This week! Books!
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Meta allegedly pirated millions of books to train its A.I. via Library Genesis, or LibGen, a piracy library. The Atlantic created a searchable tool to see if your book(s) are available on LibGen, with the caveat that this means your book could have been used to train A.I. They have all five of mine, so pay up Zuckerberg.
The advocacy organization We Need Diverse Books’ work is more important than ever, and they have launched an official We Need Diverse Books Day on April 3.
Meanwhile, the latest in on ongoing house of horrors is an executive order gutting Institute for Museum and Library Services, an independent agency that helps distribute funds to libraries and museums. Because ya know, who needs those?
And speaking of which, you’ll never guess who LitHub’s readers crowned the best villain in literature. (Okay maybe you will.)
Scholastic is launching a series of novels and graphic novels based on Skibidi Toilet, and if you don’t know what those words mean: congratulations and try to keep it that way.
And in writing advice news, agent Kate McKean has a helpful reminder that agents don’t really care why you wrote your book, and editor now recently turned agent David Moldawer has a cool post comparing crafting a book to architecture.
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:
- Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
- Story of My Life by Lucy Score
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
- The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
- The Tell by Amy Griffin
- On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Young adult hardcover:
- Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven
- Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli
- Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid
- Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
- Nightweaver by R.M. Gray
Middle grade hardcover:
- Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
- The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
- Resist by Alan Gratz
- Away by Megan E. Freeman
- The Cursed Campground by FGTeeV with Joe Caramagna
This week on the blog
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
And keep up with the discussion in all the places!
- Follow me on Bluesky
- Check out the Bransforums
And finally, the James Webb telescope is accomplishing some truly remarkable things, including adding credence to a theory that our universe is actually the inside of a black hole. That sound you hear is my head exploding.
Have a great weekend!
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Photo: Snowy egret at The Huntington, San Marino, CA
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I laughed out loud at “congratulations and try to keep it that way.” But of course you know I had to click that link. At least I never have to do that again.
Yes, they stole one of my books (I’ve got two). I was thinking I didn’t qualify to join the Authors Guild but it looks like I can be an associate member. In any case, I’m grateful to be included in the class action regardless of my membership status. The whole thing should freak me out but I think my freak out switch isn’t working anymore from overuse.
Yep, one of my books was pirated. More alarming, three of my son’s research journal publications have also been stolen. So the government is cutting funding for research while allowing tech companies to steal research studies/results, etc. All of this really, really sucks.