Study claims viral bestseller is largely AI-generated

AI is already everywhere, and readers may not be as good at detecting it as we think we are.

Using AI-detection tool Pangram, researchers from Stony Brook University found that one in five of the 14,000 randomly selected Kindle ebooks in their data set contained more than 25% AI-generated text.

Particularly notable is the finding, per Pangram, that #BookTok’s favorite dark dystopian romance, Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe, is 60% AI-written.

Because AI-detection is almost as controversial as AI itself, the researchers also checked books suspected of containing AI text for “rare expressions.”

These “rare expressions” are phrases containing five words or more in a particular order that rarely appear in texts written by humans but show up often in those suspected of being AI-generated. Daggermouth contains many such phrases, including multiple sentences that appear word-for-word in self-published ebooks by other authors.

Daggermouth author H.M. Wolfe denied the allegations in a statement her lawyer sent to The Atlantic, noting, “I have been outspoken about my opposition to generative AI and what it’s doing to writers, artists, and the creative community. I don’t believe it belongs in the writing process.”

Wolfe did not address the question of “rare expressions.”

No matter how damning the evidence may appear, it’s important to note that there is not yet a definitive way to prove AI was used to generate a written text.

The slowness of Wolfe’s publication pace relative to self-published authors with hundreds of books to their name may support her claim that, “the suggestion that I used generative AI to write Daggermouth is wholly untrue.” OTOH, an AI expert not affiliated with the study found the researchers’ methods to be sound, stating that it is “almost statistically impossible” for a book that was actually written by humans to trip AI-detection software as 60% AI-generated.

The implications of these findings go well beyond concerns about one uber-popular book, as the study also indicated that the 20% of ebooks in Amazon’s catalog found to contain “substantial” AI-generated or -assisted text account for 12% of sales and 10% of bestsellers.

This is evidence that AI-generated ebooks, now easily produceable for self-publishing at scale, are cannibalizing the market for human-written texts.

📊 See the data for yourself. Here’s the whole study and Will Oremus’s coverage for The Atlantic. — RJS

DATA

The latest research on Gen Z reading habits

diverse group of young people reading on a bench in a park

The kids are all right, according to Drs. Rachel Noorda and Kathi Inman Berens, authors of a new book about Gen Z’s reading habits.

In surveys specifically constructed to capture the reading habits of the first generation of digital natives, they found:

More than 65% of Gen Z people identify as readers, a 15% increase between 2022 and 2025. Visits to physical bookstores tripled between 2022 and 2025 as Gen Z folks sought safe “third spaces” outside of home and school. Gen Z reported buying a median of 107 books per year and reading 58 print books per year. Librarians are gaining influence as trusted sources of book recommendations, as Gen Z’s interest in social media influencers and talent wanes.

🎧 Get more data from our conversation with the researchers, and download their book for free from Cambridge University Press through August 6.

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JUDGE A BOOK

The best book covers of July

We all judge a book by its cover. There’s no shame in that—covers are the biggest marketing tool a book has.

But not all book covers are created equal. Some are better than others for reasons that range from being unique, for giving a fresh twist to a design trend, or just because. Everyone’s taste differs, and what makes a book cover “the best” is a little science and a lot of subjective preferences.

Here are six of the best book covers of July:

Man Overboard by Kathleen Rooney, a cover full of movement Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich, which has some of the finest feathery details in a while We Will See You Bleed by Ron Currie, centering some menacing crows Tsubaki Stationery Store by Ito Ogawa and translated by Cat Anderson, featuring a gorgeous palette and design packed with fun details Some People by Parini Shroff, utilizing a fresh font face and pulsing with energy (and a cat!) Astronaut! by Oana Aristide (cover by Utku Lomlu), which gives a little girl tremendous power and punctuates that power with dynamic font placement and colors.

It’s maybe not a total coincidence how many of this month’s knockout covers feature animals. – KJ

ADAPTATION NATION

The latest book-to-screen news

The world of adaptations is on and poppin’. Below is a round-up of the latest news to know.

Let’s start off messy, shall we?

Children of Blood and Bone (January 15, 2027, film)

Adapted from: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Starring: Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Regina King

The Mess: Tomi Adeyemi distanced herself from the film project and even posted screenshots showing how she had one of the starring actors (Amandla Stenberg) blocked. She did all that and didn’t say why she had an issue. Still, the release and promo of the movie seem to be pushing on, and so far, there’s been a great response: the trailer for this West African-inspired fantasy was just released a couple of days ago, and its views are already in the millions.

The Silent Patient (Date TBD, film)

Adapted from: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The 2019 psychological thriller did numbers on the bestseller lists—it has more than 3 million ratings on Goodreads and sold 12+ million copies worldwide. The main character is a famous painter who goes silent after killing her husband. Once a criminal psychotherapist starts down the path of why she did what she did while working with her, things get a little sticky.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (November 12, 2027, film)

Adapted from: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Starring: Sky Yang, Sean Kaufman, Daisy Edgar-Jones

Childhood friends who become a part of the video game industry contend with their changing dynamic, as well as passion, joy, love, and failure in the 1990s-2000s. The book has sold more than 4 million worldwide and was on all the Best-Of lists in 2022.

Dungeon Crawler Carl (Date TBD, Peacock)

Adapted from: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Starring: Jeff Hays as Princess Donut, the talking cat!!

The littest LitRPG centers on Carl and his ex’s show cat, Princess Donut (who can now talk and shoot lasers out of her eyes), as they’re forced to play a reality show game by invading aliens.

Neuromancer (Jan. 22, 2027, Apple TV)

Adapted from: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Starring: Callum Turner, Briana Middleton, André De Shields

After 42 years, the book said to have started the cyberpunk subgenre is getting its own series. For fans of the cyberpunk subgenre, the trailer feels like stepping into a familiar world full of retrofuturistic tech, Japan-inspired design, overgrown capitalism, and scrappy heroes. I’m very much sat.

Bonus: Stevie Nicks Said Watching Daisy Jones and The Six felt like “Watching My Own Story’

To be exact, she said, “It brought back memories that made me feel like a ghost watching my own story.” The 2023 adaptation stars Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough. It follows a powerhouse female singer in a band and the drama that follows once she begins dating a band member. —EE

TOGETHER WITH THRIFTBOOKS

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AUDIOBOOKS

Celebrate Disability Pride with Libro.fm

There are still a few days left in July, so here are some audiobook titles Libro.fm is highlighting for Disability Pride Month: a metafictional novel, essays on disability, and a middle grade adventure story.

🎧 Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor – A disabled Nigerian-American writer and professor pens a sci-fi novel unlike anything she’s written before. The book is wildly successful, a tale of androids and AI waging war on human civilization. But the more her star rises, the more she loses control of the narrative she set out to craft.

🎧 Disability Visibility by Alice Wong – Edited by the late disability activist Alice Wong, this collection of essays by contemporary disabled writers includes blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, and testimonies to Congress, a range of personal reflections on the modern disability experience.

🎧 Izzy at the End of the World by K.A. Reynolds – A 14-year-old autistic girl finds herself at the end of the world. With her trusty canine sidekick in tow, she sets out to solve the mystery of humanity’s disappearance—and decode some cryptic messages that sound a lot like her mom, who recently passed away.

⏯️ Libro.fm’s full list of titles for Disability Pride Month.

READING LISTS

The way we mourn in America is deeply broken

the cover of All My Dead Cats and a photo of s.e. smith

photo courtesy of the author

s. e. smith is the author of All My Dead Cats and Other Losses: Practicing Good Grief in a Culture That Fears Mourning, out now from HarperOne. Below, smith recommends books about grief and mourning.

As a writer who’s been covering death and grief for a very long time, my inbox is constantly filled with letters from readers desperate for someone to hear them and sit with them in their grief for a while. There’s a sense of well, you’re the expert, can you help me figure this out?

Sifting through these deeply intimate letters, I keep coming back to two themes as I think about how the way we mourn in America is deeply broken.

It’s in part because we consider it a personal problem, rather than something we should carry and witness together. It’s also because we value some lives and losses more than others—sometimes society doesn’t even recognize a life or a loss at all.

Thinking about the way grief is bigger than ourselves, not something we can repair like a lamp we learned to rewire by watching a YouTube tutorial, brings me to these recommendations.

Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim brings up confrontational questions about whose lives are valued by society, and whose are marked for loss, debility, and death. She doesn’t leave those questions abstract, instead applying them to a deep analysis of settler colonial violence in Palestine.

Sarah Jaffe’s From the Ashes is a superb exploration of grief as a collective, anti-capitalist project, braided with memoir as she discusses her father’s death in a really effective blend of the political and the personal that hit me particularly hard when I re-read it after my father’s death in February.

Judith Butler’s Frames of War feels more applicable than ever—they cut to the heart of some very uncomfortable truths about state violence and precarity and ask who society thinks is worthy of mourning.

And for a fantastic, stark, provocative grief memoir, I love Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave, which follows the bewildering and often alienating aftermath of losing her entire family in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

TOGETHER WITH THRIFTBOOKS

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Emily Brontë, born July 30, 1818

Did you know? Emily Brontë’s name did not appear on editions of Wuthering Heights until after her death. The novel was originally published under the pseudonym, Elias Bell.

If you want to hear a full deep dive on the history, reading experience, and big ideas in Wuthering Heights, check out our episode of Zero to Well-Read on it.

CRITICAL LINKING