College reading books in 2026, literary award nominees cleared of using AI, new trailer for Sense and Sensibility, and more. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the stories we covered this week at Book Riot.
Decision: “After extensive consultation with our judges and careful consideration of all available information, we are satisfied that AI was not used to write the winning stories.”
But the damage has already been done, as has Granta ended their partnership with the Commonwealth Foundation and will no longer publish the winning stories in its literary magazine.
Instead of changing their logo or incorporating rainbows into their marketing, they’ve partnered with pro-LGBTQIA+-minded local bookstores and organizations to develop in-store takeovers and pop-up “reading room” libraries around the world. These libraries put books by queer authors center stage, inviting guests to not only engage with the works in the store, but also to bring home a free copy for themselves.
The final installment in this series of posts about youth privacy and youth library cards in the public library brings together the interconnected topics in a quiz aimed at helping libraries rethink their policies. Its purpose is to help the average library user understand what is happening in their own library and to advocate for stronger policies that protect young people and the libraries that serve them. I developed questions, while Amy Mickle, senior director of customer experience at the Brooklyn Public Library — who wrote an incredible article last week about the new landscape of public library censorship on library card policies — provided answers and insights from her research. These questions are based on many topics.
And for all Access members, Here are all the interesting links we bookmarked that didn’t make it to Today in Books coverage.
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