Daily News

The largest independent distributor of Spanish-language books in the United States, “a primary pipeline for Spanish-language titles to schools and libraries nationwide,” will close after more than sixty years in business, Publishers Weekly reports. Lectorum Publications “cited a confluence of factors leading to its closing,” the most critical factor was “the shift in federal funding policies for schools, in particular regarding Title I funds, intended in part for purchases of books in Spanish,” Lectorum president and CEO Alex Correa says.

The New York Times looks at the new documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, which chronicles the experience of spoken-word poet Andrea Gibson, who died in July, “one month shy of their 50th birthday and four years after they were diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.” The film won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and was released Friday on Apple TV.

Thomas Coesfeld has been named the next CEO and chair of Bertelsmann, the multinational conglomerate media company that owns Penguin Random House, the Bookseller reports. He will take over from Thomas Rabe on January 1, 2027. Christoph Mohn, chair of the Bertelsmann Supervisory Board, called Coesfeld’s appointment “a generational change in Bertelsmann’s leadership.”

Oxford University Press is planning a round of layoffs, which, “if approved, will affect 113 employees,” according to Publishers Lunch. “A representative for the company said in a statement, ‘Like any organisation, we constantly adapt to changes within our markets. We have proposed some organisational changes which affect a small proportion of our overall workforce. We are currently undergoing a collective consultation process, and are working closely with impacted colleagues to support them during this time.’”

The New York Times follows actor Sarah Jessica Parker as she read 153 books during her time as a judge for this year’s Booker Prize. “It was the ‘experience of a lifetime,’ Parker said repeatedly during four interviews this past year tracking her time judging the award.” On November 10, David Szalay was revealed as the winner of the prestigious award for his novel Flesh.

Thirty-three incarcerated writers from twenty states have been named winners of PEN America’s 2025 PEN Prison Writing Awards, which honor literary works with first-place, second-place, and third-place prizes, as well as honorable mentions, in the categories of poetry, fiction, essay, memoir, and drama. “Administered by PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program, this year’s judging panel included for the first time ever six formerly incarcerated writers who were previous recipients of the awards.”

David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh (Scribner, 2025). He receives £50,000 ($66,000). The annual prize is awarded to “the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.”

Daniel J. Montgomery, who starts in his new role as executive director of the American Library Association, faces “a hefty slate of priorities...from federal appropriations and state funding for libraries, to partnerships with civic organizations, to generational change in the workforce, to concerns around AI and censorship,” Publishers Weekly reports. “One of my primary jobs will be to reaffirm our forward fight in support of librarians, library workers, and libraries themselves,” Montgomery is quoted as saying. “You don’t do that by signaling. You have to help libraries navigate budget fights, book bans, and attacks on public institutions.”

After more than two centuries of annual publication, the Farmers’ Almanac has published its final edition, USA Today reports. While the Farmers’ Almanac is not a literary publication—it is known “for its weather predictions, astronomy, and full moon and gardening calendars”—its demise is another reminder of the challenges facing periodicals. “The Almanac’s decision ‘reflects the growing financial challenges of producing and distributing the Almanac in today’s chaotic media environment,’ according to the news release.” However, it’s not all bad news: The Old Farmers’ Almanac, founded in 1792, twenty-six years before the Farmers’ Almanac, and also known for publishing weather forecasts, gardening tips, and so on, “announced that it will continue publishing on its website and a physical version of its annual publication.”

Katy Hershberger of Publishers Lunch reports on a third-party law firm that is soliciting authors to opt out of the class-action Anthropic settlement. “ClaimsHero, an Arizona law firm with no connection to the case, purports to handle class action lawsuit claims on behalf of class members. They launched a page specifically for the Anthropic case, which plaintiffs argue does the opposite in a ‘bait-and-switch scheme’: anyone who signs up with ClaimsHero authorizes the company to opt them–and any copyright co-owner–out of the settlement and relinquish the right to any funds.” The ClaimsHero page states that anyone who opts out of the settlement could receive more than the agreed-upon settlement of $3,000 per book, though how exactly that would be accomplished is unclear.

The New York Times takes a final look at the finalists for this year’s Booker Prize, the winner of which will be announced on Monday in London. “Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the favorite, but books by Andrew Miller, Katie Kitamura and Susan Choi are also in the running for the prestigious award.”

The British edition of GQ looks into the fashion industry’s supposed embrace of literature, with reading series serving as “the institutional glue” via which London’s “arty, cool, young(ish) community networks, parties, and hunts for romantic partners.” Josiah Gogarty writes: “As a lifelong book nerd, I would of course argue literature has always been cool, in a way. Certain guys and girls have always had hearts that do somersaults when they see someone cute tucking into Virginia Woolf or Martin Amis. But the boundaries of literature’s status have, in recent years, extended out of corduroy trouser land and deep into the more straightforwardly glamorous world of fashion and celebrity.”

Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, an all-volunteer project to document everything on display at the Smithsonian’s twenty-one museums, the National Zoo, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, plans to make the archive’s photos and videos accessible to the media and the public, according to Library Journal. “The initiative is a response to an August letter sent by the Trump administration to the Smithsonian Institution secretary stating that exhibits were subject to review and revision in an effort to ‘reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story.’”

Yale University has no official policy on the use of artificial intelligence by students in its English deparment, so professors are taking a range of approaches to confronting it, according to a report by Yale News. “There has been ‘no call’ for a department-wide policy, Director of Undergraduate Studies Stefanie Markovits wrote in an e-mail to the News, ‘most likely because we have a general belief in academic freedom in the classroom.’ Professors are adapting in their own ways, but they agree on one thing: AI is detrimental to critical thinking and creative writing.” 

A new French literary award will honor a “French lesbian novel” chosen by a jury of ten artists and book industry professionals, Le Monde reports. On November 7, three days after the Prix Goncourt, or Goncourt Prize, is given by the Académie Goncourt to the author of “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year” in France, the winner of the Prix Gouincourt (“gouine is a slang term for lesbian”) will be announced by organizers Lauriane Nicol and Alex Lachkar.

According to Nigel Newton, the founder and CEO of the book publisher Bloomsbury, authors will come to rely on artificial intelligence to help them beat writer’s block, the Guardian reports. “I think AI will probably help creativity, because it will enable the 8 billion people on the planet to get started on some creative area where they might have hesitated to take the first step,” he reportedly told PA Media. Newton is also quoted as saying: “We are programmed deep in our DNA to be comforted by the authority and the reliability of big brand names, and that applies more than ever to the names of big writers.”

Publishers Weekly unpacks a recent report from the Association of American Publishers that shows books sales continued to fall in August. “Total industry sales were down 4.4 percent in the month compared to last August and sales fell in every segment. The report, based on data from 1,320 publishers, followed a July report in which total sales were down 4.2 percent.”

Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives looks at AI usage in the publishing industry, sorting through data revealed in a September 2025 study by the Book Industry Study Group. According to the study, which surveyed people working for publishers, libraries, and service providers or vendors, “slightly lesss than half of inviduals are using AI for work now” and “the majority of organizations that are using AI lack formal policies or guidelines.” The study also shows that “31 percent of respondents said they are ethically opposed to the use of AI; 33 percent said they’re not interested in using AI to support their work; and 43 percent said AI training is not a good use of their time.”

Two novels by George Orwell have been translated into Welsh for the first time, the BBC reports. Animal Farm (1945) is set in northwest Wales in the Welsh edition, published by Melin Bapur, “with Orwell’s classic characters given Welsh names to add authenticity,” and 1984, published in 1949, “contains a Welsh version of Newspeak, the novel’s fictional language.”

Sam Spratford of Publishers Weekly writes about a new coworking, continuing education, and community space for writers, agents, and editors in San Francisco. The Backstory Above, opening in the city’s Sunset District on November 1, aims “to help members of the San Francisco literary community deepen their craft, create and collaborate with each other in a peaceful working environment.”

The UK’s Black British Book Festival is launching a publishing collaboration with Pan Macmillan, “focusing on ‘raw talent,’ in particular writers who have not been traditionally published,” according to the Guardian. The first adult and children’s titles will be commissioned for publication in 2027.

The director of the University of Minnesota Press, Douglas Armato, is retiring after twenty-seven years of leading the Minneapolis-based publisher. “A national search for the next director of the University of Minnesota Press is expected to begin in Fall 2026. Associate Director Susan Doerr and Associate Director for Book Publishing Emily Hamilton will act as co-interim directors until the Press welcomes a new director.”

Simon & Schuster is suing the estate of Nelson DeMille for $1.275 million over a novel he didn’t finish, according to Publishers Lunch. The publisher contends in the filing “that the DeMille estate owes the publisher a $635,000 advance paid on the acceptance and delivery of an outline for his third book, ‘Explorers Club,’ which he had not completed when he died in 2024. They also seek one third of the initial signing advance of $1.92 million paid to DeMille when he signed a $15.3 million three-book deal in 2014.”

The superintendent of Mississinewa High School in Gas City, Indiana, has canceled a production of “Between the Lines,” a musical based on Jodi Picoult’s novel of the same title, due to concerns “over ‘sexual innuendo’ and alcohol references in the musical,” the Associated Press reports. 

The Booker Prize Foundation has launched the Children’s Booker Prize, the Guardian reports. The new award, which will offer £50,000 (approximately $66,628) for the best fiction written for readers ages eight to twelve, “will be decided by a mixed panel of adult and child judges.” The foundation will also give 30,000 copies of shortlisted and winning books to children each year. “The initiative comes amid reports that children’s reading for pleasure is at its lowest level in twenty years.”

Nancy Miller, the publishing director of the adult trade division of Bloomsbury U.S., will step down and take the position of executive editor for the division starting next year, Publishers Weekly reports. “The announcement coincides with the release of Bloomsbury Publishing’s financial results from the first half of the year, which shows a decline in sales and profits following a record fiscal 2025.”

In the wake of the closure of book distributor Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble “began upping its efforts to promote its &Classwork e-commerce portal, the retailer’s B2B ecommerce site launched in 2020,” Publishers Weekly reports. Through the portal, Barnes & Noble ships books to libraries, schools, and nonprofits at a 20 to 30 percent discount.

R. Nassor of Book Riot writes about the current “book affordability crisis” in America. “While the prices of books from hardcovers to trade paperbacks across all age and genre categories are still on the rise,” Nassor writes, “I am specifically spotlighting a new challenge to book affordability: the removal of mass market paperbacks, currently the lowest price point physical book format for readers.”

C-SPAN launched America’s Book Club on Sunday with guest host author John Grisham. “Each week, the program welcomes influential writers and thinkers for engaging conversations about the ideas shaping our history, culture, and democracy,” according to a press release. Airing Sundays at 6:00PM EST, the show will feature a different guest author each week, including Stacy Schiff, David Grann, Walter Isaacson, Jodi Picoult, and others.

A little over a month after Florida District Court Judge Steven D. Merryday rejected President Trump’s $15 billion defamation suit against Penguin Random House, the New York Times, and four New York Times reporters “on the grounds that it was too long and ‘tedious,’” Trump has filed a new version of the lawsuit, according to Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch. The new complaint quotes twenty-two statements from Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner’s book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, published by Penguin Books in September, claiming that the work “published many false, malicious, and defamatory statements.” Spokespersons for both Penguin Random House and the New York Times say the suit has no merit.