American Booksellers for Free Expression has launched a campaign for Banned Books Week 2024 centered on the theme Liberate Banned Books (#SetBooksFree).
"Resisting book bans is about liberation," ABFE noted. "It's about liberation for schools and libraries from the rash of book challenges that has exploded since 2021.
Penguin Random House has unveiled its new global corporate logo, which combines the PRH wordmark with the Penguin icon.
The iconic penguin will be incorporated into PRH's corporate business service logos, such as for its library marketing, specialty retail, education, and speakers bureau services, as well as its social media accounts. The icon is now the profile picture on PRH's official Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.
Half of adults in the UK do not regularly read for pleasure, according to new survey data.
The study, commissioned by the charity the Reading Agency, saw 15% of adults reporting that they have never been regular readers, and 35% saying that they are lapsed readers, meaning that they used to read regularly for pleasure, but rarely or never do now.
The law enforcement officer spent months methodically gathering evidence. He leafed through thousands of pages and highlighted key passages amid reams and reams of paper. He wore his body camera to record his interactions with witnesses and suspects. And he photographed what he saw as instruments of the alleged crime: Books.
The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as "The Bluest Eye," by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.
The prestigious Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy writing has revealed that almost 400 votes – about 10% of all votes cast in this year's awards – were fraudulently paid for to help one finalist win.
The Hugo administration subcommittee, which tallies the votes for the annual awards, issued a statement on Monday saying that they had determined that 377 votes had been cast by individuals with "obvious fake names and/or other disqualifying characteristics".
Hachette Book Group's Orbit division has launched Run for It, a new horror imprint. Run for It is Orbit's fourth imprint, alongside the flagship Orbit SFF imprint; Redhook, launched in 2013, which focuses on commercial fiction with speculative elements; and the digital SFF publishing imprint Orbit Works, launched in 2023.
Run for It will publish Orbit's current horror authors, including Craig DiLouie and Andy Marino, with plans to add more. Its inaugural titles are slated for summer 2025.
Banks, airlines, television networks and health systems around the world that rely on Microsoft 365 apps reported widespread outages Friday. Thousands of flights and train services were cancelled globally, including more than 1,000 in the U.S., and there were disruptions to many other public and retail services.
Hachette Book Group on Monday confirmed a realignment that included layoffs at Workman Publishing, as well as several promotions and other changes—including moving Algonquin Books into Little, Brown, reporting to president and publisher Sally Kim, and Algonquin Young Readers into Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, under president and publisher Megan Tingley.
At the end of 2023, industry observers told PW they expected 2024 to be an active year for mergers and acquisitions. So far, those predictions have been accurate, with seven notable deals announced in the first half of the year, and two major deals announced last week: RBmedia's acquisition of Dreamscape Media, and Penguin Random House's acquisition of Boom! Studios.
Penguin Random House continues its renewed emphasis of making strategic acquisitions with a new agreement to acquire comic book and graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios. The agreement, between the Random House Publishing Group and Boom! founder and chairman Ross Richie, is expected to close later this summer, at which point Boom! will become part of Random House Worlds.