Stronger Together

The American Booksellers Association reported a 19% year-over-year increase in membership at its annual meeting Thursday, which focused on booksellers’ resilience in the face of threats from tariffs, rising costs, censorship, and incursions by ICE and the military. Publishing had a strong presence at this year’s Licensing Expo, held last week in Las Vegas, emphasizing books as a key tool for engaging fans off-screen. Kyiv’s Book Arsenal International Festival opened on a somber but resolute note yesterday, just days after Russian attacks destroyed several of Ukraine’s cultural institutions. And in this week’s magazine, we explore how comics publishers keep long-running series fresh with reissues, spinoffs, and more. In other news, the U.K.’s Ink Book Prize withdrew a title from its shortlist after it was discovered to contain AI-generated design elements, the Bookseller reports. Italo Calvino’s coming-of-age novel The Baron in the Trees will be adapted into a film by Italian auteur Alice Rohrwacher, per Variety, and Andie MacDowell and Kevin Bacon have been tapped for the film adaptation of Emily Henry’s Beach Read, per Deadline. Knoxville’s WBIR looks at how Tennessee’s public school libraries operated prior to the Age Appropriate Materials Act, which allows parents to request the removal of certain titles. The New York Times tells the story behind Joshua Kendall’s new biography of Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau. And USA Today reports on the rise of book-themed travel experiences which promise—for a hefty sum—to unite fans over the real-life locations that inspired such series as Fourth Wing and Percy Jackson.