A literary takedown for the ages (This week in books)

The blog will be dark the next few weeks for a winter break. Feel free to reach out to me for editing!

This week! Books!

I particularly enjoyed this week’s crop of articles, which have served as a nice respite from *waves at the world outside* all of that. First, let’s get some of the bad news out of the way, then we’ll finish with the good stuff.

I’m not a judge or jury but it seems abundantly clear that Meta knowingly and consciously utilized at least one database of pirated books to train their A.I., as newly unsealed emails show internal discussions showing just that, including some signs the decision was escalated to Mark Zuckerberg. As an author whose books have been pirated by LibGen, Zuckerberg, I’m looking forward to you paying me.

But at least all that theft-trained A.I. is going to good use, right? Right?? Well, you may be less than surprised to find out that A.I. slop is creating a nightmare for librarians, who have to contend with e-book lending programs increasingly polluted with A.I. dreck.

A former nanny has sued Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on human trafficking charges.

And the Amazon monstrosity continues to suck money into its void as it posted a record 2024, with a mind-boggling $638 billion in revenue and $68.6 billion in operating income. It had an extra $1.5 billion in sales just from the fact that there was a leap day in 2024.

Okay whew. I promised there was good stuff, so let’s get to that.

Andrea Long Chu wrote a takedown for the ages on erstwhile New York Times books editor turned professional liberal scold Pamela Paul, “a person so rarely visited by serious belief,” who Chu aptly diagnoses as belonging to the “far center,” reactionaries who seem more troubled by disturbances of the quietude in their elite bubbles than the dire ongoing need for justice and/or progress. I already can’t wait to re-read this.

A coalition of publishers and authors are suing Idaho over its law restricting the circulation of books that have been deemed “harmful to minors,” which of course has been contorted to include such fearsome titles as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Go publishers and authors!

Whether he intended it or not, we all know Master and Commander author Patrick O’Brian wrote one hell of a romance between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith delves lovingly into their delicious codependent life partnership.

We’ve been enjoying some very much-needed rain in the Los Angeles area the past few days, but the fires’ impact has been serious and ongoing. Marc Weingarten at the LA Times looks at the way some of our incredible independent bookstores have served as community hubs in the wake of the devastation.

In writing advice news, I fully agree with Kristen Weber on first sentences in novels: you don’t need a great one, you just need a good one. There’s more danger here in trying too hard than not trying enough.

And finally, I really love this post by Dan Blank on growing more comfortable discussing and sharing your creative work. Something we can all strive for.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
2. The Crash by Freida McFadden
3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
4. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
5. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. The Sirens’ Call by Chris Hayes
2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
3. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
4. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
5. Melania by Melania Trump

Young adult hardcover:

1. If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin
2. Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter
3. A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
4. The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold
5. Murtagh by Christopher Paolini

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. Priceless Facts About Money by Mellody Hobson
5. The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• Chapter template
• Do you pay attention to blurbs?

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, there have been so many good David Lynch tributes I’ve struggled to keep up, but I particularly enjoyed the ones by Kyle MacLachlan and Alexander Deley.

Have a great weekend!

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Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA