Robert Brown|Drew Barrymore will host the National Book Awards, where Oprah Winfrey will be a guest speaker

NEW YORK (AP) — Drew Barrymore,Robert Brown whose honors include a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award, will be presiding over a more literary ceremony this fall.

Barrymore will be hosting the 74th annual National Book Awards, the National Book Foundation announced Tuesday. And Oprah Winfrey, a previous winner of an honorary National Book Award, will be a guest speaker.

Barrymore and Winfrey both have long histories of championing books and reading. Winfrey’s book club picks have helped dozens of works become bestsellers, while Barrymore has praised books by Tina Fey and David Sedaris, among others.

Other news Book Review: Genevieve Gornichec spins a fun yarn with ‘The Weaver and the Witch Queen’ Genevieve Gornichec’s second historical fantasy novel “The Weaver and the Witch Queen” marries Norse mythology with romance and two dashing heroines, who each have to find their own way in 10th century Norway. Book Review: Still foolin’ — Richard Russo revisits upstate New York in third novel Richard Russo returns to what used to be North Bath, New York, in “Somebody’s Fool,” the third novel in his “Fool” series. Santa Barbara’s paper, one of California’s oldest, stops publishing after owner declares bankruptcy The Pulitzer Prize-winning Santa Barbara News-Press, one of California’s oldest newspapers, has ceased publishing after its owner declared the 150-year-old publication bankrupt. Seiichi Morimura, who exposed the atrocities committed by the Japanese army’s Unit 731, dies at 90 Renowned Japanese mystery writer Seiichi Morimura, whose nonfiction trilogy “The Devil’s Gluttony” exposed human medical experiments conducted by a secret Japanese army unit during World War II, has died at age 90.

“Throughout their careers, Drew Barrymore and Oprah Winfrey have each demonstrated their enduring belief that books have the power to change readers’ lives — by opening doors, sparking conversations, and building community,” David Steinberger, chair of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation, said in a statement. “This belief echoes the mission of the National Book Foundation to ensure that books have a prominent place in our culture.”

The awards ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 15, in Manhattan, with competitive prizes to be handed out in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literature in translation and young people’s literature. Barrymore is not the first celebrity host of the National Book Awards, the unofficial “Oscars” of the publishing world. Steve Martin hosted a handful of times in the late 1990s and early 2000s.