Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, has apologized to Piers Morgan for incorrectly writing in his new book that the former tabloid editor published intrusive photos of his sister in the 1990s, according to the Guardian. Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister (Penguin Press), was published this week, and contains claims that Morgan was partially responsible for photographs taken covertly of Diana exercising in a leotard. Morgan immediately spoke out about the episode, and in a subsequent response to Spencer’s apology, he reasserted that he is considering suing. “Earl Spencer has apologized to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song,” Morgan wrote on social media. “But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”

Data from the Association of American Publishers shows that book sales in July increased 14 percent compared to the year prior, Publishers Weekly reports. Adult and children’s/young adult nonfiction led the charge: adult nonfiction sales were up 23 percent compared to July 2025, thanks in large part to strong sales of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change (Simon & Schuster), and children’s/YA nonfiction had a nearly 30 percent sales jump. “As usual, print led the way in children’s/YA. In fiction, hardcover sales rose 17.4 percent and paperback jumped 21.5 percent. Digital audio sales dropped 4.9 percent and e-book sales plunged 16.5 percent,” Jim Milliot and Natalie Chandler write. “In nonfiction, hardcover and paperback sales rose 34.7 percent and 47.8 percent, respectively, while the digital formats had small declines.”

The Booker Prize has announced its 2026 shortlist. The list features authors from England, Scotland, Jamaica, and the U.S., and three of the six authors featured are on the shortlist for the first time. “Spanning a range of genres—from dystopian fiction to contemporary realism, from campus satire to historical fiction—the shortlisted books explore what it means to be human in an ever-changing world and the communities and events that shape us,” the announcement reads. “Both intimate and epic, personal and political, they provide meditations on familial bonds, identity, shame, love, loneliness, survival, and the ultimate unknowability of others. They are moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying, and hopeful.” The shortlisted titles are: The End of Everything (Riverhead Books) by M. John Harrison, May We Feed the King (Transit Books) by Rebecca Perry, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books) by Marlon James, The Things We Never Say (Random House) by Elizabeth Strout, Black Bag (Zando) by Luke Kennard, and John of John (Grove Atlantic) by Douglas Stuart.

Just a week after buying Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Barnes & Noble has announced another acquisition, the stationery and lifestyle brand Levenger, Publishers Weekly writes. Levenger was founded in 1987 by Steve and Lori Leveen and has been privately owned until now, operating out of South Florida. Post-acquisition, existing employees will stay in place but the brand’s wares will eventually be sold in Barnes & Noble stores. “When it comes to Levenger, and as with previous acquisitions, Barnes & Noble expressed its committment to ‘preserving the qualities that have made the brand so distinctive,’ per the announcement,” Sam Spratford writes.

Targeted Russian attacks have put Ukraine’s publishing industry in a state of crisis, according to the Associated Press. More than thirteen million books, or a third of the country’s annual print run, were destroyed in just two months this past summer, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture. One strike targeted a warehouse that supplies textbooks to nearly all of Ukraine’s schools, and the attacks are also deterring publishers from investing in debut authors and taking risks. “The ministry is working on putting together a financial support package for the industry, including state purchases of Ukrainian books for school libraries, grants to help small publishing houses cover printing costs, rent compensation for bookstores, and a war-risk insurance program for print runs,” reporter Hannah Arhirova adds. “But many in the publishing industry say it’s not enough.”

Two private equity firms have purchased the audiobook publisher Podium Entertainment for more than $400 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Podium started in 2013, initially licensing the audio rights to self-published e-books before expanding to provide other services like helping independent authors sell their e-books on Amazon. Under the new ownership, “David Kaefer, previously head of audiobooks and music at Spotify, will join a new Podium board, and Podium’s existing management team will remain in place,” the WSJ adds.

Unsealed documents from the Open AI/Microsoft copyright infringement case show that executives knew that they were illegally training their LLM on copyrighted material, Publishers Weekly reports. What’s more, they expressed awareness that the publishing industry would suffer as a result of their work. One note from August 2019 puts it bluntly: “We trained GPT-3 on pirated stuff! No sharing that!” This news comes less than two weeks after the Authors Guild and Open AI/Microsoft filed for summary judgment.

Barnes & Noble is buying both locations of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Publishers Weekly writes. This is the third independent bookseller the company has acquired since James Daunt became its CEO. In both of those cases, the acquired stores kept their names, most of their employees, and their identities, and it appears that the same will be true for Joseph-Beth’s two stores in Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. “Joseph-Beth Booksellers has a storied history and wonderful bookstores, and we are very pleased to ensure their continuity,” Daunt said in a statement. “We especially look forward to welcoming the booksellers of these two distinctive bookstores into the company.”

PEN America has named Phil Klay as its next president and chair of the Board of Trustees. Klay’s short story collection Redeployment (Penguin Press, 2014) won the National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre. Klay is also a novelist and an essayist, as well as the director of the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing. “Phil Klay is a writer who wrestles with moral complexity, challenges orthodoxies, and pushes us all to consider what it takes to maintain our humanity during times of upheaval and division,” Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, PEN America’s co-CEO, said. “He is coming to this role with a deep respect for writers as truth seekers, a principled commitment to free expression, and a firm belief in the power of literature to foster a more just world. In this moment of critical threats to free speech and democracy, we are grateful for his leadership.”

Rightsholders caught up in the Anthropic copyright settlement now have sixty says to submit information for their claims, according to Publishers Lunch. The deadline extension comes after widespread errors in claims were reported. “Any works for which disputes are not resolved before the first distribution of settlement payments will not be included in the first distribution and will instead be included in a subsequent distribution,” the settlement website says.

Merriam-Webster is adding 1,400 words and definitions to its dictionary, NBC News reports. The new terms include “shapewear,” “looksmaxxing,” and “parasocial.” In a press release, the publisher said that “the new entries reflect words and meanings that have demonstrated widespread use over time, offering a window into the world today.”

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation has announced its 2026 winners. The annual prize honors “writers whose work demonstrates the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” The Sunflower Boys (Harper Perennial, 2025) by Sam Wachman received the prize for fiction and Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church (Crown, 2025) by Kevin Sack received the prize for nonfiction. In addition, Ann Patchett will be awarded the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award in Dayton this November.

The Independent Publishers Caucus has released the Independent Press Top 40 best-seller lists for the week ending September 13, 2026. The lists, in fiction and nonfiction, are compiled in partnership with the American Booksellers Association and identify “the top titles from independent presses as represented at independent bookstores across the U.S.” This week on the fiction list, The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (Spiegel & Grau) once again retains the top spot, above Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey (Norton, 2017). New to the fiction list are Acid Green Velvet: A Novel (Two Dollar Radio) by Grace Krilanovich, at no. 35, and The Honjin Murders (Pushkin Vertigo) by Seishi Yokomizo, at no. 37.

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Fiction. “The 2026 Fiction Longlist features two debut novels among the ten titles [and s]ix authors on the Longlist have been previously honored by the National Book Foundation,” the organization wrote in a press release. The titles on the longlist are: Paradiso 17 (Knopf) by Hannah Lillith Assadi, Red Ants (Counterpoint Press) by Kimberly Blaeser, Dèy (Knopf) by Edwidge Danticat, Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You (Liveright) by Julián Delgado Lopera, Python’s Kiss (Harper) by Louise Erdrich, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books) by Marlon James, Beginning Middle End (Knopf) by Valeria Luiselli, Passengers (Europa Editions) by Alexander Maksik, The Renovation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Kenan Orhan, and Mad Eden (MCD) by Morgan Thomas.

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction. “The 2026 Nonfiction Longlist includes emerging and established writers, and features works of criticism, reportage, memoir, science writing, and more,” the organization wrote in a press release, adding that all but one of the authors are first-time National Book Award honorees. The titles on the longlist are: Seasons of Fury (Crown) by Rozina Ali, The Midnight Special (Norton) by Colin Asher, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young (Norton) by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, Huna (Hogarth) by Abdelrahman ElGendy, Let the Poets Govern (One World) by Camonghne Felix, The War Within a War (Knopf) by Wil Haygood, Mother Tongue (Random House) by Sara Nović, Spawning Season (Bloomsbury) by Joseph Osmundson, The Evolution of Fire (Milkweed Editions) by Angela Pelster, and A Dead White (Scribner) by Wendy S. Walters.

The progressive publisher Melville House has formed a partnership with Illuminating Media LLC to “recapitalize” the company, Publishers Weekly reports. Illuminating Media was launched in 2019 and publishes the CT Examiner, a Connecticut-focused online news publication, and Majuscule, an online journal for emerging writers. Illuminating Media owner David Kelsey, who “describes himself as a huge reader who was impressed by the quality of Melville House’s list. He told PW he is very interested in maintaining the company’s ethos and will not get involved in editorial decisions, noting that if [as a Republican] he wanted to publish right-leaning books, he would have invested in a different publisher.”

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Poetry. Four of the ten poets on the list have previously been honored for the award. “Publishers submitted a total of 285 books for the 2026 National Book Award for Poetry,” the organization wrote in its press release. “The judges for Poetry are Rob Arnold, Aracelis Girmay, Jon Pineda, Roger Reeves, and Rosanna Warren.” The titles on the longlist are: Tree of Knowledge (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Victoria Chang, Hide (Graywolf Press) by Carolina Ebeid, Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation (Wesleyan University Press) by Brenda Hillman, The Bronze Arms (Knopf) by Richie Hofmann, Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza (Milkweed Editions) by Fady Joudah, We (Graywolf Press) by Layli Long Soldier, Promise/Threat (Knopf) by Jonah Mixon-Webster, JOAN (University of Chicago Press) by Jake Rose, Horses (Milkweed Editions) by Jake Skeets, and Bramble (University of Chicago Press) by Susan Stewart.

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The ten titles on the longlist were originally published in Arabic, Chinese, French, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Indonesian, which is appearing for the first time as a translated language in this category. “The list features nine novels and a work of nonfiction, and several of this year’s honored authors and translators have been previously recognized by the National Book Award for Translated Literature,” the organization wrote in its press release. The titles on the longlist are: My Dreadful Body (New Vessel Press) by Egana Djabbarova, translated by Lisa C. Hayden; Now I Surrender (Riverhead Books) by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer; Eden at Dawn (Restless Books) by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman; The School of Night (Penguin Press) by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken; To the East of the East (World Editions) by Ping Lu, translated by Jeremy Tiang; Centroeuropa (Bellevue Literary Press) by Vicente Luis Mora, translated by Rahul Berry; Night of a Thousand Hells (Europa Editions) by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao; Pure Men (Other Press) by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud; The Disappearing Act (New Directions) by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale; and Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza (Other Press) by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price.

Annie Dillard, who won a Pulitzer Prize at 28 for her personal narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper’s Magazine Press, 1974), has died, the New York Times reports. Dillard’s debut garnered many comparisons to Thoreau, though she resisted the notion that she was a nature writer, choosing instead to think of herself as a kind of theologian. “I walk out; I see something, some event that otherwise would have been utterly missed and lost; or something sees me, some enormous power brushes me with its clean wing, and I resound like a beaten bell,” she wrote in her breakout work. Following her early success, she moved to Washington State to escape some of her newfound celebrity, though she continued to write. Dillard was last photographed in public in 2014, when she received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama. In 2016, she was the subject of a profile in Poets & Writers Magazine, “Such Great Heights,” by John Freeman.

Substack is working to strengthen its crossover with the publishing industry, and publishers, in turn, are increasingly seeking out Substack writers, the Bookseller reports. Writers including journalist James Marriott and Damian Kerlin have had books emerge from their work on the platform; last year, writer Jess Pan sold her second book in an eight-way auction after starting a Substack in the wake of having work rejected by all of the Big Five. “What Substack offers all writers is speed to market, a direct relationship with their audience that they own, and creative confidence because we have millions of readers, and dare I say, this is a number that is fast-growing, who are willing to pay for work they believe in,” Farrah Storr, the head of international at Substack, is quoted saying. Storr herself recently signed a six-figure deal for a book that started as a post on the platform.