The Fight Continues

President Donald Trump is suing Penguin Random House and the New York Times for disparagement, following through on a threat made last November to prosecute the Times reporters behind the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. For its part, PRH has spent years fighting censorship and strengthening legal protections for readers through the work of its Intellectual Freedom Taskforce, which we spotlighted in our Freedom to Read issue. Disney and Webtoon have inked a tentative deal for a new digital platform that would feature more than 35,000 comics from across the Disney portfolio, including Marvel and Star Wars. Copper Canyon Press staff talked with PW about the immense logistical challenges they faced to assemble, produce, and publish a new anthology of work from Palestinian poets in Gaza and the West Bank. Costco has brought back its book section from September to December, per Parade, confirming reports that the retailer was pivoting to a seasonal bookselling model at some 500 of its more than 600 locations. The Columbia Journalism Review argues that private distributors’ control over e-book access in the U.S. poses an even bigger threat to books than censorship. The Times of London spotlights Freedom Letters, the Russian publisher fighting back against the Kremlin’s censors by distributing banned books. For Slate, librarian Katie Walsh shares why she loves having “one of the most controversial jobs in the country.” And Sareeta Domingo, author and publishing director of the U.K.’s Jacaranda Books, has died.