News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff.
NOTE on paywalls: Publisher’s Weekly and The Guardian may require you to sign up for a free account in order to read their content. Both The New York Times and the Washington Post have paywalls, but allow a small number of free articles per month.
Bookish News
- Pulitzer Prize Winners for 2026 (Pulitzer Prize)
- Scott Turow’s latest real-life legal thriller: Suing Meta for copyright infringement (NPR; podcast available) (and more on the story from the Association of American Publishers)
- Library Orgs Urge Big Five to Address Digital Pricing as library acquisition budgets are increasingly spent on ebooks and digital audiobooks. (Publishers Weekly)
- CEO James Daunt says Barnes & Noble will stock AI-generated books (Literary Hub) Welp, I won’t be buying them.
- Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk apparently used AI to write her latest novel, then responded to the controversy to say she only uses it as a research tool, not to actually write. (Literary Hub)
- Eisner Awards to Implement AI Policy Following Controversy (Publishers Weekly)
- Children’s Book Community Responds in Outrage to Comment by National Ambassador Mac Barnett (Publishers Weekly) At least he apologized, sort of.
- Hachette Pushes Back on Employee Union Effort (Publishers Weekly)
- Dark Horse Employees Form Union (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- Having trouble focusing on your book? Try immersive reading (NPR; podcast available)
- Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point (Danika Ellis, Book Riot)
- What It Means to Be the Librarian I Never Had as a Kid (Nikki DeMarco, Book Riot)
- Sherlock Holmes Is Finally Free To Be Gay (Reactor) All of the original Holmes stories are now in public domain in the US, freeing writers to be more imaginative in their use of the character without incurring copyright challenges.
- In the ‘biggest book giveaway in history’ WWII soldiers received pocket-sized reads (NPR; podcast available)
- Why Pope Leo quoted Gandalf in his response to the rise of AI. (Literary Hub)
Book Lists
- When You Finally Read the Book Everyone’s Been Talking About…turns out, there’s often a very good reason behind all the hype. (Lish McBride, Reactor) 5 hyped fantasy novels that are well worth reading.
Bookish Quote
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