Here are the headlines that defined the week in book news….
Amazon “Accidentally” Plans Book Sale Event At Same Time as Independent Bookstore Day
This Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, a truly fun day to be a book person with access to, and affinity for, an independent bookstore. On April 15th, Amazon announced a week-long “book sale event” that included the 26th. Several folks were not pleased about this. And I can understand why of course. Amazon says that it was unintentional, though of course if you are an indie bookstore this rings pretty hollow. So either it was intentional…or it wasn’t. To my mind, either is a bad look for Amazon: either they new the optics would be bad and just wanted to flex anyway or it didn’t understand that the optics would be bad. (The Machiavellian move would have been to have it the week before Independent Bookstore Day to pull forward any marginal book-buying dollars and claim “we didn’t want to detract from the indies!”).
Christie Estate Authorizes AI Deepfake of The Queen of Crime to Teach a Class on Writing
I don’t think so, folks. I am not a never-AI person, and neither am I a “yea do it all” AI maximalist. So I tend to judge use by use and project by project, and this fits squarely in the….I just don’t want this. It looks to have been with as much care and attention as could be applied, but having reality-grade versions of real people say and do things that they didn’t say or do like that doesn’t strike me as cool or fun or even especially interesting. Que Ian Malcolm.
New Snape Signs Letter in Support of Trans Rights
Just a few days after John Lithgow expressed amazement that anyone might wonder if supporting J.K. Rowling’s work tacitly (at least) also means tolerating (at least) her views on trans people, Paape Essiedu, who has been cast as Severus Snape in HBO’s new production, joined hundreds of others in signing an open letter to the film and television industry supporting the rights and identity of trans people and rebuking the UK Supreme Court’s April 17th decision. I hope the producers and powers that be, at the very least, allow cast members to express their views on the matter. Not only is it the right thing to do, but any pressure to soften or silence gestures like this will spark a real backlash (one that I think might happen anyway).
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Mellon Foundation Announces Emergency Funding for State Humanities Councils
This is what foundations should be doing right now. So many people are feeling helpless and the scale of this administrations excesses is indeed overwhelming. But there is a lot of money on the sidelines and money can do things! Just because you yourself cannot take on ICE or bring back Roe does not mean your targeted, marginal dollar cannot support something you care about. I wonder if the extremely deep pockets at places like the Ford Foundation might look at extraordinary efforts to support on the ground arts organizations just like this. The mood feels less “yea more Macarthurs!” and more “protect local libraries with your bodies” and perhaps the dollars might be best spend differently for awhile.
John Lithgow Surprised by Dumbledore Casting Blowback
John Lithgow’s casting as Albus Dumbledore is probably the fourth most important role in HBO’s reboot of Harry Potter. And Lithgow himself said when the news broke that it will not only be the last major role he plays, but probably will be the first line in his bio from now on. One thing that he didn’t predict was that not everyone would be thrilled to see him take the role. Danika Ellis wrote this open letter to Lithgow, urging him to reconsider, considering how enmeshed the Harry Potter franchise now is with J.K. Rowling on-going transphobic public comments. This letter apparently made it back to Lithgow himself, via a friend with a trans kid, and rather than reflect or even concede that he could understand this point, he responded with:
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