Shira Perlmutter, the copyright chief who the Trump administration fired from her role on May 10, filed a lawsuit in federal court on May 22 challenging her removal and seeking reinstatement to her position at the U.S. Copyright Office, Publishers Weekly reports. The complaint names multiple defendants including Todd Blanche, who was announced as acting librarian of Congress by Trump; Paul Perkins, who claims to be the new register of copyrights under Blanche; and President Trump himself. Perlmutter is seeking an emergency temporary restraining order and injunctions that would prevent Trump’s new appointees from exercising power in their new roles.

Clare Mulroy writes for USA Today about the danger AI poses to book publishing. Using the AI-generated reading list in the Chicago Sun-Times as an example, Mulroy points out that AI-generated articles could further erode trust in journalism. Furthermore, she argues that as a man-made product, generative AI “can amplify human biases, especially when it comes to representing women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of color.”

Ahead of Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer, a number of publications have released summer reading lists, including the New York Times, NPR, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post.

The African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) has launched the BLK Bestseller List, which features the bestselling books by Black authors over the last sixteen months, Publishers Weekly reports. The list is one part of the Black Book Accelerator initiative, which seeks to boost the sales of books by Black authors. The group behind the initiative includes AALBC founder Troy Johnson, Hachette chief diversity officer Carrie Bloxson, and Serendipity Literary Agency CEO and president Regina Brooks.

Most of the nearly four hundred books that were removed from the Naval Academy library in April have been returned to the library’s shelves, the Associated Press reports. The original list of books, which included Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, were taken from the library to comply with the Trump administration’s efforts to purge “DEI content” from federal agencies. Earlier in May, the directive changed to pull and review all library books that addressed “diversity, anti-racism, or gender issues,” according to the AP. A temporary academic libraries committee is overseeing the new book review process with search terms that include, “affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender and white privilege.” The Navy has not confirmed which books have been returned to the library.

Lisa Ko, the author of The Leavers (Algonquin, 2017) and Memory Piece (Riverhead, 2024), posted on Bluesky on Tuesday saying that blurbs she did not write have been attributed to her on the web pages of many books, including several HarperCollins titles, Publishers Lunch reports. A representative for HarperCollins said the error is being fixed, adding, “This was due to a data error in one of our marketing systems and it is being corrected. It was not AI related.”

The International Publishers Association (IPA) has alerted its world membership that Russian publishing figures are being arrested for publishing “LGBT propaganda,” Publishing Perspectives reports. The Russian supreme court effectively outlawed LGBTQ+ activism in November 2023 and characterized the LGBTQ+ “movement” in Russia as “an extremist organization.” Those detained for questioning on May 14 included Anatoly Norovyatkin, the distribution director of the publisher Eksmo; Dmitry Protopopov, a cofounder of Popcorn Books; and Pavel Ivanov, a former sales director. Three people, whose names have not been publicly released, were formally charged on May 15 for “involvement in the activities of an extremist organization,” according to Amnesty International. The Freedom to Publish committee of the IPA has declared support for the arrested individuals and is urging the Russian authorities to drop any charges.

Several former National Ambassadors for Young People’s Literature have announced their opposition to the Trump administration firing Carla Hayden from her role as Librarian of Congress, Publishers Weekly reports. The joint statement decrying the decision was signed by past ambassadors Jon Scieszka, Katherine Paterson, Kate DiCamillo, Gene Luen Yang, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and Meg Medina.

The Chicago Sun-Times has released a response to the May 18 special section that contained a reading list with AI-generated titles of books that do not exist. The statement explains that the section was licensed from King Features, a unit of Hearst, one of the newspaper’s national content partners. The special section was syndicated to the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers. King Features released a statement to Chicago Public Media saying it had “a strict policy with our staff, cartoonists, columnists, and freelance writers against the use of AI to create content. The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance content creator who used AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI. We are terminating our relationship with this individual.” The Chicago-Sun Times apologized both for printing content that was inaccurate and for not acknowledging “that the section was produced outside the Sun-Times newsroom.” The Sun-Times also announced that subscribers would not be charged for the edition, that the section has been removed from the e-paper version, and that the paper is updating policies so that all third-party licensed editorial content complies with the newspaper’s journalistic standards. The Sun-Times added that it will “explicitly identify third-party licensed editorial content and provide transparency about its origin.”

Social media is influencing how authors promote their books, NPR reports. Over the last few months, authors and content creators have debated the importance of book blurbs, especially because they are time-consuming for authors working on their own books. The online book community is becoming increasingly important for generating buzz about a title, and author Chip Pons, who started as a “bookstagrammer,” says, “I think we are going to start seeing book influencers’ names on the covers of books, on the backs of books.”

Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp (And Other Stories, 2025), translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, is the first story collection to win the International Booker Prize, the New York Times reports. Heart Lamp follows the daily struggles of Indian Muslim women as they navigate their husbands, mothers, and religious leaders. The prize comes with £50,000 (approximately $66,700), which the author and translator split evenly.

On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list with at least ten fake books attributed to real authors, Ars Technica reports. The list included titles such as “Tidewater Dreams” by Isabel Allende and “The Last Algorithm” by Andy Weir—books that do not exist and were generated by AI. The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content: “On me 100 percent and I’m completely embarrassed,” he said. The Chicago Sun-Times announced that it is looking into how the list was printed, adding that “It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom.” The reading list ran as part of a supplement called “Heat Index” which is a promotional section that was meant to be inserted into newspapers nationally.

A previously unpublished collection of stories by Katherine Dunn, the author of the cult classic Geek Love who died in 2016, will be released in October. Near Flesh, which contains stories about motherhood, violence, and desire, will be published by MCD, the imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux that published Dunn’s posthumous novel Toad in 2022.

The Trump administration is appealing the injunction ordered by Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. to stop the dismantling of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Book Riot reports. The appeal seems to align with the Trump administration’s history of using legal delay tactics to avoid compliance with court orders. Trump’s proposed 2026 budget slashes the IMLS altogether.

Adam Morgan writes for the Los Angeles Review of Books about small publishers and literary magazines left reeling after Trump defunded the NEA. “All fifty-one of this year’s grantees in the literary arts category received either termination letters or withdrawal letters,” according to Mary Gannon, the executive director of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. The canceled literary grants amount to just 0.0000002 percent of the U.S. government’s 2025 budget.

Sarah Lyon writes for the New York Times about how bibliophile couples are weaving books into their engagements and nuptials. These creative events include bookstore proposals, literary scavenger hunts, and wedding day dinners with books at each table setting.

Kazuo Ishiguro discusses adapting literature to film and the recent adaptation of his novel A Pale View of Hills (Putnam, 1982) with the Associated Press at the Cannes Film Festival. For a cinematic version of the story to work, he says, “It has to be a personal artistic expression of something, not just a reproduction.” He adds, “The great stories are the ones that last and last and last. They turn up in different forms.”

Karen Fischer writes for Publishers Weekly about how rural libraries may not be able to survive the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Though there are multiple lawsuits to reinstate the federal funding, some rural libraries cannot afford to pay their own bills in the meantime. Many of these libraries provide important social infrastructure beyond books. For instance, many children spend time at the Cherokee Public Library in Iowa after school until their parents finish their workdays. And in Pottsboro, Texas, the public library debuted a pilot telehealth program with a cordoned-off, reservable booth so people could come to the library for medical appointments and avoid long drives to see doctors.

Hadi Matar, the man convicted in February of attempting to murder author Salman Rushdie in a knife attack in 2022, has been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, the New York Times reports. 

The Authors Guild has launched a petition to reinstate Shira Perlmutter as Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. The Trump administration fired Perlmutter last week and is attempting, according to the petition, “to install an administration official with no apparent copyright expertise.”