New Directions has announced Tynan Kogane, who previously served as senior editor of the press, as its new editor in chief, Publishers Weekly reports. New Directions has made several other promotions due to the retirement of executive vice president Laurie Callahan. Mieke Chew has been promoted to senior editor and executive director of publicity and Declan Spring has been promoted to executive vice president. Christopher Wait has been promoted to vice president and director of sub-rights and permissions; Maya Solovej has been promoted to publicity manager and associate editor; and Oliver Preston has been promoted to production associate.

For Electric Literature, the staff of the Brooklyn Public Library recommends books that changed the shape of politics and reading in the United States. The list includes Parable of the Sower (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993) by Octavia E. Butler, A People’s History of the United States (Harper & Row, 1980) by Howard Zinn, and Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962) by Rachel Carson, among other titles.

Siang Lu has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel Ghost Cities (University of Queensland Press, 2024), the Guardian reports. Considered Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, the award comes with $60,000 AUD (approximately $39,634). Lu said the novel had been rejected more than two hundred times in Australia and abroad before being published.

Bookstagram entrepreneurs, independent bookstores, and Libro.fm are encouraging audiobook listeners to gather for walks outside, Publishers Weekly reports. Readers meet at a predetermined location, listen to their book of choice, or discuss it with others, all while following an easy walking route at a conversational pace. The walks let readers turn a solitary activity into a social, outdoor experience.

After the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa lost almost $1 million in funding in February, the local independent bookstore Prairie Lights launched an initiative that will raise thousands of dollars for the program, the Daily Iowan reports. Former Iowa Public Radio host Dennis Reese donated his collection of 450 Library of America slipcase books to Prairie Lights in May; each book is worth $40, and 20 percent of the proceeds will go to the IWP.

Elisabeth Egan writes for the New York Times about the trend of independent bookstores showcasing their pets. Egan writes that these dogs, cats, birds, fish, lizards, and bunnies “serve as quiet mascots—steadfast and loyal, deigning to have their heads patted or ears scratched while humans tend to the business of words.” Social media has also put some bookstores on the map thanks to their nonhuman residents. “Books and animals both provide joy, companionship, and windows into other worlds,” Egan writes. “The former are, admittedly, a lot tidier.”

History of Humanities (HOH) has published its tenth volume, marking a decade of the annual publication. HOH, which is published by the University of Chicago Press, was founded in 2015 by editors Rens Bod, Julia Kursell, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn as a new forum for research on the history of humanistic knowledge. Articles in HOH have addressed topics such as the emergence of comparative musicology, the history of libraries, and the problem of scholarly forgetting. In their introduction to the anniversary issue, the editors write: “We firmly believe that the humanities play an indispensable role in addressing humanity’s challenges, from expanding artificial intelligence and climate migration to autocratic intellectual clampdown. Understanding their past will prepare us better for our future.”

In the Poets on Translation series in Poetry, Layla Benitez-James writes about her anxiety around titles, names, and naming. But in recalling T. S. Eliot’s phrase, “good writers borrow, great writers steal,” Benitez-James finds solace. “If I can begin to think of the writer as the original thief, some of my own preciousness around translation lessens,” she writes, “and the weight of this question of translating titles in particular begins to fall away.”

EveryLibrary has released some of its latest research on library-related policymaking and library usage across the U.S., Publishers Weekly reports. The advocacy organization has compiled a list of bills that have been passed, enacted, vetoed, or left in limbo, and the document also describes coalitions that are forming against censorship nationwide. EveryLibrary found that the first half of 2025 brought 133 bills that threaten public libraries, school libraries, librarianship, and the rights of readers. The report also noted that right to read legislation prohibiting book banning has been passed recently in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Oregon, and Rhode Island. Still, EveryLibrary concluded that the dominant trend was “regressive” over the last six months and that the political climate is “accelerating censorship” in many states.

Meghan O’Rourke writes for the New York Times about how AI is affecting creative writing students. O’Rourke began experimenting with AI to understand what it could offer humanities students. She writes: “My conversations with AI showcased its seductive cocktail of affirmation, perceptiveness, solicitousness, and duplicity—and brought home how complicated this new era will be.”

Kelly Jensen writes for Book Riot about the importance of not just reading banned books but also taking action to combat censorship. Jensen recommends readers write regular letters to their library boards, research the positions candidates hold on libraries and public education prior to elections, and advocate for books that are being banned with their local representatives.

The American Library Association has released its 2025 strategic plan, which focuses on advocacy and activism, Publishers Weekly reports. Objectives include developing partnerships with organizations whose civic missions align with library priorities and fundraising in an increasingly precarious landscape for the arts and humanities.

In the first half of 2025 print sales dropped by 1 percent based on units sold, compared to the same period last year, Publishers Lunch reports.

The Giller Prize, which is the largest literary award in Canada, will be forced to shut down at the end of this year without federal funding, the Globe and Mail reports. The annual $100,000 prize for fiction is in urgent need of financial assistance after severing ties to its lead sponsor, Scotiabank, earlier this year. The Giller Foundation faced criticism and protests for its association with Scotiabank, whose subsidiary 1832 Asset Management was at one point the biggest global investor in Elbit Systems Ltd., Israel’s most prominent publicly traded arms company.

For the Book Currents series in the New Yorker, Rachel Kushner shares some of the books she recently taught at Stanford University in a course about “the sacred art of stealing from the world.” The list includes Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) by Nathanael West, The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis, Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison, and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) by Carson McCullers.

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs has announced Michelle Aielli, who has served as interim executive director since September 2024, as its executive director. Aielli has worked in book publishing for over twenty-five years and most recently served as vice president and publishing director of Hachette Books at Hachette Book Group.

PEN America and the Eleanor Roosevelt Center have announced the ten winners of the 2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for Bravery in Literature, which recognize authors whose works advance human rights amidst a surge in book bans and censorship. The honorees include Malinda Lo for Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2021); Peter Parnell for And Tango Makes Three (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005); and Margaret Atwood, who will receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award and be interviewed on stage at a ceremony in Poughkeepsie, New York, on October 11. Jennifer Finney Boylan, PEN America’s president, will be the keynote speaker.

Katy Hershberger writes for Publishers Lunch about yesterday’s senate hearing on copyright and AI. The Association of American Publishers submitted written testimony, and professors and copyright experts testified that the piracy of copyrighted books by tech companies is both unlawful and unethical.

The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has named Emily Nason as its education director, Publishers Weekly reports. The ABA announced yesterday that it is reorganizing and growing its education department, following the departures of director of education Lee Hooyboer and senior manager of children’s bookselling education and programs Gen de Botton. Nason will oversee the organization’s educational strategy and programming.

New Hampshire’s governor, Kelly Ayotte, vetoed a bill on July 15 that would have allowed parents to request certain books and materials be removed from their child’s school unless the school could show they had “serious” scientific, educational, artistic, or political value, New Hampshire Public Radio reports. “I do not believe the State of New Hampshire needs to, nor should it, engage in the role of addressing questions of literary value and appropriateness,” Ayotte wrote.