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For the Guardian, writer Amandas Ong has investigated the growing number of men reading romance books. Though straight men account for only 4 percent of romance novel sales according to Mills & Boon, a well-known publisher of romantic fiction, some say that reading these books is liberating, allowing them to move beyond the constricting norms of conventional masculinity. “It was refreshing to see things from the perspective of a female protagonist,” one said. “I’d also never read a fantasy book that had so much in it about romance and sex.”

Earlier this week, professionals from across the industry gathered in New York for the Association of American Literary Agents’ (AALA) second annual People of Publishing conference, Publishers Weekly writes. The organization recently revised its ethics framework, spurring one agency to resign from it late last month and spurring much discussion at the conference. Another topic of discussion was the ongoing question of how to balance maintaining integrity with building a financially sustainable business. “For the lion’s share of [agents], it’s still a commission-based business,” Regina Brooks, the president of the AALA, is quoted saying. “But there are people doing business models that are totally different, and they have responded to the needs of authors and the changes happening in publishing. There’s hybrid publishing, self publishing, there are so many other ways to get published these days, and the idea that we are not willing to respond to some of the changes that are happening in our industry, I think, is not a good move.”

Penguin Random House and We Need Diverse Books have announced a new creative writing award, the Marjane Satrapi Award for the Graphic Novel, in honor of the women’s rights activist and author of the acclaimed graphic novel Persepolis (Pantheon, 2003). The $10,000 prize will go to a current high school senior at a public school in the United States who plans to attend college next fall. “Every year, the Creative Writing Awards remind us of how much creativity, originality, and promise exists in the next generation of writers,” Claire von Schilling, the executive vice president and director of corporate communications and corporate responsibility at Penguin Random House, said. “This year, we’re especially excited to expand the program with the new Marjane Satrapi Award for Graphic Novel, recognizing the powerful ways young creators are combining words and art to tell their stories.” The competition for this and the six other Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards will close on January 15, 2027, or when one thousand applications have been received.

The Center for Fiction has announced the longlist for the 2026 First Novel Prize. The prize began in 2006 and “honors the best debut novel of the year and supports emerging voices in fiction.” This year over 180 titles were submitted for consideration and more than five hundred people reviewed the submissions. The longlisted titles are: Fallow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Sarah Anderson; A Real Animal (Catapult) by Emeline Atwood; Hope House (Hub City Press) by Joe Bond; Upward Bound (Hogarth) by Woody Brown; Lost Lambs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Madeline Cash; Retro (Ballantine Books) by Jessica M. Goldstein; To Stay, To Stay, To Stay (McSweeney’s) by Devon Halliday; Honey in the Wound (Avid Reader Press) by Jiyoung Han; Carrying (G. P. Putnam’s Sons) by Samantha Josephs; Whidbey (Mariner Books) by T Kira Madden; 200 Monas (Little, Brown) by Jan Saenz; On Sundays She Picked Flowers (Saga Press) by Yah Yah Scholfield; Ruins, Child (New Directions) by Giada Scodellaro; Offseason (Astra House) by Avigayl Sharp; Should the Waters Take Us (Doubleday) by Stephanie Soileau; Blow Yourself Up (Triquarterly Books) by Ankur Thakkar; The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford (Scribner) by Nafissa Thompson-Spires; Rabbit, Fox, Tar (Catapult) by P. C. Verrone; and Kitten (Random House) by Stacey Yu. The winner will be announced later this fall and will receive $15,000.

Hachette Book Group has named Ben Sevier its next CEO, the New York Times reports. Sevier is currently the president of Grand Central, Hachette’s largest division, and the publisher of the division’s eponymous imprint. He assumes this post at a time when many changes are afoot, from navigating AI to negotiating with the union Hachette employees voted to establish over the summer. Of the latter, Sevier said, “I’m optimistic that we will have a productive negotiation with the union, and that we’ll wind up in a place where our business can continue to thrive and our employees can do the same.”

This fall, ninth-grade students across China are being required to read Jane Eyre (Smith Elder, 1847) in its entirely, according to the New York Times. The Charlotte Brontë classic is popular in China, celebrated for its emphasis on independence and equality between the sexes. Its inclusion in the ninth grade curriculum coincides with a renewed push by the government to get young people to marry and have children. “Jane Eyre is about an independent woman, but she’s not too outrageous in her challenge of patriarchal power,” Ping Zhu, a professor at the University of California in San Diego who focuses on Chinese feminism and literature, said. Marrying and having a child, as Jane does by the end of the book, are “what the Chinese government wants the younger generation to do.”

The literary agency Distal, Goderich, & Bourret (DGB) has announced that it will be resigning from the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) to protest the organization’s new Canon of Ethics, according to Publishers Lunch. The agency is specifically concerned with a clause that allows agencies to offer paid editorial services to people who are not their clients without necessarily deciding to represent them, which DGB sees as a conflict of interest. “Whether or not an agent claims that paying for their editorial services will result in representation, we know many authors will pay for these services explicitly in the hopes of landing an agent,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Moreover, dishonest agents will take advantage of authors desperate for representation.” In response, the AALA pointed out that members were previously allowed to offer paid editorial services to non-clients, and the changes to the canon simply provide a clearer ethical framework for these situations.

The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) has announced that this week, September 28 through October 2, is the inaugural #LitMagWeek, a virtual celebration of the community of literary magazines and journals at work across the country. The event was conceived of by Brett Van Emst, the editor and publisher of Midnight Mind, and is happening in collaboration with over one hundred literary publications. “Brett’s idea and the enthusiastic response of so many magazines demonstrates the innovative, inspiring spirit of the lit mag community, which has always been fundamental to the literary and publishing ecosystem,” CLMP executive director Mary Gannon said in a press release. “We can’t wait to see the energy generated by the first #LitMagWeek and anticipate it being an annual celebration!” Go to litmagweek.com for interviews, articles, and discounts, as well as more information about the celebration.

HarperCollins recently hosted ninety-five book creators for a weekend in New York City, Publishers Weekly writes. The trip, which they called “Shelves and the City,” or “Shelves” for short, was described as a “book summer camp for adults,” and included events like a karaoke book party, a book-themed scavenger hunt, a sushi bar, and, of course, silent reading time. This year was the third annual Shelves, but it remains the first and only book influencer event of its kind. “That’s the goal of being a content creator—to come to this,” Carla Sanchez, who posts on TikTok and Instagram as @carlareadsnyc, is quoted saying. “We’re constantly messaging each other about books and having conversations. Getting to actually meet each other and have that dialogue in person is definitely the most special part for me.”

The data analytics company and library content provider Clarivate has released its third annual Pulse of the Library report, which offers insights into how libraries are implementing AI, Publishers Weekly writes. Clarivate surveyed nearly 1,900 librarians from the U.S., China, the U.K., India, Australia, and elsewhere, and found that those in America were the most cautious about using AI while China and other countries in Asia are implementing it much more widely. Uses for the technology included enhancing staff productivity, supporting student learning, and improving content discovery. “While we do see adoption deepening, we definitely see the caution,” Oren Beit-Arie, the senior vice president of strategy and innovation, academia, and government at Clarivate, said. “When we looked at 2024–2025, the growth was more accelerated than it is today.”

The Independent Publishers Caucus has released the Independent Press Top 40 best-seller lists for the week ending September 20, 2026. The lists, in fiction and nonfiction, are compiled in partnership with the American Booksellers Association and identify “the top titles from independent presses as represented at independent bookstores across the U.S.” This week on the fiction list, The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (Spiegel & Grau) once again retains the top spot, above Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey (Norton, 2017). New to the fiction list is Sunburn (Melville House) by Chloe Michelle Howarth.

Data from the Association of American Publishers shows that book sales in July increased 14 percent compared to the year prior, Publishers Weekly reports. Adult and children’s/young adult nonfiction led the charge: adult nonfiction sales were up 23 percent compared to July 2025, thanks in large part to strong sales of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change (Simon & Schuster), and children’s/YA nonfiction had a nearly 30 percent sales jump. “As usual, print led the way in children’s/YA. In fiction, hardcover sales rose 17.4 percent and paperback jumped 21.5 percent. Digital audio sales dropped 4.9 percent and e-book sales plunged 16.5 percent,” Jim Milliot and Natalie Chandler write. “In nonfiction, hardcover and paperback sales rose 34.7 percent and 47.8 percent, respectively, while the digital formats had small declines.”

Just a week after buying Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Barnes & Noble has announced another acquisition, the stationery and lifestyle brand Levenger, Publishers Weekly writes. Levenger was founded in 1987 by Steve and Lori Leveen and has been privately owned until now, operating out of South Florida. Post-acquisition, existing employees will stay in place but the brand’s wares will eventually be sold in Barnes & Noble stores. “When it comes to Levenger, and as with previous acquisitions, Barnes & Noble expressed its committment to ‘preserving the qualities that have made the brand so distinctive,’ per the announcement,” Sam Spratford writes.

Two private equity firms have purchased the audiobook publisher Podium Entertainment for more than $400 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Podium started in 2013, initially licensing the audio rights to self-published e-books before expanding to provide other services like helping independent authors sell their e-books on Amazon. Under the new ownership, “David Kaefer, previously head of audiobooks and music at Spotify, will join a new Podium board, and Podium’s existing management team will remain in place,” the WSJ adds.

Barnes & Noble is buying both locations of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Publishers Weekly writes. This is the third independent bookseller the company has acquired since James Daunt became its CEO. In both of those cases, the acquired stores kept their names, most of their employees, and their identities, and it appears that the same will be true for Joseph-Beth’s two stores in Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. “Joseph-Beth Booksellers has a storied history and wonderful bookstores, and we are very pleased to ensure their continuity,” Daunt said in a statement. “We especially look forward to welcoming the booksellers of these two distinctive bookstores into the company.”

Rightsholders caught up in the Anthropic copyright settlement now have sixty says to submit information for their claims, according to Publishers Lunch. The deadline extension comes after widespread errors in claims were reported. “Any works for which disputes are not resolved before the first distribution of settlement payments will not be included in the first distribution and will instead be included in a subsequent distribution,” the settlement website says.

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation has announced its 2026 winners. The annual prize honors “writers whose work demonstrates the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” The Sunflower Boys (Harper Perennial, 2025) by Sam Wachman received the prize for fiction and Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church (Crown, 2025) by Kevin Sack received the prize for nonfiction. In addition, Ann Patchett will be awarded the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award in Dayton this November.

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Fiction. “The 2026 Fiction Longlist features two debut novels among the ten titles [and s]ix authors on the Longlist have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation,” the organization wrote in a press release. The titles on the longlist are: Paradiso 17 (Knopf) by Hannah Lillith Assadi, Red Ants (Counterpoint Press) by Kimberly Blaeser, Dèy (Knopf) by Edwidge Danticat, Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You (Liveright) by Julián Delgado Lopera, Python’s Kiss (Harper) by Louise Erdrich, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books) by Marlon James, Beginning Middle End (Knopf) by Valeria Luiselli, Passengers (Europa Editions) by Alexander Maksik, The Renovation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Kenan Orhan, and Mad Eden (MCD) by Morgan Thomas.

The progressive publisher Melville House has formed a partnership with Illuminating Media LLC to “recapitalize” the company, Publishers Weekly reports. Illuminating Media was launched in 2019 and publishes the CT Examiner, a Connecticut-focused online news publication, and Majuscule, an online journal for emerging writers. Illuminating Media owner David Kelsey, who “describes himself as a huge reader who was impressed by the quality of Melville House’s list. He told PW he is very interested in maintaining the company’s ethos and will not get involved in editorial decisions, noting that if [as a Republican] he wanted to publish right-leaning books, he would have invested in a different publisher.”

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The ten titles on the longlist were originally published in Arabic, Chinese, French, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Indonesian, which is appearing for the first time as a translated language in this category. “The list features nine novels and a work of nonfiction, and several of this year’s honored authors and translators have been previously recognized by the National Book Award for Translated Literature,” the organization wrote in its press release. The titles on the longlist are: My Dreadful Body (New Vessel Press) by Egana Djabbarova, translated by Lisa C. Hayden; Now I Surrender (Riverhead Books) by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer; Eden at Dawn (Restless Books) by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman; The School of Night (Penguin Press) by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken; To the East of the East (World Editions) by Ping Lu, translated by Jeremy Tiang; Centroeuropa (Bellevue Literary Press) by Vicente Luis Mora, translated by Rahul Berry; Night of a Thousand Hells (Europa Editions) by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao; Pure Men (Other Press) by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud; The Disappearing Act (New Directions) by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale; and Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza (Other Press) by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price.

Substack is working to strengthen its crossover with the publishing industry, and publishers, in turn, are increasingly seeking out Substack writers, the Bookseller reports. Writers including journalist James Marriott and Damian Kerlin have had books emerge from their work on the platform; last year, writer Jess Pan sold her second book in an eight-way auction after starting a Substack in the wake of having work rejected by all of the Big Five. “What Substack offers all writers is speed to market, a direct relationship with their audience that they own, and creative confidence because we have millions of readers, and dare I say, this is a number that is fast-growing, who are willing to pay for work they believe in,” Farrah Storr, the head of international at Substack, is quoted saying. Storr herself recently signed a six-figure deal for a book that started as a post on the platform.

For WIRED, journalist Joel Khalili talks to some of the readers who have made a hobby of using AI to bring their story ideas to life. Recently, researchers took a look at this AI fiction fans and found that for some, the AI-authored nature of the work is part of the draw. Some of the people who craft these tales enjoy the obsessive iterating that AI can accomodate, while others like being able to read stories where they direct the action. “There are a lot of qualities of AI models that are different from what human writers have that are actually appealing to at least some segment of users,” Melanie Walsh,a professor at the University of Washington Information School and coauthor of the study, said. “These models are judgment-free; they can produce stories instantaneously; they are nearly inexhaustible.”

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (YPL). Four of the ten authors on this year’s longlist were previously finalists for the honor. “Through fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, and novels-in-verse, the protagonists of the 2025 YPL longlisted titles navigate historical circumstances, deconstruct societal expectations, and aspire to brighter futures,” the organization wrote in its press release. The titles on the longlist are: A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez (Roaring Brook Press) by María Dolores Águila, The Corruption of Hollis Brown (HarperCollins) by K. Ancrum, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze (Viking Books for Young Readers) by Derrick Barnes, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe (Crown Books for Young Readers) by Mahogany L. Browne, A World Worth Saving (Dial Books for Young Readers) by Kyle Lukoff, The Leaving Room (Feiwel & Friends) by Amber McBride, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story (Levine Querido) by Daniel Nayeri, Truth Is (Amulet Books) by Hannah V. Sawyerr, Song of a Blackbird (First Second) by Maria van Lieshout, and (S)Kin (Versify) by Ibi Zoboi. All National Book Award finalists will be announced in the New York Times on October 7, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on November 19.

Last week the Poetry Foundation announced the recipients of its 2026 Pegasus Awards, a suite of prizes that recognize poetry craft, service, and criticism. These include the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a lifetime achievement award that went to Robert Pinsky; the Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry, a $25,000 prize that was awarded to Luis J. Rodriguez whose wide-ranging career has included founding Tia Chucha Press; and the $50,000 prize for the Young People’s Poet Laureate, which acknowledges exceptional poetry written for young readers and went to Nikki Grimes. “This year is special because it marks four decades of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, twenty years of the Young People’s Poet Laureate, and the first year of the Pegasus Poetry Book Prize,” Michelle T. Boone, the president and CEO of the Poetry Foundation, said in a statement. The winners will receive their awards at a private ceremony in Chicago next month.

For Book Riot, Kelly Jensen surveys a recent string of legal cases involving librarians across the country who were fired for refusing to remove books from their shelves. Five librarians in four states who brought wrongful termination lawsuits after getting embroiled in book bans recently settled out of the courtroom. As Jensen explains, in our current legal and political moment it’s important to look at these settlements as victories. After all, “Each represents a librarian who did their job by defending the First Amendment rights of every person in their community. Each also represents something we simply have not seen play out well in the courts right now: decisive insight into whether public libraries exist to serve the will of the taxpayers or the political whims of whatever party is in charge.”

Last week, a district court judge denied Sarah Wynn-Williams’ motions for a preliminary injunction that would allow her to speak about her book, Careless People (Flatiron, 2025), according to Publishers Lunch. Wynn-Williams is a former Meta executive who signed a non-disclosure agreement along with a severance agreement when she left in 2017, and then went on to write about her experiences working at the company. Shortly after her book was published in March 2025, an arbitrator ruled that partaking in related publicity or appearances would violate the terms of her NDA. Wynn-Williams filed a lawsuit to overturn this gag order in June, but now the Court says that she must go back to arbitration. “Wynn-Williams’ participation was significant for over fifteen months, and she attempts to proceed here only after receiving multiple unfavorable rulings, particularly losing on her requests to have the interim award vacated,” the court filing states. “Moreover, she only recently filed this action seeking judicial intervention when the arbitration is approaching its climax—on May 7, 2026, the arbitrator rejected both sides’ requests to pursue dispositive motions and set the matter for merits hearing in October 2026.”

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported strong sales numbers for the first half of 2026, according to Publishers Weekly. June sales in particular were up 11 percent over a year ago; adult fiction sales in particular increased a whopping 19.3 percent, thanks in large part to the fact that Theo of Golden (Atria, 2025) by Allen Levi sold 55,000 copies. “Adult trade book sales in [the first six months of 2026] were driven by a huge increase in digital audio, where sales jumped 14.7 percent over a year ago,” Jim Milliot adds. “E-books did not fare as well, with six-month sales down 2.5 percent.”

The International Publishers Association (IPA) has announced the shortlist for its inaugural Freedom of Expression Defenders Award. The prize recognizes initiatives that are working to defend freedom of expression and the freedom to publish and read books. This year’s shortlist includes the Media Coalition, an American group that protects the media’s First Amendment rights; the Penguin Random House Intellectual Freedom Taskforce; Georgia’s Sovlab, or the Soviet Past Research Laboratory, which investigates the country’s Soviet totalitarian past and counters Russian misinformation; Germany’s StraightForward Foundation, which supports persecuted Russian artists; and the Turkish Journalists Association, the country’s first professional press organization. “With this initiative we really wanted to be able to bring hope and inspiration and our first ever shortlist does exactly that,” Gvantsa Jobava, the president of the IPA, said. “These are all initiatives showing how we can fight for freedom of expression, for the freedom to publish and for the freedom to read. Let us learn from them and use their experience.”

The books plaintiffs in the AI copyright infringement case against OpenAI and Microsoft have filed a motion for summary judgment, Publishers Lunch reports. The suit was first brought in 2023 and is being led by the Authors Guild. Named plaintiffs include John Grisham, George R. R. Martin, and Jodi Picoult. “OpenAI’s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and publish books,” the plaintiffs have said. “OpenAI’s models are capable of displacing human authors precisely because of the unauthorized exploitation of their works. These models mine and mimic the protected expression in books, enabling Defendants’ commercial products to generate competing works at the press of a button.” OpenAI, for its part, argues that the AI books on the market “do not reproduce Plaintiffs’ expression.”

The National Book Foundation has named writer and pediatrician Perri Klass as the recipient of this year’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. In her role as national medical director at the nonprofit Reach Out and Read, Klass has worked with doctors and nurses around the country and world to promote early childhood literacy. She is also the author of more than a dozen books. “Perri Klass’s lifetime of service as a pediatrician, educator, and provider of books to children and families will have a lasting impact on communities everywhere—reaffirming the importance of reading and storytelling as an integral part of early childhood,” David Steinberger, the chair of the board of directors of the National Book Foundation, said. “Throughout her career, Dr. Klass has innovatively combined her deep love of medicine, the humanities, and literature to support the health and wellness outcomes of millions of children and families.” The Literarian Award is a lifetime achievement award given annually to an individual or organization working to promote books and expand audiences for reading.