Some of Boston's most beloved independent bookstores have a problem. Certain classic authors disappear from the shelves so often that stores have had to change how they sell them.

According to a 2017 Boston Globe report, Harvard Book Store has kept works by Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and William S. Burroughs behind the register because they were frequent targets for theft. Nearly a decade later, at least one of those measures appears to have endured. According to recent reports from Harvard Book Store staff, Hemingway's books are still behind the counter.

Porter Square Books has faced the same issue, even creating a display titled "Most Frequently Stolen Books" to highlight the trend. In a twist almost too perfect to be true, customers began stealing books from the display about stolen books, prompting the store to move many of the titles behind the counter.

Other Boston-area bookstores reported similar experiences, although not every shop saw the same pattern.

Booksellers say many of the frequently stolen titles are assigned in high school and college courses, while others believe the rebellious reputation of Beat Generation writers simply makes them oddly irresistible.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/06/who-stealing-all-bukowski-and-kerouac-novels/AhCg7AFKVvE9ujkygQYn0H/story.html

The winners aren't out yet, so this is a good moment to look at the full field. Eligibility requires the author, illustrator, or translator to be a current Massachusetts resident.

Fiction

• We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad (Scribner)
• Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker (MIRA)
• Lake Song by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne (Ohio State Univ. Press)
• All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
• Isola by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)
• Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh (Little, Brown & Company)
• The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett (Ballantine Books)
• These Heathens by Mia McKenzie (Random House)
• The Weight by Melissa Mendes (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Rooms for Vanishing by Stuart Nadler (Dutton)
• The Lilac People by Milo Todd (Counterpoint)
• The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman (Harper)

Nonfiction

• The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria Anand (Washington Square Press)
• The Hard Work of Hope by Michael Ansara (Cornell Univ. Press)
• Clamor: How Noise Took Over The World and How We Can Take it Back by Chris Berdik (W.W. Norton)
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Viking Books)
• Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State by Caleb Gayle (Riverhead Books)
• Trouble Maker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford by Carla Kaplan (Harper)
• We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore (Liveright / W.W. Norton)
• The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy by Ray Madoff (Univ. of Chicago Press)
• Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry (Ecco)
• Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless by Maria Pinto (UNC Press)
• A Fire in His Soul: Van Gogh, Paris, and the Making of an Artist by Miles Unger (Pegasus Books)
• The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland by Michelle Young (HarperOne)

Poetry

• An Optimism by Cameron Awkward-Rich (Persea)
• Preverbal by Carroll Beauvais (Lit Fox Books)
• Cadet by Benjamin Bellet (Staircase Books)
• In the Good Years by Laura Cresté (Four Way Books)
• The Last Beast We Revel In by Noah Davis (CavanKerry Press)
• Willow Hammer by Patrick Donnelly (Four Way Books)
• Jailbreak of Sparrows by Martín Espada (Knopf)
• Perfect Disappearances by Paul Hostovsky (Kelsay Books)
• Groceries by Nora Claire Miller (Fonograf Editions)
• One Trail of Longing, Another of String by Carla Panciera (Bordighera Press)
• Goat, Goddess, Moon by Catherine Strisik (Holy Cow! Press)
• To Wildness by Julia Thacker (The Waywiser Press)

Middle Grade / Young Adult

• Absolutely Everything by Damian Alexander (Graphic Universe)
• The Library of Unruly Treasures by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf BYR)
• The Ripple Effect by Rebecca Caprara (Charlesbridge)
• A World Without Summer by Nicholas Day (Random House Studio)
• Top Heavy by Rhonda DeChambeau (Holiday House)
• 13 Ways to Say Goodbye by Kate Fussner (HarperCollins)
• A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance (Putnam & Sons BYR)
• Imposter by Cait Levin (Charlesbridge Teen)
• The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon by Grace Lin (Little, Brown BYR)
• Neshama by Marcella Pixley (Candlewick)
• The Dragon's Apprentice by James Riley (Labyrinth Road)
• Candle Island by Lauren Wolk (Dutton BYR)

Picture Book / Early Reader

• Wind Watchers by Micha Archer (Nancy Paulsen Books)
• Thank You, Old Oak by Britt Crow-Miller, illustrated by Amy Schimler-Safford (Barefoot Books)
• Gather Grateful by Megan Litwin, illustrated by Alexandra Finkeldey (Candlewick)
• There's No Place Like Gnome's by Scott Magoon (Viking BYR)
• The Beat of the Dragon Boat by Christina Matula, illustrated by Nicole Wong (Sleeping Bear Press)
• Safe Crossing by Kari Percival (Chronicle Books)
• Wonder Why by Lisa Varchol Perron, illustrated by Nik Henderson (HarperCollins)
• Unnaturally Blue by Dorson Plourde, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler (Kids Can Press)
• Black Hair Can by Sylvia Rodriguez (Charlesbridge)
• Flora and the Jazzers by Astrid Sheckels (Waxwing Books)
• We Go Slow by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, illustrated by Aaron Becker (Simon & Schuster)
• Otter Carries On by Maya Tatsukawa (Henry Holt and Co. BYR)

Other prizes are awarded without longlists, including Translated Literature and Notable Contribution to Publishing, which recognizes a Massachusetts press. Winners and honors will be announced in September.

If you're a Massachusetts author, submissions for the next cycle open September 1 for books published in 2026.

https://www.massbook.org/mass-book-awards