Wordplay

The National Book Foundation’s third annual Summer Reading Adventure, a competition designed to promote youth literacy with prizes and giveaways, drew 2,600 participants from all 50 states, the vast majority of whom were first-timers. A decline in licensing deals and costs associated with the acquisition of Emerald Publishing contributed to a soft Q1 for Wiley, with revenue and operating income both dropping. And two prominent legacy Christian publishers are coming under one umbrella, with the London-based SPCK Group announcing its acquisition of Eerdmans. In other news, New York City has imposed a moratorium on generative AI use in public elementary and middle schools, per ABC 7. n+1 reflects on what rising interest in reissues of old books says about the state of publishing and intellectual life today. For Lit Hub, author Adam Hochschild recounts a recent AI-generated literary scam email he received—addressed to George Orwell. A.O. Scott at the New York Times revisits Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections for the novel’s 25th anniversary. Jill Lepore’s latest book debuts at the top of the Independent Publishers Caucus’s indie bestseller list this week. And feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem has died at 92.