Comic Relief

BookTok, Bibles, and bibliotherapy are among the biggest factors that contributed to a small but notable increase in book sales in 2024—and could lead to continued gains in the year ahead, according to one BookScan analyst. In this week’s magazine, we explored the world of comics retailing and the hottest titles at comics shops this season. And in other comics news, Joseph Montagne has been promoted to publisher of Abrams ComicArts. Workers at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn have ratified a new three-year contract, just one week after New York City Barnes & Noble employees did the same. We checked in with Scholastic about their ambitious plans for the rollout of Suzanne Collins’s new Hunger Games novel, and chatted with a group of children’s publishers keen to turn the tide on middle grade book sales. OpenAI has declared that the AI race is “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use, reports Ars Technica. Flatiron Books will continue to support and promote Careless People, the tell-all memoir by a former Meta employee, after the tech company demanded it be pulled, according to the Verge. Pan Macmillan is suing Russell Brand for £220,000 for failing to write two self-help books in a deal that was scrapped following sexual assault allegations against the author, per the Times of London. The Boston Review lays out the politics and publishing history of the “mad memoir.” And author and sportswriter John Feinstein has died at 69.