Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been named a Global Icon for Bvlgari’s 2026 Carrying Culture campaign, “becoming one of five women chosen by the Italian luxury house to front its Icons Minaudière collection,” according to Brittle Paper. The author of eight books, the most recent of which is the novel Dream Count, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2025, joins Canadian supermodel Linda Evangelista, Italian American actress Isabella Rossellini, South Korean actress Kim Ji-won, and South African architect Sumayya Vally in a campaign photographed by Ethan James Green and designed by Greek fashion designer Mary Katrantzou. (Read the profile of Adichie by Renée H. Shea from the July/August 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.)

Jim Milliot of Publishers Weekly reports on statistics compiled by Bowker that show the total number of books published in the U.S. in 2025 jumped 32.5 percent over 2024, to more than four million books. “The increase was led by self-published works, for which the number of print and e-books...soared 38.7 percent to more than 3.5 million from 2.5 million in 2024.”

In an essay for the New York Times, David Streitfeld looks at the power of book reviews and how, back in 1993 at the Washington Post Book World, before the Jeff Bezos era, a review by Michael Dirda of a misunderstood novel by Annie Proulx had career-changing results for both Proulx and Larry McMurtry, who had been fired from Book World fifteen years earlier. “Here is a tale, in the dark for 30 years, about how book reviews are an engine that helps keep the culture running. It is about what can happen when you’re not ruled by data.”

Henry Grabar of the Atlantic covers the recent revival of Barnes & Noble (B&N). After becoming a private company in 2019, B&N acquired a new CEO, James Daunt, who subsequently changed the trajectory of the company, which was going down in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. Having previously founded an independent bookstore, Daunt changed what he calls B&N’s “retailer’s mindset” by giving authority to the local store managers, so they could choose what books to stock and promote, creating diversification across all stores. As a result, Barnes & Noble opened sixty new stores last year with the goal of doing the same this year as well. Grabar writes: “Daunt believes that Barnes & Noble makes room for a type of book buyer who might not feel at ease in independent bookstores, in which customers, he says, are met with a ‘sort of scrutiny, and also a sense of intellectual expectation.’” B&N is also “a popular stage set for TikToks,” appealing to teenagers with its laid-back atmosphere and wide aisles.    

Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James is developing two new TV projects with Motive Pictures, an independent British production company, Deadline reports. Previously, James collaborated with Motive on his first show, Get Millie Black, which aired in both the U.S. and the U.K. in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The duo is back and working on two dramas, one of which “is being billed as a blood-soaked odyssey into the lawless Caribbean, set during the Golden Age of piracy,” and the other of which is “a revenge epic and geopolitical thriller that plays out across the Americas.” 

The HarperCollins Union has secured the highest starting salary in the publishing industry with a new contract, reports Publishers Lunch. This three-year contract mandates a beginning salary of $52,500, for a 35-hour week, which will increase annually to reach up to $55,200 in 2028. Additionally, all covered employees will receive annual pay increases, one floating holiday was included to a total of eighteen throughout the calendar year, and entry-level employees must be considered for a promotion after two years. “We were able to achieve provisions that will provide life changing support to current members, and a more sustainable future for new employees,” says Caitlin Stamper, the union chair and a Harper Children’s designer.

Jeff Shotts has been announced as the winner of the 2026 A.P. Anderson Award, bestowed by the Anderson Center at Tower View to honor an individual for “significant contributions to the cultural and artistic life of Minnesota.” An editor at Graywolf Press for nearly thirty years and the press’s current executive editor, Shotts has acquired and edited works that have received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and awards from the National Book Critics Circle, among other accolades. “Editors... work in the shadows and rarely get the acclaim they deserve,” wrote Dobby Gibson, one of Shotts’s nominators, in a statement shared by the Anderson Center. “Jeff’s work at Graywolf has strengthened Minnesota’s stature as a center of literary arts. By nurturing world-class talent from Minnesota and beyond, he ensures the Twin Cities are not just a regional hub but a national and international presence in literature. And most important of all, Jeff has ensured Graywolf—and by extension Minnesota—fosters a culture of literary risk, innovation, and excellence.”

For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter considers the curious case of Shy Girl, the buzzy self-published horror novel picked up by Hachette—and then pulled from publication after evidence of AI use in its authorship. After online speculation about the book’s voice and the telltale tics of AI, Max Spero, the founder and chief executive of the AI-detection company Pangram, ran the book through its software, finding that an estimated 78 percent of the book was AI-generated. Hachette subsequently cancelled the book’s planned publication in the United States and ceased printing the title in the U.K. While AI has roiled the online book marketplace for time, Shy Girl may be the “first commercial novel from a major publishing house to be pulled over evidence of AI use. Its cancellation is a sign that AI writing is not only appearing in cheap self-published e-books that are flooding Amazon but is seeping into even traditionally published fiction.”

Amazon Literary Partnership has opened applications for its 2026 grants cycle, offering funding to “literary nonprofits with the aim of empowering writers, helping them create, publish, learn, teach, experiment, and thrive.” Grants are awarded in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $20,000; in 2025, ninety-nine Amazon Literary Partnership grants offered a total of $1 million in funding to organizations across the United States. Recent recipients of grants include the National Book Foundation, the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), Girls Write Now, and Cave Canem. Applications for this year’s grants are due May 1. Recepients will be announced in July.

Utah has added another book to its list of banned titles, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. Looking for Alaska (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2005) by John Green is now the twenty-eighth title to be banned from Utah public schools. This young adult fiction book was also among the top fifty-two books banned from U.S. schools in 2025, according to PEN America. Utah law requires that a title be banned from public schools if at least three school districts determine there to be indecent content found within. On Green’s website, he states that a sex scene from the book is frequently the most cited reason for why it has been banned.

Smithsonian Magazine covers a new exhibition at Yale Library that explores the history of typos across five hundred years. Entitled “‘Beauties of My Style’: Errata and the Printed Mistake” and opening on March 30 at the university’s Sterling Memorial Library, this exhibition shows errors found in Ulysses, the Bible, and many more well-known titles. According to the library, “errors committed” lists—acknowledging typos and including apologies and additions—first appeared in the fifteenth century, with authors placing these slips in the back of their books. The exhibition looks at errata lists alongside their respective texts, exploring themes such as “censorship, misrepresentation, intervention, and instability,” per the library’s statement.

The executive director of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Paula M. Krebs, will be stepping down from her position in 2027. Having been with the MLA for close to a decade, Krebs has led the association “through a period of significant evolution, guiding the organization as it strategized to respond to the impact of new technologies, the COVID-19 pandemic, and legislative challenges to higher education.” Of her time spent with the MLA, Krebs notes, “As a first-generation college student, I’ve always had a bit of an outsider perspective, and this organization welcomed that, allowing me to take some risks and try some new things.” The executive council plans to start searching for Krebs’s replacement in the coming weeks.

Publishers Weekly reports on the surprise Chapter 11 filing of Baker & Taylor, which reveals debts to thousands of creditors that are estimated to total between $100 million and $500 million; the company’s estimated remaining assets are valued at $1 million to $10 million. Those owed money include Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins, which are due $23.4 million, $16.4 million, and $15.6 million respectively; Ingram, Wiley, Norton, and multiple public libraries are also on the list of those to whom Baker & Taylor is in debt. “Given the huge gap between Baker & Taylor’s assets and what they owe their creditors, one observer told Publishers Weekly that companies will be lucky to receive pennies on the dollar.”

Six novels have been announced as the shortlist for the second annual Climate Fiction Prize: Dusk by Robbie Arnott (Chatto & Windus), The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha (John Murray Press), Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan (Simon & Schuster) Hum by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books), Endling by Maria Reva (Virago), and The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (Granta Books). Sponsored by the British nonprofit Climate Spring, the prize “celebrates the most inspiring novels tackling the climate crisis” as part of the organization’s broader mission to leverage the power of storytelling to address climate change. The winner of this year’s prize will be announced May 27 and will receive £10,000 (approximately $13,300).

Publishers Lunch reports that book distributor Baker & Taylor is set to close in January 2027. The news comes on the heels of the failed acquisition of the company’s assets by distributor ReaderLink last month. Local news reports that 253 of the 318 of the employees at the company’s warehouse in Momence, Illinois, learned yesterday that they had lost their positions; the remaining employees will assist in winding down operations through the end of the year. One of the oldest companies in the book industry, Baker & Taylor “was the largest supplier of materials to libraries, and B&T Publisher Services distributes books from more than 250 small presses. Small publishers are particularly in need of distribution services after the closure of Small Press Distribution.”

The Los Angeles Times uncovers a trend in book jacket design marked by childlike sketches, doodles, and crayon marks. “The more childish and unrefined, the better,” Maddie Connors writes. The “naive design” trend reportedly appeals to millennials and Gen Z readers. “The book cover trend, imbued with nostalgia for childhood, promises fiction that grapples with the pangs of adulthood in an age of precarity.” Examples of the design can be found on the covers of books by Madeline Cash and Cazzie David.

Virginia Evans is the winner of the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel for The Correspondent (Crown), the PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced. Judges Rachel Beanland, Dionne Irving, and Taymour Soomro considered 146 eligible novels by American authors published in the United States during the 2025 calendar year. Submissions came from 59 publishing houses, including small and academic presses. Evans will receive $10,000. The other finalists were Susanna Kwan for Awake in the Floating City (Pantheon) and Maggie Su for Blob: A Love Story (Harper).

Jaime Leifer has been named publishing director of Bloomsbury US’s adult trade division, according to Publishers Weekly. “Leifer will oversee the adult literary fiction list alongside the division’s nonfiction list, which the publisher hopes to expand.” 

An author in Utah has been convicted of “aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and then self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief,” the Guardian reports. Prosecutors say Kouri Richins gave her husband five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid by mixing it in a cocktail that he drank in March 2022. The couple were $4.5 million in debt; Richins reportedly believed she would inherit her husband’s estate, valued at more than $4 million, after his death.

Comic book retailers are adopting BookTok-style videos to help increase store sales, reports Publishers Weekly. Creating content for a younger, online demographic, these booksellers are employing a variety of social-media-savvy techniques, including posting reels and creating videos in which they speak with comics creators, utilize puppets to share reviews of recent releases, drink wine while discussing new books, and more. One such comic store owner, Jen King of Space Cadets in Shenandoah, Texas, says, “When they see what people are like in the community, and how we talk to each other, they realize, Oh wait, they’re just like my friends. I’m not any different in person. The person they see on the screen is really me.”