Fond Farewell

Booksellers wrapped up the final day of Winter Institute feeling unified and empowered, though some expressed a desire for more affinity group events at next year’s gathering in Minneapolis. Jason Low, publisher and co-owner of Lee & Low Books, says that the company’s Diversity Baseline Survey has been suspended due to increasing hostility toward efforts aimed at equity and inclusion. And for our recent feature on Japanese publishing, we talked with HarperVia about importing the hottest fiction from Japan, and checked in with two major players on the manga scene: powerhouse publisher Kodansha and ambitious newcomer Kodama Tales. Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill that could ban books with LGBTQ+ characters and content from public schools nationwide, Book Riot reports. The Korea Times investigates the glut of AI-generated titles now flooding Korean bookstores. Barnes & Noble and Waterstones are one step closer to an IPO, per Bloomberg. In the U.K., Amazon is facing two lawsuits worth more than $5 billion for alleged abuses of its market dominance, per Reuters. The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer looks back on what made Ann Godoff, who died this week, a generationally great editor. And science fiction author Jeffrey A. Carver has died at 76.