Librarians Unite

The Public Library Association’s annual gathering, which returns next week in Minneapolis, will feature sessions on social justice, AI ethics, and public policy, bringing librarians’ focus on community to a city that was recently under siege by federal immigration enforcement. Plus, PW talked with St. Paul library director Maureen Hartman, who is spearheading a leadership strategy session at the conference, about her persistence in highlighting immigrants’ stories. In other news, Warner Bros. has landed film rights to Richard Powers’s novel Playground, with Timothée Chalamet attached to produce and possibly star, and Young Sherlock producer Motive Pictures is developing two new projects with author Marlon James, reports Deadline. The Atlantic traces Barnes & Noble’s comeback, from chain-store menace to middlebrow haven, under the leadership of James Daunt. The New York Times investigates Jeffrey Epstein’s multimillion-dollar dealings with investor Leon Black, who has owned art book publisher Phaidon since 2012. On Substack, author Lincoln Michel unpacks how Hachette’s cancelation of Mia Ballard’s Shy Girl over strong suspicions of AI use should be a warning for publishers and authors. With mass market paperbacks now on their last legs, Lit Hub’s Maris Kreizman considers the relative strengths of the trade paperback and hardcover formats. And Paul Brainerd, who created the pioneering digital layout software PageMaker, has died at 78.