begin his laureateship with a reading of his work on Thursday, Oct. 9, in the Library’s historic Coolidge Auditorium.

During his term as Poet Laureate, Sze, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, plans to have a special focus on translating poetry originally written in other languages.

Visit the Library of Congress' website for a press release about Arthur Sze here and for a short interview with Arthur Sze, here.

2025 National Book Festival & Great Reads Selections!

The 2025 National Book Festival is Saturday, September 6, 2025!

Discover Great Reads from Great Places with the Roadmap to Reading at the 2025 Library of Congress National Book Festival! The 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book each selected one book for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers to celebrate the people and places around our nation. Visit each stop on the Roadmap to Reading in Hall D of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. from 9 a.m.- 8 p.m., or create your own National Book Festival experience with the Library of Congress online by engaging in virtual author conversations, listening to a podcast, reading the blog, and more!

For a link to the author lineup of more than 90 authors at the festival, click here.

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, Pitch Perfect and Persistent!: The Musical Debut of Amy Cheney Beach by Caitlin DeLems as our 2025 selection for Young Readers. 

Amy Marcy Cheney was born in Henniker, New Hampshire on September 5, 1867. By the age of four, Amy had composed three waltzes, despite the absence of a piano. Amy began formal piano lessons with her mother at age six, and by age eight the family had moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts to further her musical education. During the course of her lifetime, Amy accomplished many musical firsts, including being the first American woman to compose and publish a symphony. In 1944, Amy Cheney Beach died and is buried with her husband, Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, To Anyone Who Ever Asks: the Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman as our 2025 selection for Adult Readers.

Elizabeth Eaton “Connie” Converse was born in Laconia, New Hampshire on August 3, 1924, and raised in Concord, New Hampshire. She attended Concord High School, where she was valedictorian. Converse attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts for two years before moving to New York City where she began writing songs. In August 1974, Converse left her family home in search of a new life and was not seen or heard from again. Despite some small success early on in her music career, Connie’s music was not recognized until the 21st century with the release of a song compilation and the publication of this biography. 

Passing the Torch

Mary setting up at NBF2003
with a Junior League Volunteer

On Monday evening, May 5, 2003 the NH State Library hosted a reception to open the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Among the honored guests at that event were John Cole, Director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress; Marie Harris, NH Poet Laureate at the time; and the NH authors Tomie dePaola, John Harrigan, and Rebecca Rule.  Katie McDonough was the Director of the NH Center for the Book at its founding. 

By the fall of 2003 we had kicked-off our first Ladybug Picture Book Award; organized our first year of Letters About Literature (a student writing competition that the Library of Congress unfortunately stopped supporting in 2019); and represented the Granite State at the first National Book Festival. 

By that time I had become the Director of the NH Center. In the 20+ years since then we have done a lot of great projects, I have attended more National Book Festivals than I care to count, and I have worked with an amazing group of writers, librarians, readers, and Directors from Centers for the Book throughout the country. It has been fun, educational, and occasionally exhausting. 

After all these years I decided, and former State Librarian Michael York agreed with me, that the time has come for someone new to take over running the NH Center. Luckily, Felicia Martin was ready and willing to become our 3rd Director. Mike appointed her Director before he retired.

Felicia has been Deputy Director of the NH Center since 2023; Chair of the Ladybug Picture Book Award since Ann Hoey's retirement in 2017; and a regular contributor to the Center's blog for many years prior to that. The Center is in very capable hands, and I will be here at the State Library serving as "Director Emeritus" of the Center which means I will be helping Felicia out in whatever ways she decides are helpful.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with the Center for the Book all these years. I couldn't have done it without you!

State Librarian Michael York at NBF2003

2024 National Book Festival!

 The 2024 National Book Festival is this Saturday, August 24th! 

Discover Great Reads from Great Places with the Roadmap to Reading at the 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival. The 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book each selected one book for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers to celebrate the people and places around our nation. Visit each stop on the Roadmap to Reading in Hall D of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. from 8:30 a.m.- 6 p.m., or create your own National Book Festival experience with the Library of Congress online by engaging in virtual author conversations, listening to a podcast, reading the blog, and more!

For a link to the online events schedule, click here.

 

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library is pleased to announce that the book, The McNifficents by Amy Makechnie is our 2024 choice for Young Readers!

 

 

 

The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library is pleased to announce that the book, The Hills At Home by Nancy Clark is our 2024 choice for Adult Readers!

Help us celebrate our amazing New Hampshire authors Amy Makechnie & Nancy Clark, as well as the many other authors from around the nation this weekend! If you're attending the festival, make sure to look for the New Hampshire booth where NH Center for the Book staff will be promoting these great books!

Q & A: Guy Lamolinara, Head of the LOC Center for the Book

The Library of Congress blog recently featured a Q&A with Guy Lamolinara, the Head of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress! 

Working with and learning from Guy is always a delight for us here at the NH Center for the Book. His cheerful demeanor and enthusiasm about Center for the Book affiliate projects and ideas is always warmly welcomed and appreciated.

Click here for the full Q&A with Guy.

To find out more about the Library of Congress Center for the Book and its 56 affiliates, click here.

2023 National Book Festival

The 2023 National Book Festival is this Saturday, August 12th! 

Discover Great Reads from Great Places with the Roadmap to Reading at the 2023 Library of Congress National Book Festival. The 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book selected one book for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers to celebrate the people and places around our nation. Visit each stop on the Roadmap to Reading in Hall D of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., or create your own National Book Festival experience with the Library of Congress online by engaging in virtual author conversations, listening to a podcast, reading the blog, and more! Whether we are near or far, “Everyone Has a Story” and we hope you will join us in celebration this weekend!

For a link to the online events schedule, click here.

The New Hampshire Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, Inky's Amazing Escape by Sy Montgomery as our 2023 choice for Young Readers.

 

 

The New Hampshire Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has selected the book, The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery as our 2023 choice for Adult Readers.

 

Sy Montgomery is the author of 34 books for children and adults. She has won many awards and honors for her wide range of books about every animal you could imagine! Sy lives in Hancock, New Hampshire with her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, her Border collie and a flock of chickens

View interviews with selected authors from the Eastern 1 Region of the U.S., including an interview between the NH Center for the Book's Deputy Director Felicia Martin and author Sy Montgomery here.

Help us celebrate Sy Montgomery and her amazing books, as well as the many other authors from around the nation this weekend!

Great Reads from Great Places

 As part of the 2021 National Book Festival, the Center for the Book at the NH State Library selected Spindlefish and Stars by Christiane M. Andrews as a "Great Read from NH" for young readers. 

The various state centers for the book worked together to create a set of videos featuring panels of authors whose books had been selected for this project. This panel, Mystery and Magic, includes NH author Christiane M. Andrews:

The rest of the panel discussions are available at https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=partof:great+reads+from+great+places

Need More Poetry?

Detail, the Poetry Gallery at LC

If you are sad to have come to the end of National Poetry Month take heart. The Library of Congress maintains an Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature where you can listen to a wide variety of poets read their work. In April 2021 50 new poetry recordings were added. The list of new additions didn't include any Granite State poets, but a search of the archive will reward you with readings by Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, Richard Eberhart, Robert Frost, Charles Simic, and Jane Kenyon.

NH Letters About Literature 2019

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, which has provided support and all the funding for Letters About Literature to the NH Center since 2004 notified all the state Centers for the Book in mid-June that they are ending the program:

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is proud of the 27 years it has sponsored the Letters About Literature program with affiliated Centers for the Book. This national reading and writing competition, which has touched more than one million students, has been a source of much joy and inspiration at the nation’s library. We are grateful for your unflagging support of this initiative.

I write to let you know that, after much analysis and reflection, the Library has decided that Letters About Literature will conclude with the 2018-2019 program. The Library has developed a new Strategic Plan, and must focus its resources in direct support of that Plan.   

 After receiving this notice the NH Center for the Book Advisory Board discussed the issue and determined that without the financial support of the Library of Congress we are unable to offer this program to New Hampshire students for the 2019-2020 school year.

Letters About Literature is a program that supports reading and the thoughtful consideration of how literature relates to our lives and we would like to see it continue in our state. There are several state Centers planning to fund and manage the program within their own states in the coming school year. The NH Center will be looking at whether we can find the resources to resume the program, following the model being created now by other state centers, for the fall of 2020. If this proves possible we will make announcements about our plans by early May 2020.