During the Frankfurt Book Fair's opening press conference Tuesday morning in Frankfurt, Germany, Jill Lepore, author most recently of The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State (Liveright), described this year's book fair as taking place "on the knife edge of history," at a moment when many of the "achievements of the human mind" and "fundamentals of human existence" are threatened by AI companies and the billionaires who own them.

The development of AI, Lepore continued, threatens "the arts and letters, freedom of thought, democratic societies." Lepore called the efforts to sever humans from "not only the natural world but from one another" the Artificial State, which has at its core a small number of billionaires. They aim for a future where "humans are ruled, and many of them replaced," by machines these billionaires own, and getting to that future involves both the "desertion of liberal democracy and the destruction of the natural world." People are at risk of "losing not only our freedom, but also our minds," Lepore said.

Lepore noted that although the rise of the Artificial State has accelerated dramatically in recent years, its roots can be traced back to at least the 1950s, when scientists first organized conferences about the mechanization of thought processes and the "computer simulation of human cognition." She recalled that Hannah Arendt linked totalitarianism with automation in the ways they "render humans superfluous, unnecessary, and expendable."

Left to right: Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos, Jill Lepore, and Boersenverein chair Sebastian Guggolz

Acknowledging that the liberal nation state and democracy are "hardly perfect," with one needing only to look at the history of the U.S. to "list the imperfections of this form of government," Lepore stressed that they are far better than the forms of rule that preceded them and now threaten to replace them. Liberal democracy, she said, is a form of government that depends on books, the freedom of the human mind, and a "literate electorate." The Artificial State would mark a "reversion to tyranny."

"Are humans to abandon government by consent for government by machines?" Lepore asked. "Are we to allow machines do our reading and writing and thinking for us? Or are we, as we are here to do this week, to declare independence in the writing and reading of books?" Will we declare that "our thoughts, and our words, and our books are our own, and that consent to any system of government is ours to give, or to withhold?"

During the press conference's q&a portion, Lepore was asked how to differentiate between sensationalist coverage of AI and the truth. Lepore said there was no easy answer, but she advised approaching "the rumor mill that is social media and the Internet" with skepticism, and said it was important for us to "wean ourselves" of the endless hyperbole that comes out of Silicon Valley. It's good to remember that "these are people generally talking to investors," and in that realm, the "mode of speaking" is to "always claim that your company has in its hands the future of humanity." In many ways, it is a moment that calls for a return to "gumshoe reporting."

Asked about efforts to resist the Artificial State, Lepore said she feared that the "political dysfunction" of the U.S. is being exported to other countries along with the technology in question. The positioning of these technologies as being "beyond the law" has itself come from the U.S., and the answer to all this is likely "going to come from outside the U.S." In general, she said, voters need to pressure elected officials to hold AI companies accountable.

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Earlier in the press conference, Boersenverein chair Sebastian Guggolz referenced an "alarming" study that showed a "rampant deficiency in reading" among Germans ages  10-15. In the short term this has resulted in a "massive decline" in the number of books sold for that age group, and it raises significant concerns about what will happen when this age group transitions to adulthood. He asserted that the problem of reading competence "cannot be compensated" for with the use of AI and, in fact, turning to AI will only make it worse.

AI remains an "acute, unsolved problem" in the publishing field, as tech companies continue to "raid our books" to train their models. Government response has been insufficient, leaving any publisher wanting to invoke their rights to fight a "protracted legal battle" on their own against some of the biggest companies in the world. He called for governments to take action to both strengthen reading competence and regulate AI. "Book people are yearning for clear signs of willingness and appreciation for our work," he said.

Juergen Boos, the outgoing director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, mentioned a British publisher that recently started offering cover sheets for books, so readers can hide what they are reading in public. Boos called it a sign of the "pressurized" times, saying that public debates today are more often than not "debates between fixed camps," and "understanding is rarely the goal." For fear of attack people are thinking twice about what they say or publish, and for the industry, the freedom to publish is the "central question." --Alex Mutter

Jasmine Baker from Black Garnet Books in St. Paul, Minn., has won the Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists, awarded by the Friends of Carla Gray Committee and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. 

Jasmine Baker

Baker will receive a year-long scholarship for professional development, which includes travel and hotel to attend Winter Institute 2027, travel and hotel to attend their 2027 regional fall trade show, and a $2,000 stipend to fund a community outreach project. Baker plans to use the stipend to host the store's second annual Midwest Black Book Fair and expand the project to other states across the Midwest.

"It is truly an honor to be this year's recipient of the Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists," said Baker. "Thanks to Binc, we can continue hosting our next Midwest Black Book Fair, a fair to uplift the modern-day intersectional narratives of Blackness, Black history, and Black futurity here in Minnesota and make it bigger and better than before. I'm proud to be a part of this work where we can continue to be the writers of our own stories and dreams."

"Bookstores are the core of a thriving community," Binc CEO Pam French added, "and supporting booksellers' engagement in their community is critical to the future of bookselling and the larger book industry. Thank you to the Friends of Carla Gray for their continued commitment, and congratulations to Jasmine. We look forward to learning more about your project and watching its impact thanks to this annual scholarship that honors Carla's legacy."

Finalists have been selected for the 2026 National Book Awards. The five category winners will be named at the National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York City on November 18. The winners receive $10,000, a bronze medal, and statue; finalists get $1,000 and a bronze medal. Winners and finalists in the translated literature category split the prize evenly between author and translator. This year's finalists are:

Fiction
Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi (Knopf)
Dèy by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You by Julián Delgado Lopera (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)
Mad Eden by Morgan Thomas (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Nonfiction
The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher (W.W. Norton)
Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming by Abdelrahman ElGendy (Hogarth/Penguin Random House)
Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom by Camonghne Felix (One World/Penguin Random House)
Mother Tongue by Sara Nović (Random House)
Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood by Joseph Osmundson (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Poetry
Tree of Knowledge by Victoria Chang (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 
Hide by Carolina Ebeid (Graywolf Press)
Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation by Brenda Hillman (Wesleyan University Press)
Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions)
Bramble by Susan Stewart (University of Chicago Press)

Translated Literature
The School of Night by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken (Penguin Press)
Centroeuropa by Vicente Luis Mora, translated from the Spanish by Rahul Bery (Bellevue Literary Press)
Night of a Thousand Hells by Intan Paramaditha, translated from the Indonesian by Stephen J. Epstein & Tiffany Tsao (Europa Editions)
Pure Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud (Other Press)
Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza by Samar Yazbek, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price (Other Press)

Young People's Literature
Holloway by Elana K. Arnold (Clarion Books/HarperCollins)
When Tomorrow Burns by Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers)
That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic by Keala Kendall (Random House Books for Young Readers) 
The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels (Knopf Books for Young Readers) 
Shook by Julian Randall (Henry Holt and Company Books for Young Readers)

Two lifetime achievement awards will also be presented as part of the evening's ceremony: Salman Rushdie, novelist, essayist, and public intellectual, will be recognized with the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by author Kiran Desai; and Perri Klass, pediatrician, writer, and longtime national medical director of Reach Out and Read, will receive the NBF's Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, presented by author Jason Reynolds.

Valsoft Corporation, a Canadian company in Montreal that specializes in the acquisition and development of vertical market software businesses, has acquired the Firebrand Group--Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu--companies providing software and services for publishers worldwide. Valsoft purchased the Firebrand Group from Media Do International, the U.S. subsidiary of Media Do Ltd., in Japan. Media Do International had purchased Firebrand in 2021. Valsoft purchased Edelweiss in 2024.

Firebrand Technologies provides title management and metadata software publishers use to plan, manage, and distribute book data to retailers and trading partners. NetGalley offers digital galley distribution and book marketing. Supadu, with headquarters in London, U.K., builds websites, e-commerce, and discovery tools that help publishers sell directly to readers.

"Firebrand, NetGalley, and Supadu are trusted names that publishers depend on every day," said Anthony Caruso, managing partner at Valsoft. "We're ecstatic to continue building and investing in the technology that helps a title from the moment it's created to the moment it reaches a reader. We're excited to partner with the passionate team that shows up every day to make life better and more productive for everyone in the book industry." 

Firebrand, NetGalley, and Supadu will continue to operate autonomously, with their leadership teams and employees remaining in place. As part of Valsoft, the companies "will share expertise, operational support, and long-term investment, while preserving their entrepreneurial culture and strong customer focus," Valsoft said.

Irene Hasenberg Butter, Holocaust survivor, educator, human rights advocate, and author, died on October 2. She was 95.

Irene Hasenberg Butter

Jewish and born in Berlin in 1930, Butter and her family fled to Amsterdam in 1937, four years after the Nazi takeover of Germany. Following the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, she and her family were deported in 1943 to the Westerbork transit camp and subsequently to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Butter survived the war, along with her mother and brother, and immigrated to the U.S. in December 1945.

Butter earned an undergraduate degree from Queens College before attending Duke University, where she became the only woman in her economics Ph.D. program, receiving her doctorate in 1960. She went on to serve for decades as a distinguished Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan, specializing in health economics, women's healthcare, and global health workforce policies.

After remaining silent about her childhood trauma for 40 years, Butter began speaking publicly about her experiences, including her time in Bergen-Belsen alongside her childhood neighbor in Amsterdam, Anne Frank. Recognizing her moral duty to bear witness, she addressed middle schools, high schools, universities, and international community halls, speaking to youth about hope, human dignity, and the responsibility to confront intolerance at its earliest stages.

With John D. Bidwell and Kris Holloway, she wrote Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope: A Bergen-Belsen Survivor's True Story (Leapfrog Press), which was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in 2019 and was translated into multiple languages.

Among awards and honors, Butter received the Anne Frank Award for Human Dignity and Tolerance in 2025; the German Order of Merit in 2023 in recognition of her decades of work in youth Holocaust education, reconciliation, and peace promotion; and a royal knighthood from the king of the Netherlands in recognition of her lifelong dedication to Holocaust education, peace activism, and combating antisemitism.

Members of the Sourcebooks retail marketing team packed hundreds of witchy swag items and life-size cauldron standees in preparation for the indie bookstore preorder campaigns and release parties for Freida McFadden's The Witch (Poisoned Pen Press). Pictured: (l.-r.) Lauren Klouda, Corrin Bronersky, Serena Knudson, Lauren Sweeton, and Deanna Maloney. 

"Send this to someone who needs to break up with Amaz*n," Bookshop.org advised in sharing a satiric, earworm-inducing little ditty to help (aka not help) "celebrate" Prime Big Deal Days this week, noting: "This song is going triple platinum in our houses tbh. Share this with a friend who needs a (not so) gentle reminder, and get ready to abandon those carts October 6 + 7 (and beyond, if you feel so inclined). PS: No AI was used in the making of this video."

"Does Amazon have a skylight like this? Yeah we didn't think so," Loganberry Books in Shaker Heights, Ohio, posted on social media to highlight a healthy alternative to the mega-corp.'s Prime Big Deal Days this week.

"Leaves are falling. Books are calling." And: "Nothing haunts us like the books we didn't buy." These were the seasonal messages on the sidewalk chalkboard in front of Hedgehog Books in Fort Scott, Kan., which noted: "A new season calls for new chalkboard designs, and we think Stella did a great job transitioning ours for fall!"

Anne Marie Turner has been named associate director of marketing at Page One Media. Most recently, she was associate director of brand & digital marketing at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., and before that was assistant marketing manager at Oxford University Press.

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Dan Langan, author of Short and Sweet: 75 Simple Recipes to Bake Without a Stand Mixer (Union Square, $29.99, 9781454960812).

Today: Alon Shaya, co-author of Memories of a Good Meal: Recipes of Resilience Inspired by Stories of World War II Survival (Harvest, $38.99, 9780063418790).

The View: Kyle MacLachlan, author of Fictional Selves: A Memoir (Crown, $34, 9798217086320).

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Michael Douglas, author of One Helluva Ride (Grand Central, $35, 9781538782224).

Tonight Show: Patti Smith, author of Bread of Angels: A Memoir (Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20, 9781101910177).

Martin Freeman and Jim Broadbent will star in an adaptation of "The Bride's Chamber," which was published in 1858 and "is considered among Charles Dickens's darkest stories," Deadline reported. As is tradition at the BBC, Mark Gatiss created the project, the ninth in what has become a staple of British TV festive season specials. Last year was an adaptation of E.F. Benson's The Room in the Tower, which was preceded by E. Nesbit's Woman of Stone and Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249.

The cast also includes Adrian Scarborough, India Fowler, and Lewis Shepherd. Principal photography took place on location in Ingatestone Hall, in Essex, U.K. earlier this year. The Bride's Chamber will air on BBC Two over the festive period and play on BBC iPlayer. Adorable Media is producing, with BBC Studios handling international distribution.

"It's unusual to find a Dickens rarity, but this is it," said Gatiss. "A weird and nasty little treasure which lurks within a work co-written with the great Wilkie Collins. A lonely inn, an incognito traveler and a ghastly tale of warped obsession. Merry Christmas!"

The shortlist has been announced for the Financial Times and Standard Chartered's 2026 Business Book of the Year Award, recognizing a book that provides "the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues." The winner will be announced on December 2 and will receive £30,000 (about $39,840) and the author(s) of each of the remaining shortlisted books will be awarded £10,000 ($13,280).

The shortlist:

1873: The First Great Depression and the Making of the Modern World by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press)
Off the Scales: The Inside Story of Ozempic and the Race to Cure Obesity by Aimee Donnellan (St. Martin's Press)  
The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby (Penguin Press)
Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare by Katrina Manson (W.W. Norton)
Blood Will Flow: The Murderous Business of Oil and Gas by Alex Perry
Prophecy: Prediction, Power and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI by Carissa Véliz (Doubleday)

Robbie Couch photo: Anita Lashey

Robbie Couch is the author of YA novels If I See You Again Tomorrow, Blaine for the Win, The Sky Blues, and Another First Chance. He is also the author of the adult novel Bloom. Originally from small-town Michigan, Couch now lives in Los Angeles. Just the Good Parts (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, September 29) is a romantic, speculative novel about a teen searching for his missing father, who keeps getting pulled into others’ memories and crossing paths with a handsome stranger who also doesn’t belong there.

Handsell readers your book:

A teen boy looking for his missing dad keeps getting pulled into other people's memories. Are they clues to nudge him toward the truth?

On your nightstand now:

I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy of Zachary Sergi's YA novel So Superb It's Killing Me, and it's so good it's killing me. Zach does a brilliant job folding queer narratives into contemporary fantasy for young readers. Check it out if it seems up your alley. 

Favorite book when you were a child:

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis quickly became my favorite book when I read it in middle school, and it remains my favorite to this day.

Favorite book to read to a child:

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown has to be up there. What a fun (and perfectly tear-jerky!) ride. 

Your top five authors:

This is tough! It's definitely a mixed bag. I'll go with: David Levithan, Gabrielle Zevin, John Green, David Sedaris, and Roxane Gay. Every one of them has produced work that challenges and inspires me in myriad ways. 

Book you've faked reading:

Every book in my 10th grade lit class, to be honest. High school lit curricula needs a modern upgrade that speaks to today's generations, in my honest opinion!

Book you're an evangelist for:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. It's such a lovely blend of heart and hilarity, and the story really resonated with me when I was at a crossroads in my life. It's also a perfect example of showing how tough topics can be accessible to young readers when the perspective, story, and balance are done right.

Book you've bought for the cover:

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson. Fortunately, you can judge this book by its cover, because both are beautiful and very well done. 

Best book an adult handed to you when you were a child:

I remember my fifth-grade teacher recommending The Curse of Camp Cold Lake by the iconic R.L. Stine. It had such a creepy, vivid cover. I devoured the story and then promptly read about a dozen other Goosebumps books.

Book that changed your life:

I hate to say it because She Who Must Not Be Named has since devolved into a disappointing bigot and praising her work feels gross. But I'd be lying if I said any other book besides Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. That series sparked my love of reading and storytelling in a way no other novel has.

Favorite line from a book:

"Life is a banquet and most poor s.o.b.'s are starving to death." --Auntie Mame in Patrick Dennis's Auntie Mame

Five books you'll never part with:

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The thought of donating or--gasp--throwing away my original copies of any of those books sends a chill down my spine.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

I'd have to say The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien pulled me into Middle Earth, and I couldn't come up for air until the last word on the last page. I'm not sure any other author's world-building skills have captivated me as much as his in that novel!

Help! I'm Being Eaten by a Bear! is an absurd and playful picture book featuring an opinionated narrator. The duo behind Don't Trust Fish, author Neil Sharpson and National Book Award and Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Dan Santat, team up for another clever, joke-filled outing.

When the glib protagonist receives a pair of "FANCY TRAVELING PANTS," he wants to immediately wear the traffic-cone orange, water-resistant, multipocketed trousers. He gets on a plane and flies from Ireland to Alaska, where "there are five things: 1. Mountains 2. Trees 3. Bears 4. Lovely people. 5. More bears." Upon landing, a "nice lady" welcomes him with the pamphlet "WHAT TO DO IF YOU MEET A BEAR" but since he is "not planning on meeting a bear," he doesn't read it. Before the tired narrator has even left the airport, he bumps into something: "That thing [is] a bear."

The man consults the pamphlet, which has lots of "interesting, but not very useful" information about bears. He soon realizes the pamphlet is no help and tosses it away, instead asking the bear what it wants. The bear takes out a notepad and draws a very good likeness of itself eating the man. The man runs. So, too, does the bear. After a wild chase, the bear eats the narrator whole. "Fortunately, at that moment," winter arrives and the bear falls asleep. The man attempts to wriggle out of the bear's mouth, but his FANCY TRAVELING PANTS are caught in the bear's teeth, and the Alaskan fire brigade must intervene. Alas, the pants are ruined. The man, now trapped in the hospital because he has no pants, spends his time writing a new pamphlet called "WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO IF YOU MEET A BEAR."

Sharpson's superb comic timing, expert use of first-person narration, and extremely dry wit make for an uproariously entertaining picture book. His text is gleefully silly and succeeds by not overnarrating. Instead, Santat's distinctively droll illustrations, done in pencil, watercolor, and Photoshop, supply plenty of essential details (such as the bear's "WHAT TO DO IF YOU MEET A HUMAN" pamphlet and his notepad drawing), because, per Sharpson's pamphlet-making narrator, "the artist does most of the real work." Readers will likely eat up this high-energy story that the narrator touts as "a true story, except," of course, "for the parts [he] made up." --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Shelf Talker: This energetic picture book, with superb comic timing and droll illustrations, is touted as a true story--except, of course, for the parts the narrator has made up.