In this week’s issue: The American Library Association issues its list of the 10 books most often banned or challenged in the past year, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin finds a home for her and her husband Richard Goodwin’s literary archives, Myanmar continues to persecute journalists writing the truth about its oppressive regime, the finalists for the 2022 Young Lions Award are announced, and more.

Books about LGBTQ and Black People Were Among the Most Challenged Books in 2021
CNN
As the wave of book banning continues, the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom issued its list of the 10 Most Challenged Titles of 2021. Books featuring Black and LGBTQ characters or written by authors in those communities dominate the list.

U.T. Austin Acquires Archives That Give Insight Into the 1960s
The New York Times
The University of Texas at Austin has acquired the papers and writings of JFK speechwriter Richard Goodwin and award-winning presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin for five million dollars.

Reporter in Myanmar Sentenced to Five Years in Prison Under Terrorism Law
International Federation of Journalists
Win Naing Oo, former chief correspondent for Myanmar news outlet Channel Mandalay, has received a five-year prison sentence for alleged incitement under the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law for reporting the news. Myanmar currently functions as a military dictatorship under junta rule. No other information about Oo’s arrest and sentencing has been made available.

Maryland Gives Up on Its Library E-book Law
Publishers Weekly
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh said the state will no longer move forward with its attempt to implement its library e-book law. Frosh does not plan to present new evidence in a legal challenge filed by the Association of American Publishers, allowing the court’s recently issued preliminary injunction blocking the law to stand.

NYPL Announces Finalists for 2022 Young Lions Award for Fiction
LitHub
The New York Public Library has announced five finalists for the $10,000 Young Lions Award, which recognizes the best novel or short story collection of the year by authors under 35 years of age. The finalists are Mateo Askaripour for Black Buck; Alexandra Kleeman for Something New Under the Sun; Tom Lin for The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu; Dantiel W. Moniz for Milk Blood Heat, and Kalani Pickhart for I Will Die in a Foreign Land.

Chinese Writers Combat Pandemic Boredom by Remixing Western Literary Classics
LitHub
Nikki Wong, a writer living in Shanghai, says that the Chinese government’s bizarre rules to combat the pandemic inspired her to write a new twist on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Several other Chinese writers are also drawing on Western classics to capture their COVID-19 experiences.

Patricia MacLachlan, Author of Sarah, Plain and Tall, Has Died
Publishers Weekly
The children/YA author Patricia MacLachlan died at the age of 84 in Williamstown, MA. Though she published more than 60 books for children, she is best known for her novel Sarah, Plain and Tall, for which she won the 1986 Newberry Medal and 1986 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction.