From American Library’s The Scoop blog:

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   The American Library Association (ALA) has selected A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf) by Megha Majumdar as the winner of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Things in Nature Merely Grow (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) by Yiyun Li as the winner of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.  

  A Guardian and a Thief, Majumdar’s second novel following her acclaimed  2020 title Burning, is set in a near-future Kolkata besieged by worsening climate crises. Privileged Ma, along with her widowed father Dadu and 2-year-old daughter Mishti, are spending one last week in their native city before they escape to Michigan, when Ma’s purse, filled with priceless documents, is stolen. Majumdar brilliantly blurs right and wrong, ethics and legality. The novel was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for fiction.

  Li’s memoir also appeared on the National Book Award shortlist. In Things in Nature Merely Grow, the writer, best known for her novels and short stories, faces the shocking reality of her second son’s death by suicide. As Li writes in the beginning of the book, “There is no good way to state these facts…. My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at 16, James in 2024, at 19. Both chose suicide.” Like Majumdar’s novel, Things in Nature Merely Grow was named one of 100 notable books of 2025 by the New York Times.

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SHARE YOUR EXPERTISE  Andes Library would like to offer teens, as they embark on young adulthood, the opportunity to learn about the different paths others have followed.   If you are willing to share your experiences with these young people, please contact the library.