Final Chapter

After nearly a year in court, the bankrupt Diamond Comic Distributors is moving to liquidate the company, giving up on a messy restructuring attempt that has brought months of chaos for the involved companies and comics publishers alike. While books about race and gender continue to be frequent targets of censorship efforts, John Green’s Looking for Alaska and Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes are the two most banned titles in schools so far this decade. Digital media app Hoopla’s year-end data, compiled from more than 10,000 public libraries, showed a substantial increase in audiobook borrowing, while romantasy and thrillers forged ahead as the most popular genres among users. And today we’re spotlighting our latest 2025 Notable, longtime NAIBA executive director Eileen Dengler. Netflix will adapt Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date, with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as producers, reports Deadline. The New York Public Library rounded up this year’s most checked-out books across the city, and in each of the five boroughs. On Substack, publicist Kathleen Schmidt talked with Books-A-Million CEO Terry Finley about bookselling today. Greta Rainbow considers the state of Big Five publishing amid the decline of glossy magazines, for Dirt. And for the New York Times, sociologists Caitlin Petre and Julia Ticona break down how AI could be the nail in the coffin for the future of creative work.