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.”

Sourcebooks is now the fifth largest publisher in the country when considering print units sold, “breaking the longstanding Big Five, and pushing Macmillan into sixth place, according to publishers’ internal analysis of data from Circana Bookscan,” according to Katy Hershberger of Publishers Lunch. “While Macmillan is still considerably larger overall, with far higher e-book unit sales and an established, successful audiobook division, this is the first time an independently-run house has challenged the dominance of the same set of big publishing conglomerates since Bookscan began.”

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 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 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.

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.

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. 

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.”

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). 

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.’”

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”