"Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a 'strategic collaboration' with OpenAI to use ChatGPT technology across many of its operating units. ... The agreement not only includes employees' use of ChatGPT, but the 'development of new products and services' as well." - Publishers Weekly
Upgrading the look of B&N stores, and improving the quality of its workforce, are among the reasons James Daunt cited as contributing to the bookseller’s resurgence: “We want to have good teams inside nice-looking stores.” - Publishers Weekly
Aphasia brings up existential questions that get at the heart of human connection: Who are we without language? If I were struck by aphasia today, what would be left unsaid, to my family, my friends, my readers? - Public Books
"New Yorker writer Rachel Syme was in the stir-crazy early months of the pandemic, scribbling notes to friends and family, when she put out an open call on social media: Was anyone interested in a pen pal? Yes, some 15,000 people." - Vanity Fair
"While acknowledgment of the platform’s marketing and publicity power is overwhelming, many also assert that any concern over a drop in sales is overblown … (and) that another social media platform would come along to fill any BookTok-sized hole." - Publishers Weekly
Even if you're unmoved by the idea that we're losing touch with a physical human practice thousands of years old, there are measurable cognitive skills which are strengthened by writing by hand and weakened in those who never learn to do it. - The Guardian
While threats to funding for arts and humanities organizations are one big worry, the primary ethical concern for most in the book business is free expression. - Publishers Weekly
About 63 percent of us read at least one book last year, an improvement from the 54 percent we saw in 2023.Other sources don’t point to a seismic shift in reading habits, so this may be a refined estimate rather than a trend. - Washington Post
The continent doesn’t need the West to “discover” writers. Instead, “a radical shift is underway, transforming the region’s literary landscape from within and opening up possibilities unimaginable to previous generations of writers.” - The New York Times
“A game’s popularity often depends not on quality, Ingold said, but on the whims of the biggest Twitch streamers or the algorithm that drives Steam, the main distribution platform for computer games. Independent studios struggle to break through. Many close.” - The New York Times
As author Brandon Taylor noted on social media, it’s a little disingenuous for The NYT to publish this article since it’s a whole newspaper that could focus more on books. Still, BookTok was special, and the BookTok goodbyes were intense. - The New York Times
Students in Texas are lobbying their state legislature, and one says, "Student voices have been silenced far too long in decisions affecting our educational realities. Our declaration is the product of diverse student perspectives across Texas coming together to envision a future that serves all of us.” - Book Riot
“'It would be a travesty,' he said. 'What is most entrancing in the book cannot be translated into another medium. People keep forgetting that it’s very…. literary.’ And repeated: 'Ni muerto!'” - LitHub
There's the guy who wrote a love letter to Anne Hathaway and some poems and passed them off as Shakespeare. The guy who faked documents and Teddy Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell, and Amelia Earhart. An entire rogues' gallery of Abraham Lincoln forgers. And, of course, the epics of "Ossian." - Literary Hub
