Publishing Updates

• A judge has issued the final approval to the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement.
• Sarah Wynn-Williams’ lawsuit against Meta tests the power of publishing against Big Tech.
• Publishing has a marketing problem, where readers are losing the line between the idea of a book and the book itself.
• AI companies are buying tons of old books because they’re free of “AI slop.”
• Big companies are starting to hire again, defying predictions of an AI wipeout.
• Katie Porter is pivoting from politics to book influencing.

Books & Authors In the News

• PEN America president Dinaw Mengestu has resigned due to “ongoing failure to defend free expression fairly and equitably, and about its production of work that supports suppression through bigotry and indifference.”
• Japanese mystery author Keigo Higashino has died at 68.
• Odyssey translator Emily Wilson goes in on Christopher Nolan’s adaptation.
• Matt Haig is opening a bookstore in Brighton.

Adaptations In the News

• Elle Fanning and Julianne Moore are starring in a new film about Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon. The film is based on the book Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon by Leonard S. Marcus.
• Entertainment Weekly has a first look at Mike Flanagan’s upcoming adaptation of Carrie.
• Carrie Mulligan joins the cast of The Bell Jar.
• The literary adaptations that scored Emmy award nominations.
• The Hunger Games will return to theaters this fall.

Award News

• Here’s the full list of Emmy nominees, including the fan favorite horror/comedy Widow’s Bay, which received a whopping nineteen nominations!
• The 2025 Shirley Jackson Award winners have been announced.
• The longlist for the Center for Fiction’s 2026 First Novel Prize has been released.
• The 2026 Booker Prize longlist has been announced.

Numbers & Trends

• Romance fiction platform Galatea polled 2000 readers about smut and spicy romance.
• Year-to-date print unit sales across all editions of The Odyssey are up 76%.
• 9 of the 10 bestselling paperback books in the UK the week of July 14th are about murdered women. What’s going on here?
• Why fewer Americans are reading for pleasure.
• BookTok has turned a barn-building how–to guide from 1992 into a bestseller.
• How Jefferson County Middle School in Mississippi is tackling the literacy crisis.
• Readers report the highest levels of well-being compared to non-readers.

Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists

Romance

• Readalikes for fans of Love on the Spectrum.
• 5 weather-related romance novels.
• 6 of the most chaotic meet-cutes in romance novels.

Mysteries/Thrillers

• Must-read spy thrillers.
• 6 of the most polarizing mystery and crime books ever written.
• 5 mysteries set at literary events.
• 5 thrilling and chilling supernatural mysteries.
• Mysteries & thrillers set at amusement parks and summer camps.

SFF

• 6 books that take you to space.
• 5 SFF works based around sleep or sleeplessness.
• 8 short SFF books for summer.
• 7 middle grade books fantasy books for fans of Fablehaven.
• 5 SFF books with older characters.