A recent report from NielsenIQ found that trade nonfiction sales have slipped sharply. In volume terms, the category is down 8.4% between last summer and the same period this year – nearly double the decline in paperback fiction – and down 4.7% in value. - The Guardian
“(Library executives’) stated ‘values’ included a roll call of abstract nouns: openness, honesty, compassion, equality and fairness. Yet staff tell a story of gross mismanagement, woeful pay and an executive board who are completely out of touch with the day-to-day running of the library.” - The Standard (London)
Many of the titles censored in school districts around the US relate to race, sexual violence or LGBTQ+ issues, but that’s not the case with the top two: John Green’s Looking for Alaska and Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes. As usual, the list includes classics by Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Maya Angelou. - Publishers Weekly
“Elliott Investment Management, the hedge fund that owns the most popular bookstores in the US and the UK, has spoken to potential advisers about an initial public offering (IPO). … The multibillion-pound group is thought to prefer London over New York for the listing.” - The Guardian
The organization announced on December 1 that it intends to phase out all public programming, beginning with the discontinuation of its Forms & Features workshops and Library Book Club in the new year. A more recent statement stressed that the Foundation is transitioning into a grantmaking organization. - Publishers Weekly
Whereas the modernists and postmodernists tended to use low culture as a vast reserve of references, tropes, and stock characters to be deployed as needed within the novel-as-polyvocal-assemblage, our recent crop of “genre-benders” instead work from within the given structures of genre plots, out of which they develop more traditional “literary” elements. - LA Review of Books
Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at free-expression advocacy group PEN America, said Randolph County’s decision to dissolve its library board is among the most severe penalties she has seen in response to a controversial book. - Washington Post
“’It’s such an illustrative word,’ said Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster’s president. ... ‘It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous.’” - AP
Around 15 percent of all the reference questions received by her staff are written by generative AI, some of which include imaginary citations and sources. This increased burden placed on librarians and institutions is so bad that even organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross are putting people on notice about the problem.
Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees, has a popular appeal across the globe: She "is the author of 21 books, including 13 novels; her works have been translated into 58 languages. She also holds a PhD in political science.” - The Guardian (UK)
Sometimes it’s timing - or a good translation. Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection didn’t find its audience in Italy, but English readers love it. It “has now sold more copies in specific London bookshops than in the whole of France.” - The Guardian (UK)
Oh, people don’t read anymore? Tell that to Matt Dinniman, who was making a living drawing people’s cats (yes, that’s a job) until he started writing what became the Dungeon Crawler Carl empire. - The New York Times
