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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will reinstate grants that had been terminated earlier this year by the Trump administration, NPR reports. The turn comes after attorneys general in twenty-one states filed lawsuit against the executive order that led to the termination of the grants; in November, a Rhode Island District Court judge ruled this action unlawful, releasing funds “that had been stuck in a months-long limbo.” Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, called the development a “massive win” for libraries in all states, but noted that “the fight is not finished,” as the administration may appeal the ruling and IMLS funding remains subject to congressional approval.

Porter Anderson, the editor in chief of Publishing Perspectives, has died. Anderson led Publishing Perspectives since 2016. In 2019 he was awarded International Trade Press Journalist of the Year at the London Book Fair. He also cofounded the Hot Sheet newsletter, now known as the Bottom Line, with Jane Friedman.

Wyatt Williams writes in the New York Times Magazine about the new film adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, which arrives just as a new biography of the writer, Ted Geltner’s Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures, is published by the University of Iowa Press. “The biography shines an uncomfortably bright spotlight on an author who often chose to remain half in the shadow. Geltner’s reporting demystifies the troubled period of Johnson’s life that shaped Jesus’ Son and leaves the reader with, among other things, a set of damning facts. They present a portrait of a man who...had good reason to be haunted by what he had done. That understanding may even change how we read Johnson’s last, enigmatic novella.”

The British Ukrainian writer Marina Lewycka was posthumously awarded the Vintage Bollinger prize, a special award marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction, the Guardian reports. Lewycka, who died last month at the age of 79, won the award for her 2005 novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. 

The 2025 PW Salary and Jobs Report, an annual survey of publishing professionals conducted by Publishers Weekly, offers a snapshot of the demographics, job satisfaction, salary, and feelings about artificial intelligence among those working in publishing. Among the findings from the 726 respondents: 76 percent identified as white, down from 80 percent last year; most are generally happy with their chosen profession, median pay rose rose $5,000 last year, to $80,000; and 63 percent said their companies use AI. “But the more familiar people become with the technology, the less they seem to like it.”

For the New Yorker, Brady Brickner-Wood looks at the curious trend of “performative reading,” or treating a book like an accessory and reading in public while most others scroll on their phones and retreat under noise-cancelling headphones. “This way of perceiving social reality—and particularly a person’s reading life—may seem inane, even deranged. But performative reading has firmly implanted itself into the popular imagination, becoming a meme for a generation of people who, by all accounts, aren’t reading a whole lot of books.”

The Prison and Justice Writing Program at PEN America has launched the Incarcerated Writers Bureau, a digital resource to help make professional and creative opportunities more accessible to writers in U.S. prisons. “The website features information for publishers, literary agents, and  journalists seeking to work with incarcerated writers, a searchable roster of featured writers, and a database for publishers and media platforms to submit opportunities for writers working from prison.”

Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, has hired a new CEO, according to Portland Business Journal. David Maquera takes over from Patrick Bassett who stepped down in September after five years in the position. “The leadership change comes two months after Powell’s laid off employees and secured a $4.5M capital infusion.”

In an essay for the New York Times Magazine, Carlo Rotella, who teaches English courses at Boston College, writes about how some humanities teachers have approached their work using “more purposeful approaches to writing and reading, less reliance on technology and a renewed focus on face-to-face community.” According to Rotella, an English class that resists AI has three main elements: “pen-and-paper and oral testing; teaching the process of writing rather than just assigning papers; and greater emphasis on what happens in the classroom.”

Kelly Jensen of Book Riot examines U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell’s ruling in favor of twenty-one state attorneys general who sued Donald Trump over the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and several other small federal agencies. “This permanent injunction means that the Trump administration cannot do further harm to the IMLS.”

A new partnership between the Black List and Blackstone Publishing called the Blackstone Publishing Novel Initiative aims to identify an unpublished manuscript to enter into a $25,000 publishing deal. “The Black List will assist Blackstone Publishing in identifying a shortlist of outstanding manuscripts through a submission period on blcklst.com from November 20, 2025 until June 9, 2026.” In order to be eligible, however, writers are requited to pay at least $180 in fees.

Catapult Books has acquired Portland, Oregon–based Hawthorne Books, Publishers Weekly reports. “Under the agreement, Catapult has acquired Hawthorne’s catalog of about 50 titles and the Hawthorne trademark.” Founded in 2001 by Rhonda Hughes, Hawthorne becomes Catapult’s fourth imprint alongside Counterpoint Press and Soft Skull Press. “Hughes will stay on as contributing editor for Hawthorne Books and report to group editorial director Dan Smetanka. The first new titles acquired by Hughes are expected to be released in fall 2026.”

“More than half of published novelists in the UK believe artificial intelligence could eventually replace their work entirely, according to a new report from the University of Cambridge,” the Guardian reports. The study, conducted for the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, surveyed 258 published novelists and 74 publishing professionals. “Just over half (51 percent) of novelists said that AI is likely to end up entirely replacing their work.”

The 76th National Book Awards winners were announced this evening at the 2025 ceremony. David Bowles presented the award in Young People’s Literature to Daniel Nayeri, author of The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story; Stesha Brandon presented the award in Translated Literature to Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and translator Robin Myers for We Are Green and Trembling; Terrance Hayes presented the award in Poetry to Patricia Smith, author of The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems; Raj Patel presented the award in Nonfiction to Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This; and Rumaan Alam presented the award in Fiction to Rabih Alameddine, author of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). Roxane Gay and George Saunders received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, respectively. 

Copies of Sarah Ferguson’s forthcoming children’s book, set to be published on Thursday, have been withdrawn from sale and pulped “in the wake of the renewed scrutiny over her links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” the Guardian reports. Flora and Fern: Kindness Along the Way has also disappeared from the publisher’s website as well as those of online retailers. Earlier this month Ferguson lost the title Sarah, Duchess of York after King Charles stripped Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his remaining titles.

Spotify has launched audiobook programs in its home country of Sweden as well as Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, Publishers Weekly reports. “The catalog has 300,000 titles, including over 60,000 local-language titles: more than 29,000 in Danish, over 25,000 in Swedish, and over 19,000 in Finnish.”

Publishers Weekly looks at various organizations working to ensure that people who are incarcerated have access to literature, including Chicago’s Books to Prisoners and Seattle’s Books Not Bars. “In 2024, some 27,500 pounds of books went out to prisons in more than 40 states, with the help of local groups that know the rules of individual states and institutions.”

Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute, announced the 2026 longlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, a $35,000 award for a work of fiction that “illuminates a vital contemporary issue.” The longlist is True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (Grove Press) by Rabih Alameddine, King of Ashes (Flatiron Books) by S.A. Cosby, The Wilderness (Mariner Books) by Angela Flournoy, Culpability (Spiegel & Grau) by Bruce Holsinger, Intemperance (HarperVia) by Sonora Jha, The River Is Waiting (Marysue Rucci Books) by Wally Lamb, Ring (Bancroft Press) by Michelle Lerner, A Family Matter (Scribner) by Claire Lynch, Wild Dark Shore (Flatiron Books) by Charlotte McConaghy, These Heathens (Random House) by Mia McKenzie, Happy Land (Berkley) by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, This Here Is Love (Norton) by Princess Joy L. Perry, Endling (Doubleday) by Maria Reva, Behind the Waterline (Blair) by Kionna Walker LeMalle, and So Far Gone (Harper) by Jess Walter. The shortlist will be announced March 11, 2026; the winner will be revealed April 23, 2026.

The judge presiding over the Anthropic lawsuit has ruled that a third-party law firm, ClaimsHero, must correct its misleading information about the Anthropic lawsuit and settlement and stop running all ads, according to Publishers Lunch. “Plaintiffs had accused ClaimsHero of soliciting authors to opt out of the settlement with website messaging and social media ads,” which the judge called “materially misleading and confusing” in a new filing.

Algerian French writer Boualem Sansal has been released from his sentence of five years by the Algerian government, according to Publishing Perspectives. Sansal, who had been arrested following an interview in which he questioned Algeria’s historical borders, had served a year of his sentence. 

Time magazine has released its “100 Must-Read Books of 2025.” Among the titles of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are books by Kiran Desai (The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny), Karen Russell (The Antidote), Madeleine Thien (The Book of Records), Ocean Vuong (The Emperor of Gladness), and Kevin Wilson (Run for the Hills). 

During the longest government shutdown in history, many independent bookstores “took on a new role as hubs for food donations,” the New York Times reports. “Dozens of bookstores have rallied around the issue of food insecurity in recent weeks, according to the American Booksellers Association.”

A massive fire at a warehouse in Bhiwandi, a suburb of Mumbai, belonging to Indian comics publisher Amar Chitra Katha has destroyed more than 600,000 books, including special-edition sets, as well as “more than 200 original hand-drawn illustrations from the 1960s and 1970s,” the BBC reports. “The original positives on transparent film and other archival materials were also lost.” It took firefighters four days to contain the blaze.

Translator Ross Benjamin writes in the Atlantic about the “Live Translation” feature of Apple’s new AirPods and the costs of instant translation made possible by AI. “The translation technology itself is astonishing, relying on large language models to all but realize the fantasy of the ‘Babel fish’ from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—instant communication with anyone, in any language, simply by placing a device in your ear,” Benjamin writes. “Yet as people embrace these transformative tools, they risk eroding capacities and experiences that embody values other than seamlessness and efficiency.”

The Associated Press reports from Sunday’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize ceremony in Ohio where Salman Rushdie received a lifetime achievement award. Rushdie, whose latest book is The Eleventh Hour, his first collection of fiction since being attacked at the Chautauqua Institution three years ago, said that writers can express solidarity with those who are suffering and others on the front lines of conflict zones, such as journalists. “We can enlarge their voices by adding our voices to their voices. ... It can show us the reality of the other. It can show us what life looks like, not from our point of view, but from another point of view.”

Rice University in Houston is launching a new MFA program in creative writing. The three-year graduate program, developed by faculty Lacy M. Johnson, Tomás Q. Morín, Kiese Laymon, Amber Dermont, Andrea Bajani, Ian Schimmel, and Justin Cronin “to nurture emerging voices in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, translation and hybrid forms while connecting students to Houston’s rich literary and cultural landscape,” will welcome its first cohort in fall 2026.