The Biggest News of the Week

Catch up on the news you missed this week with the stories Today in Books readers were most interested in.

The National Book Awards Fiction Longlist Is In!

The Fiction longlist is in and I’m patting myself on the back because two of the books I selected for my Book Riot podcast fantasy league made the cut (I’ll share what those are below). These books–some of which release later in the year–are and will be everywhere. I already have a copy of Angela Flournoy’s newest coming to me and there was buzz around it before the Fiction list was out, so I had a feeling I’d be seeing it today. With all of the lists out, I’ll share my predictions for the win in each category and my reasoning on Monday. Without further ado, here are the books on the National Book Awards Fiction longlist:

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine Flashlight by Susan Choi The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar Only Son by Kevin Moffett The Antidote by Karen Russell North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford Palaver by Bryan Washington The Pelican Child by Joy Williams

Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Authors

Claude, you thieving tool. Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion in a settlement to authors whose work the company pirated in order to train its Large Language Model, Claude. A lawyer for the author plaintiffs described it as possibly “the largest copyright recovery ever,” and the outcome of the case seems likely to set precedent for other companies with chatbots where copyrighted materials were pirated. The pivotal caveat from the federal judge who delivered a ruling in the case brought against Anthropic, which found that training the chatbot using copyrighted works wasn’t in and of itself illegal, was that those copyrighted training materials must be acquired legally. Anthropic would have had to answer for acquiring pirated copies through “shadow libraries.” This is a major win for authors and artists.

Award-Winning THE LIBRARIANS Documentary Sets Widespread Release

In a room filled to the brim, attendees at the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference in Philadelphia this summer watched Kim A. Snyder’s documentary The Librarians. The Librarians debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, and in the following months, traveled the country doing shows at libraries and festivals. ALA attendees watching the show gasped and shouted numerous times throughout, as they saw fellow librarians whose lives have been turned upside down, thanks to the nearly five-year fight over books and education in America’s public schools and libraries.

Read all about it here.

Reading Skills of High School Seniors at a New Low

New federal testing data delivered disappointing news about the reading and math skills of 12th graders in the U.S. Reading skills are the lowest they’ve been in 30 years and math skills are the worst they’ve been in 20 years. The biggest impact is seen among lower performers, which includes children learning English and kids from lower income households. It’s hard to imagine a world where this doesn’t lead to further widening income gaps and have lasting impact on the careers of kids entering an AI-dominated workforce. With book bans, heavy screen usage (in tandem with poor reading comprehension and media literacy), and an administration that is entirely unserious about education, the outlook on lifting up lower performers isn’t looking too hot.

An Excerpt of Kamala Harris’s Upcoming Book

I’m more excited about this book than I was previously because of the Editor’s Note preceding the excerpt, and this part in particular: “This careful Harris is present, but so too is another Harris: blunt, knowing, fervent, occasionally profane, slyly funny. As you will see in the following excerpt—and throughout this newsworthy book—she no longer seems particularly interested in holding back.” Read the excerpt at The Atlantic.