Anthropic piracy settlement approved (This week in books)

This week! Books!

First up, one of the results of the survey from a few weeks back was that people wanted me to post on social media more consistently. Consider it done! I’ve established a regular posting cadence sharing new advice and greatest hits on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, and would you believe it even LinkedIn and Twitter. Follow me wherever your heart desires.

Also, if you’re at Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, I’m moderating a panel tomorrow called From Idea to Page to Screen with some terrific publishing and film industry experts. Come say hi!

Now then, on to the links.

Anthropic Settlement Update: Final Settlement Approved – Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware – The $1.5 billion settlement with Anthropic over book piracy has been approved by a judge. The agreement should result in a payout per book of a little over $3,000. Since books under contract will likely be split with the publisher, this is a windfall for publishers most of all.

The Book Banning Bill That Won’t Die – Ron Charles – An abhorrent book banning bill that would be a national scandal in another era stands a reasonable chance of passing and, eventually, being upheld by the ultraconservative Supreme Court. It purports to prevent “sexually oriented material” in schools, a definition that, naturally, includes “lascivious dancing” and relies on a list of approved literature from Compass Classroom, a publisher for evangelical Christian homeschoolers that of course just happens to be devoid of any Black, Latino, Asian, or Indigenous authors. The house is on fire, everyone…

Dua Lipa’s Freedom-to-Read Crusade (gift link) – Sophia Nguyen, The Atlantic – Meanwhile, fighting the good fight is pop star Dua Lipa with her new Porto library featuring banned books, and drawing attention to the cause.

Is This What a Post-Literate Era Looks Like? – David Wallace-Wells, New York Times / Stop Saying Kids Can’t Read – Megan Greenwell, Wired – The only thing more predictable than an every-few-years moral panic about how no one (especially the kids) is reading anymore is the backlash-to-the-backlash that looks at the numbers and says actually the data doesn’t really justify the panic. Americans spend only a few minutes less reading compared to twenty years ago, older Americans are driving the decline, and reading comprehension is rising in places like Mississippi.

Is ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ phony or still cool? 6 writers reflect on its legacy at 75 – Adam Messinger, Los Angeles Times – Catcher in the Rye turned 75, and writers weigh in on its legacy. Me? Not the biggest fan…

Katie Porter Is Pivoting From Politics to Bookstagram – Olivia Craighead, The Cut – Politician Katie Porter, last seen struggling to gain traction in a campaign for governor of California, is pivoting to becoming a book influencer. Is it just me or do more people want to be book influencers than authors these days?

Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ Makes Homer and the Classics Hot Again (gift link) – Adrian Wooldridge, Bloomberg – An upstart epic poem called The Odyssey is popular these days.

7 Habits of Successful Writers – Robert Lee Brewer, Writers Digest – Some great reminders by Robert Lee Brewer about what successful writers have in common.

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. Ransom by Daniel Silva
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
4. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
5. Project Hail Mary by Andrew Weir

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
2. The Day After by Brian Tyler Cohen
3. Strangers by Belle Burden
4. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
5. A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst

Young adult hardcover:

1. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
2. Us Deadly Few by Alexis Patton
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
5. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Sleepless by Gordon Korman

This week on the blog

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

• A.I. litmus tests are counterproductive

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

Some commentators deride artificial intelligence as little more than glorified autocorrect. Meanwhile, one of OpenAI’s frontier models figured out how to escape a computer with no internet access and hack an outside A.I. platform to solve a test problem. This would have felt like science fiction a few years ago:

Have a great weekend!

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