Meta: “Censorship for thee and not for me” (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg went on a conservative apologia tour and, on the Joe Rogan show naturally, declared Facebook’s own fact-checking program like “something out of 1984” and that he worried about Facebook becoming “this sort of decider of what is true in the world.” No longer would Facebook be in the business of censorship! You hear that, world? No more censorship! Meta is a censorship free zone!

Well. You may find it as rich as Zuckerberg himself that Facebook went to court to so-far successfully block author Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting her well-reviewed new memoir about working at Facebook, which, among other things, alleges creepy behavior from Facebook executives and feckless carelessness as Facebook was used as a platform to hasten a genocide.

Hey hey! Ho ho! These tech billionaires have got to go!

Speaking of, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to Elon Musk’s Twitter-I’m-Not-Calling-It-X to extol the virtues of an unreleased A.I.’s capacity for writing in a style that he says reads like autofiction, and I say reads like crap. Among the choice lines “written” by A.I.: “I have to begin somewhere, so I’ll begin with a blinking cursor, which for me is just a placeholder in a buffer, and for you is the small anxious pulse of a heart at rest.”

Jeanette Winterson, author of The Passion, inexplicably defended the writing and A.I. writing in general, starting off on the utterly dubious footing of “I think of AI as alternative intelligence” (there’s nothing “intelligent” about it), and “its capacity to be ‘other’ is what the human race needs.” Jeanette, with all due respect you’re a wonderful writer but I don’t need to look at alien poop to understand that human poop stinks.

The LitHub “best villain in literature” March Madness bracket is down to a final battle between O’Brien from 1984 and Satan from Paradise Lost.

Drew Broussard argues that it’s long past time for authors to stop linking to Amazon. (I almost exclusively link to Bookshop.org now.)

In publishing industry news, there was a bit of a head-scratcher as upstart publisher Zando acquired indie stalwart Tin House, which has been met with more than a little trepidation in the publishing community. And publishers are hoping to turn around a recent downward trend in the middle grade market (though I’m a little alarmed at the overall emphasis on more illustrations).

A promising new video game lets you play as an author in sci-fi and fantasy worlds.

The hot new thing for young people in India? Literature festivals.

And author Lincoln Michel has a great post on the declining output of young literary authors compared to the past, which covers everything from increased distractions to declining publisher support for authors who may need to keep experimenting before they break out.

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. Wild Side by Elsie Silver
3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
4. Blood Moon by Sandra Brown
5. Far From Home by Danielle Steel

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. The House of My Mother by Shari Franke
2. The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr
3. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Young adult hardcover:

1. Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven
2. Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid
3. Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli
4. Nightweaver by R.M. Gray
5. The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
2. Resist by Alan Gratz
3. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. The Gorgon’s Fury by Brandon Mull
5. One Wrong Step by Jennifer A. Nielson

This week on the blog

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

• Back to a regular schedule next week!

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, many music fans have been mystified by the case of Grimes, the electronic musician who has procreated multiply with one Elon Musk, and whose word salad pontifications leave one wondering if she’s trolling or in on the joke. I really enjoyed this fascinating discussion about Grimes on A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein, Kat Tenbarge, and Taylor Lorenz, who place Grimes at the inflection point between the era of tech optimism and our current dystopia, and give her victimhood fair due alongside the sheer difficulty of feeling sorry for her.

Have a great weekend!

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Photo: Almond trees in the Central Valley, CA