Goodreads' bot problem
Goodreads reviews feel honest until they don't...Weeding through the weekly Top Reviewers, many profiles appear ordinary. The astonishing number of books read and reviewed per week by the Top...
View Article2021 Booker longlist announced, contains four Americans
The longlist for the Booker Prize has been announced, including four American authors: Nathan Harris, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers, and Maggie Shipstead. The prize is worth £50,000 ($68,860). A...
View ArticleCrime novelist Mo Hayder dies aged 59 from motor neurone disease
British crime novelist Mo Hayder, whose dark, shocking thrillers won her the title of "queen of fear", has died at the age of 59 after being diagnosed with motor neuron disease in December. Hayder was...
View ArticleTV adaptation of Maggie Shipstead's "The Great Circle"
A TV series adaptation of Maggie Shipstead's Booker Prize-longlisted novel Great Circle is being developed by Picturestart, the production company set up by former Lionsgate Motion Picture Group...
View ArticleLittle Free Diverse Libraries: What they are and how you can help
Last spring, when lifelong book lover and NYC public school counselor Sarah Kamya strolled her predominantly white neighborhood, stopping to browse at the three Little Free Libraries she passes every...
View ArticleThe rise of audio original publishing
In an article that leads with nonfiction author Erik Larson's first foray into fiction, No One Goes Alone, a novella set in a haunted house on a fictional island off the coast of England, that will...
View ArticleWhy would anyone shop indie when there's a better price just a few clicks away?
"Why would anyone shop indie when there's a better price just a few clicks away?" That's the question Mason Engel set out to answer by visiting bookstores across the United States. It was not a...
View ArticleU.K. authors rally to protect copyright
More than 2,500 authors have put their names to a letter in London's Sunday Times as part of the Save Our Books campaign, launched in an effort to maintain the U.K.'s "copyright exhaustion" principle....
View ArticleOn Diversity: A Survey of Canadian Readers 2021
BookNet Canada has released On Diversity: A Survey of Canadian Readers 2021, a free study on the interest of Canadian readers in diverse literature. Among the study's key findings: 94% of respondents...
View ArticleBouchercon calls off in-person convention
Bouchercon, the annual mystery fiction convention, was to be held live this August in New Orleans. But an email to registrants sent out on Wednesday confirmed that, due to the rapid spread of the...
View ArticleJudge rules Linda Fairstein can proceed with defamation lawsuit over Netflix...
A handful of scenes from the award-winning "When They See Us" series about the Central Park Five could be misconstrued by viewers as "based in fact," a federal judge wrote Monday, allowing a...
View ArticleCensorship on the rise worldwide
Since the start of the Covid pandemic, there's been a rise in instances of government censorship of books around the world. In October 2020, the International Publishers Association released a...
View ArticleIn backlash to racial reckoning, conservative publishers see gold
Since George Floyd's murder last year, books on race and racism have driven the publishing industry in ways that have been both eye-popping and profitable. But as the national conversation about...
View ArticleHachette to Buy Workman, as Publishing Continues Consolidation Push
Hachette Book Group said on Monday that it had agreed to buy Workman Publishing, an independent company known for titles like "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and the "Brain Quest" workbooks,...
View ArticleThe polarized publishing world
For a snapshot of how politically polarized the country has become, consider the best-seller list in this Sunday's New York Times. Political books hold the top five spots on the hardcover nonfiction...
View ArticleJill Murphy, children's author and illustrator, dies aged 72
Beloved children's author and illustrator Jill Murphy has died at the age of 72. Murphy was best known for writing children's book series The Worst Witch and The Large Family. Murphy's publisher...
View ArticleOprah picks The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Oprah announced today that her latest selection for Oprah's Book Club—her 92nd—is The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Though Jeffers has published five poetry...
View ArticleAfro Latinx children's books are still too rare
Afro Latinx children's books are still too rare. These four authors are trying to change that. Having grown up without picture books that reflected their own experiences, the Latinx authors and...
View ArticleFamed San Francisco poet and activist Jack Hirschman dies
Jack Hirschman, former San Francisco poet laureate, activist, and famed proponent of the Beat Generation, died at his home in the city on Sunday, said the organization in which he served as a...
View ArticleHow Sally Rooney wrote again
"Every day I wonder why my life has turned out this way," a millionaire novelist named Alice writes to her friend Eileen in "Beautiful World, Where Are You," out from Farrar, Straus & Giroux on...
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