Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
The Empire State Building to Go Green for THE GREAT GATSBY
On the one hand, this is pretty cool. Probably the most widely-known literary symbol in American literature switching onto one of America’s iconic landmarks makes my book-nerd heart quite happy. However. My “did you actually read the book” heart is a little disturbed: the green light of desire that this represents for Gatsby…..does not go terribly well in the novel. So yea for book awareness and excitement. Boo for reading comprehension.
A Report from AWP
In this awkwardly-entertaining report from AWP (the biggest and baddest conference for writers), Greta Rainbow is especially adept at capturing the disconnect from the multiple(!) AI companies who also attended. This is one of the great “read the room” disconnects you are likely to encounter in the world of books, I would hazard to guess. The bottom line is that the kind of writers that attend AWP are precisely the writers who are going to be least interested in AI writing technology–they are bought in to a networking/establishment/trad pub model of how this stuff should go (much like AWP has not been historically cutting-edge when it comes to other innovations like ebooks and self-publishing).
The ALA Sues Over the Scuppering of the IMLS
I must admit that I do not keep up with the details of every executive order and DOGE trigger-firing of entire departments and agencies. But it does seem to me that suits like this one are going to be the ultimate protection: there are specific constitutional challenges outlines about what the executive branch can and cannot do. Does first the entire board of the IMLS rise to the level of “dismantling” the IMLS? If there is one person somewhere typing on a beige keyboard whose nametag says IMLS, is that cool because it technically still exists. Trumps on-going stress test of basically the whole idea of America continues.
The Bestselling Books of the Week, According to All the Lists
Fairly strange year on the sales charts for books. As Danika Ellis notes, “it’s another week where the bestseller lists cannot agree: no single title made it into the top ten on all five of the biggest lists.” You can browse her weekly survey of what is charting on what lists here.
