Amazon allegedly building the most polluting power plant in the U.S. (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Normally this is the quiet dog days of publishing summer, but you wouldn’t know it from the number of links I have for you this week!

New Amazon Data Center Stokes Worry It Would Be the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S. – Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times – As a “super El Niño” fueled by climate change looms this winter, Amazon is building a natural gas power plant to fuel a data center in Texas that could spew as many as 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which would make it the most polluting power plant in the entire United States. What are we doing here…

Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the Misreading of Science Fiction – Jill Lepore, Wired – Meanwhile, in an excerpt from a forthcoming book, Jill Lepore digs into the (willful?) illiteracy of our idiot tech barons, who congenitally read science fiction cautionary tales as instruction manuals.

91 Percent Human: The Shy Girl AI Scandal / The Shy Girl AI Scandal Is Way Worse Than You Think – The Drey Dossier – An important deep dive into the Shy Girl A.I. scandal, which reveals the centrality of the shoddy A.I.-detecting company Pangram’s role in amplifying unproven claims author Mia Ballard utilized A.I. to write her novel. According to The Drey Dossier, a URL in the Pangram report claiming the novel is 78% A.I.-generated suggests Pangram employed a pirated version of Ballard’s manuscript to scan the book without her permission, a Pangram sales employee brought the “scoop” to a publishing consultant who then alerted the New York Times, which did not disclose the connection to Pangram, and Hachette dropped Ballard less than 24 hours after the Times contacted them for comment. Surely lawsuits are incoming…

What Publishers Must Ask Themselves Now – Kathleen Schmidt, Publishing Confidential – Taking into account the H.M. Wolf, Mia Ballard, and Jerry Falade scandals, publicist Kathleen Schmidt notes that publishers are going to need to decide upon acceptable thresholds for A.I. usage.

I would add that given these three prominent scandals just so happen to involve Black authors, the industry is overdue for another reckoning around who is getting the benefit of the doubt around A.I. usage and who isn’t.

After Editing Two AI-Assisted Manuscripts, I Rewrote My Client Agreement – Mary Kole, Jane Friedman – After unknowingly signing up to edit two A.I.-assisted manuscript, freelance editor Mary Kole describes the head-spinning work of trying to engage with a manuscript when it’s a robot’s outputs and there’s no authorial goal to orient around.

Is your college football preview real? Amazon takes down knockoffs of Phil Steele magazine (gift link) – Matt Baker, The Athletic – The latest example of Amazon turning a blind eye to fake knockoffs of prominent books is brought to you by American football expert Phil Steele. Amazon only took down the fake books after Steele and The Athletic asked them for comment.

MacKenzie Scott Could Have Chosen Any Publisher. Instead She’s Releasing Her First Novel in 13 Years on Substack – Amaya Nichole, Inc – Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, plans to serialize her new novel on Substack, rather than releasing it in a more traditional format.

President Barack Obama to Host “A Great Book” on Audible – Audible – Former president Barack Obama is the latest noted influencer with a book-related podcast.

The Steamy, Magical and Now Very Lucrative Romantasy Business (gift link) – Hannah Miller and Madison Muller, Bloomberg – An entertainingly exhaustive look at the Romantasy Industrial Complex.

How Caro Claire Burke Wrote the Biggest Book of the Year – Rachel Syme, The New Yorker – A fascinating interview with author Caro Claire Burke on her buzzy novel Yesteryear, including what it was like having Anne Hathaway-driven interest, the pressures of a massive book deal, needing to let go of the film adaptation if it gets green lit, and all the work that went into this first deal. Another great example of a book that feels like an overnight success story being anything but.

Pizza Hut’s Book It! program for kids is officially back – Rainesford Stauffer, Slate – Pizza Hut’s millennial-beloved reading program Book It! is officially back this summer for a new generation of readers.

It’s Ok to Judge a Book By Its Cover (It’s Impossible Not To) – Ed Simon, Lit Hub – A brief history of the evolution of book covers, one of the greatest expressions of marketing genius in history.

Middle Grade Novels Get a Glow-Up – Pooja Makhijani, Publishers Weekly – Speaking of, you may have noticed that sprayed edges have become more common as publishers spread premium edition characteristics more widely in the hopes of getting kisd to notice.

How DNF Became A-OK – Erik Piepenburg, New York Times – Erik Piepenburg makes the case that life is too short to spend on books that aren’t grabbing you.

How a Debut Self-Published Novel Earned Five Figures in 10 Weeks Without Kindle Unlimited – Ashli O’Connell, Jane Friedman – A great case study in how an author built a successful launch for a self-published novel, starting with a crucial but often overlooked place: the author’s personal network.

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. Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. The Unknown – Riley Sager

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. Biological War by Annie Jacobsen
4. Your Fellow Americans by Peter Santenello
5. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Young adult hardcover:

1. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
2. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Immortal Game by Allison Saft

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Ghost in the Night by Tiffany D. Jackson
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

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

• How to handle an offer of representation from a literary agent

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

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

And finally:

The James Webb Telescope Is Changing How Astronomers Think About Everything – Jay Bennett, Wired – The massive James Webb Telescope is fundamentally upending our understanding of the early universe. Wild, wild stuff.

Have a great weekend!

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