Karpe Diem

Who said summer is publishing’s quiet season? Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp is stepping down from the helm after five years to head his own imprint at the Big Five publisher. Just over a month after the case was given the greenlight, a preliminary settlement in authors and publishers’ class action copyright lawsuit against AI company Anthropic has reportedly been reached. And Bloomsbury US has eliminated five positions in its children’s division as part of what the company called “a strategic shift toward publishing a more curated list.” U.K. publishers are noticing a shift in industry mindset around short stories as more readers embrace slimmer works of fiction, per the Bookseller. At World Literature Today, Adam Morgan reports on the dispiriting state of book criticism. Author Charlotte Shane talks with Rumaan Alam, Daniel Lavery, and others about their varying experiences of being published for her newsletter. Slate’s Laura Miller takes a closer look at the fiction of literary juggernaut R.F. Kuang. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat surveys the political landscape of indie bookstores. And artist Jenny Feder, who cofounded New York City’s Three Lives & Company Bookstore, has died at 73.