We’re turning some kind of corner in the ongoing conversation about if, where, and how to deal with the reality that AI-generated text has already made its way into mainstream publishing.

Here’s a look at the biggest recent headlines:

Welcome to the uncanny valley. In the most meta (but not Meta) of experiments, Mother Jones‘s David Corn used Claude to generate a novel about a writer who used Claude to generate a novel. It took a couple tries, but the ultimate result was “not so bad.”

Thanks, EU. The same international body that forced Apple to ditch the Lightning port has now compelled AI companies to “add machine-readable marks to enable the detection of AI-generated or manipulated content.”

Who detects the detectors? New York Times tech journalist Brian X. Chen put popular AI-detection program Pangram through its paces, concluding after dozens of tests that “its proficiency in detecting bot-produced words will make it very useful for sniffing out annoyances” like scam emails, LinkedIn slop, and fake online reviews.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, which is why writer Vera Kurian has developed an app to help authors prove their work is not AI-generated.

Weigh in: take our survey about what counts as AI-written. — RJS

There should be an award for the wackiest book titles, and that award should go to Chuck Tingle (IYKYK) and Kimberly Lemming.

Plant girlies, this next one is for you. Welsh folklore meets ancient plant magic as a young woman seeks to break a curse and stop her family’s century-long run of sacrifices.

A side-hustle turns sinister as four friends who are just trying to make rent end up feeding into the darkest desires of the Rio underworld in an internationally bestselling thriller now available in English.

Also hitting shelves:

See more of this week’s most notable new releases.

From Dusk Till Dawn meets The Thing

In A.P. Thayer’s Tapeworm, a group of friends must confront questions of identity, aging, and desire during a vampire infestation in an isolated Californian desert.

This unforgettable body-horror vampire novel answers the frightening question of how far one will go to stop repressing their desires and finally set themselves free.

Know what freaks people out? A woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t care if it makes those around her uncomfortable.

This strange little novel clocks in at just over 200 pages and punches way above its weight, pushing readers to consider big questions about autonomy, self-determination, sex, violence, and the right—or not—to do what you want even if it causes you harm.

Considered one of the best books of the 21st century so far, The Vegetarian is an unlikely bestseller. A one-of-a-kind reading experience, it invites confusion and incites discomfort—not exactly your typical book club fare—but readers ate it up.

Dig into the meaning and impact of this unforgettable read with Zero to Well-Read.

The right to read is now legally protected in Massachusetts, the thirteenth state to pass an anti-book ban law.

Governor Maura Healey signed the bill last week after years of consideration in the state legislature and advocacy by groups like Mass Freedom to Read. S.3241, An Act Regarding Free Expression, protects both school and public libraries by:

The law makes clear that materials in the library cannot be removed for partisan, personal, or doctrinal views. Schools are also required to submit to the state each year a list of titles that were challenged.

A Brief History of Anti-Book Ban Laws

Since 2023, more than a dozen states have passed various Freedom to Read/Anti-Book Ban laws, applicable to either their public school libraries, public libraries, or both.

Late last year, New York’s governor elected not to sign their freedom to read law, despite its passage in the state legislature. Advocates in New York continue to work toward a new piece of legislation. 

Massachusetts was one of four states–including Alaska, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania–trying to pass such a law in the 2025-2026 legislative session.

Freedom to Read/Anti-Book Ban Laws are a reminder that libraries represent the whole of a community and that library workers are professionals who deserve to be respected as such. 

Read more about the purpose of Freedom to Read/Anti-Book Ban bills, as well as the forms they’ve taken nationwide. – KJ 

Help your readers get ready for a successful school year with affordable books and resources for every learner.

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A new jewelry collaboration invites the American Girl® squad to accessorize their fandom. Why not celebrate American Girl’s 40th in style? Alex + Ani’s delicately tasteful bangles, locket necklaces, and bracelets are tailored to an adult fan base, i.e. the nostalgic Gen Xers and Millennials who grew up in the dawn of Pleasant Company and are initiating new American Girl generations.

Curious about the connection between American Girl and reading? In commemoration of American Girl’s 40th, take a trip down memory lane with Julia Rittenberg to find out how Addy, Samantha, Molly, and the rest of the gang have captured the hearts of young readers.

Today’s American Girl initiate can read:

While American history as told through the stories of these dolls has received mixed reviews, so many of us developed an early interest in historical fiction thanks to them. – SZW

Malavika Kannan is the author of Unprecedented Times, out today from Holt. Below, she recommends three defining novels about the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez: I am a lifelong Sigrid Nunez superfan. The Vulnerables was one of the first wave of COVID-19 novels that I read while still drafting my own, and I enjoyed Nunez’s depictions of the small details and internal crises of life in early lockdown. Nunez’s writing illuminated, for me, the widening fault lines in internet-age American society that predated but were turbo-charged by the pandemic: the mutual incomprehensibility and hostility along lines of gender, race, and generation that have come to characterize our politics. Nunez’s protagonist is a cautiously conservative, aging female writer who finds herself puzzled and threatened by the surging social mores of the younger generations. In fact, Nunez’s protagonist ends up quarantining with companions who include, per the book’s description, “an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot.” The concern and bewilderment that Nunez’s generation exhibits towards my generation made me interested in exploring the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on younger Americans.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich: Louise Erdrich, the inveterate novelist, does more than self-reflect during the pandemic: she invents a whole fictional world. It’s a ghost story following an Indigenous woman working at a haunted independent bookstore in Minneapolis, charting a year of reckoning from 2019-2020. I delighted in the setting: Minneapolis was the heart of our country’s moral reckoning around anti-Blackness, and again in resisting ICE. Coincidentally, I also spent part of the pandemic living there. I remain a fierce fan of the city and its literary scene, as rendered by Erdrich—they represent America’s finest.

Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood: This is an autofictional novel about the author’s descent into COVID-induced insanity. “[Lockwood] was among the first writers to give shape to the cognitive estrangement of the virus, its febrile illogic,” celebrated The Guardian. I had no idea Lockwood was on this wave while I was writing Unprecedented Times, but I felt excitement and comradeship in this group project of rendering the disillusionment and bewilderment of the 2020s.

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Did you know? For many years, Krauss studied gaga, a form of dance, also called a “movement language” that prioritizes pleasure and freedom.

Read harder with these new summer releases.

Disney is launching a romantasy Webtoon series based on Beauty and the Beast.

Can you spot what’s weird about this list of the 10 best romance books of the 20th century?

Here are 8 overrated classics (and what to read instead)

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Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Kelly Jensen, Sharifah Williams, Danika Ellis, and Jeff O’Neal. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.

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