News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff
Bookish News
- Simon & Schuster sold to private equity firm KKR for $1.6 billion (BBC) (See under “Worth Reading” below for an in-depth exploration of the sale.)
- Amazon removes books ‘generated by AI’ for sale under author’s name (The Guardian) “Jane Friedman claims she had to fight against Amazon’s refusal to remove the misattributed titles because she had not trademarked her name.”
- Authors call for AI companies to stop using their work without consent (The Guardian) Over 8,000 authors have signed the open letter (set up by the Authors Guild), including Margaret Atwood, Ron Chernow, Louise Erdrich, Celeste Ng, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jodi Picoult, Phillip Pullman, Nora Roberts, George Saunders, and many others. (You can see the full list of signatories here.)
- Hoopla, Overdrive/Libby Now Banned for Those Under 18 in Mississippi (Book Riot), even if they have parental consent to use those services. The law bans libraries from allowing minors to use the services, unless those vendors can guarantee that none of their titles violate the state’s “new, wide-reaching definition of ‘“’obscenity’.” (Thanks to Robin for this link.)
- As New Law Looms, Follett Asks Publishers to Help ‘Rate’ Their Own Books for Sale in Texas (Publishers Weekly)
- Lahaina Public Library stands damaged among the wreckage of Maui’s fires. (Literary Hub) The article includes links to places you can donate toward the rescue and recovery efforts in Maui generally.
- Bloomsbury USA President Adrienne Vaughan Dies at 45 (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- Simon & Schuster: What the sale of a major American book publisher means for authors, the industry — and you (Los Angeles Times) The history and implications of the recent sale of Simon & Schuster.
- Overdrive was bought by KKR (the same private equity firm that just bought S&S) in 2020. Librarian Gingko-girl has a good post on Overdrive and Libraries: Everything You Wanted to Know (guest post on Ilona Andrews’s blog.) And Karawynn Long wrote a think-piece for her Substack on the impact on libraries of Overdrive’s purchase by KKR, entitle The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries. (Thank you to Celia Lake for these two links.)
- On Learning to Read Generously (Molly Templeton, Tor.com)
- The Importance of Book-Centered Spaces as Third Spaces (Susie Dumond, Book Riot)
- I Needed Phonics To Learn To Read. Other Kids Do, Too. (Alison Doherty, Book Riot)
- School Librarian Memoirs May Just Be the Next Big Thing. “Jess DeCourcy Hinds on Book Bans Across the Nation, Educators’ Fights Against Threats, and the Future of Library Access.” (Literary Hub)
- Author Madeline Miller (Song of Achilles; Circe) on how long Covid has impacted her life and writing (Madeline Miller, Washington Post) (May be behind a paywall, if you’ve used up your free articles for the month)
- ‘Somehow I failed to clock her magnificence’: was the world’s first literary hero a woman? (The Guardian) Emily H. Miller explores whether the title of ‘first literary hero’ rightly belongs to the goddess Inanna rather than the hero-king Gilgamesh.
- Science Fiction Is Inherently Rebellious–So Why Don’t Some of Its Fans Think So? (Alice Nuttall, Book Riot)
For Writers & Bloggers
- Julia Cameron on Learning to Write Sober (Literary Hub)
Events
- Neurodiversity in Romance Panel with Pocket Books. Aug. 14 at 12:00 pm Eastern time, on Zoom. Free, but registration required. Panelists include Courtney Milan, Olivia Dade, Sangu Mandanna, and Rebekah Weatherspoon. Register here. (Thank you to Celia Lake for this link.)
Books, Movies, and TV
- The Tetris Effect author says film-makers copied his story brick for brick (The Guardian)… and he is suing Apple and The Tetris Company.
Lists
- Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023, Part Two (Note: These aren’t, by and large, the books I am looking forward to. I tend to read more genre fiction, plus the scholarly works that I index. But if you’re looking for literary fiction, interesting memoirs, and hard-hitting nonfiction, check out this list.)
Bookish Quote
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
There is so much frustrating news lately. Just… argh. And how are we in another censorship era? This sucks. It needs to stop.
You found some good articles this week! I really like that Molly Templeton “reading generously” one. Oh, and that article about how SF is rebellious with bit about “Star Trek was never political”… I still don’t really understand how some SF fans can be so conservative. I’ve seen it over and over again, and I still don’t understand. All I can figure is that they’re missing the whole point of the stories they claim to know so well.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits recently posted…Book Review: Role Playing (Cathy Yardley)