![\"Joby](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/81cUvf6QBDL._SL1500_-198x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAugust zooms on, or trickles on, depending on how you look at it. We’re reaching a quieter moment of the publishing cycle: a few weeks of slowness and peace before the onslaught of September. But until then, enjoy the numberous treats that still await us in August. Such as Joby Warrick’s work of nonfiction about a legendary terrorist, Katy Simpson’s new novel, and many more. Read on, and happy Tuesday!<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joby Warrick, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World’s First Super-Terrorist<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A riveting portrait of the larger-than-life man who invented the role of celebrity terrorist\u2014and of the journalists, ideologues, spymasters, and dictators who helped elevate him to prominence.” LaToya Watkins, The Book of Chuck<\/em><\/a><\/strong> \u201cA transcendent reading experience that reveals life\u2019s darkest corners while transmitting a surprising amount of hope.\u201d Katy Simpson Smith, The Maltese Version<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “Katy Simpson Smith playfully turns the Mediterranean psychological thriller on its head with this lush, finely textured, riveting dive into lives tangled by language and time.” Dorthe Nors, trans. by Caroline Waight, Range<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A brilliant novel that is as intellectually vast as it is deeply rooted in the everyday experience of being human.” Raphael Montes, The Secret Dinner<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “Dark, compelling, and wickedly smart, The Secret Dinner<\/em> is a deliciously twisted thriller about friendship and ambition with a mind-blowing end.” Julie Kliegman, Finding Renee Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis\u2019s Trans Pioneer<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A fascinating account of an important and often overlooked figure in American sports and culture.” Steve Hawk, Nearshore<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “Engrossing, graceful, and transporting, this is a terrific\u2014if terrifying\u2014tale of near apocalypse.\u201d Tom Rosenstiel, The Next Journalism: How the Press Must Change to Serve Democracy<\/em><\/a><\/strong> \u201cAcclaimed journalist and novelist Rosenstiel presents thoughtful strategies to cope with this increasingly fragmented media landscape.” Kim Eui-Kyung, trans. by Sora Kim-Russell, Hello Baby<\/em><\/a><\/strong> \u201cWhat a humane, sometimes funny, and always illuminating exploration of the hopeful, painful pursuit of pregnancy and birth that so many people undertake around the world every day.” Danny Ramadan, Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir<\/em><\/a><\/strong> \u201cAn elegantly told, candid, and often intriguing personal history, the memoir never fails to edify.” Camille Acker, A Very Special Episode<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A sly social commentary on the interplay of race, class, and family legacy.\u201d Anjet Daanje, trans. by David McKay, The Song of Stork and Dromedary<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A significant and moving literary achievement, an unforgettable story of a historical mystery.” Malavika Kannan, Unprecedented Times<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A sparkling work of fiction, this story feels like pages ripped straight from your funniest friend\u2019s diary.\u201d Rowan Hooper, Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life’s Greatest Collaborations<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “I think this may be one of those rare books that’s a classic upon its publication. It calmly and comprehensively helps you see the world in a very new and hopeful way.” Ekin Oklap, First Summer<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “This gorgeous novel will immerse readers in its heady and tender story of young love. This dreamy, queer, coming-of-age story about deep friendship and first love will resonate with teens.\u201d Mariana Salomao Carrara, trans. by Julia Sanches and Alison Entrekin, The Loneliest Tree in the World<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “An arresting exercise in naturalism.” Jennifer Givhan, The Sleeping Sisters<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “A thrilling and heartbreaking ride from the first page, Givhan lyrically draws us into the emotional wounds, obsessions, grief, guilt, and trauma of complex characters living in the Southwest.” Lucinda M. Vardey, The Green Soul: Returning to Our Sacred Belonging in Nature<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “This hugely important book should be read by anyone who cares about the life of the Spirit and the future of the planet.” Jennifer Michelle Herrera, Siren Says<\/em><\/a><\/strong> “Siren Says<\/i> blooms with enchantment, mystical secrets, and otherworldly connections, the story’s characters seeking purpose and redemption while navigating intimate bonds and past harms.” August zooms on, or trickles on, depending on how you look at it. We’re reaching a quieter moment of the publishing cycle: a few weeks of slowness and peace before the onslaught of September. But until then, enjoy the numberous<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5494,"featured_media":275725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,43070,43135,43646],"tags":[111773,111774,40494,111772,82194,15528,72034,111765,111733,111771,49710,111781,14296,109029,6599,111769,80860,111692,111418,111777,111767,45195,111763,78343,111782,111766,111653,111691,111760,111779,111421,111768,111764,111780,111776,111761,111690,24252,111762,111775,111778,111770,111419],"class_list":["post-275505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","category-the-hub","tag-a-very-special-episode","tag-anjet-daanje","tag-camille-acker","tag-crooked-teeth-a-queer-syrian-refugee-memoir","tag-danny-ramadan","tag-dorthe-nors","tag-ekin-oklap","tag-finding-renee-richards-the-groundbreaking-story-of-tenniss-trans-pioneer","tag-first-summer","tag-hello-baby","tag-jennifer-givhan","tag-jennifer-michelle-herrera","tag-joby-warrick","tag-julie-kliegman","tag-katy-simpson-smith","tag-kim-eui-kyung","tag-latoya-watkins","tag-lucinda-m-vardey","tag-malavika-kannan","tag-mariana-salomao-carrara","tag-nearshore","tag-range","tag-raphael-montes","tag-rowan-hooper","tag-siren-says","tag-steve-hawk","tag-the-book-of-chuck","tag-the-green-soul-returning-to-our-sacred-belonging-in-nature","tag-the-jackal-the-rise-and-fall-of-carlos","tag-the-loneliest-tree-in-the-world","tag-the-maltese-version","tag-the-next-journalism-how-the-press-must-change-to-serve-democracy","tag-the-secret-dinner","tag-the-sleeping-sisters","tag-the-song-of-stork-and-dromedary","tag-the-worlds-first-super-terrorist","tag-togetherness-symbiosis-and-the-hidden-story-of-lifes-greatest-collaborations","tag-tom-rosenstiel","tag-trans-by-caroline-waight","tag-trans-by-david-mckay","tag-trans-by-julia-sanches-and-alison-entrekin","tag-trans-by-sora-kim-russell","tag-unprecedented-times","story-type-new-books-tuesdays"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19FD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-jackal-9781668070550_hr.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":275763,"date":"2026-08-17T13:06:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275763"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:06:03","slug":"now-amazon-is-destroying-rare-books-to-train-its-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/now-amazon-is-destroying-rare-books-to-train-its-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Amazon is destroying rare books to train its AI."},"content":{"rendered":" Per a 404 Media<\/a> report published this morning, Amazon, that evil empire, “is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process.”<\/p>\n This news follows slow-creeping revelations that other AI companies<\/a> have been practicing “destructive scanning<\/a>” to train their LLMs for at least the past two years.<\/p>\n Dominos stated to fall this January, when The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> broke the story that Anthropic was at work on a secret project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.”<\/p>\n Details about this “Project Panama”\u2014because what is an evil plan without a nom de guerre befitting a Bond villain\u2014emerged during a much-publicized copyright lawsuit<\/a> authors brought against Anthropic earlier this year.<\/p>\n Though this scoop made the company behind Claude seem uniquely horrible, ongoing lawsuits against Meta, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI now suggest similar practices.<\/p>\n Everywhere, big corporations are stealing author’s work to train their LLMs. With a special recent focus on dead<\/em> authors, who cannot protest.<\/p>\n Amazon has previously denied that they<\/em> practice “destructive scanning.” (Or at least, they have kept very, very quiet about the subject.) But as Emanuel Maiberg reported, new signs point to complicity.<\/p>\n How do we figure? In a neat bit of practical research, 404Media followed a rare book they “suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data,” and traced its journey around the country:<\/p>\n That final destination was an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada. Amazon employees who work at this location say all they do is receive massive shipments of printed books which they then cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly. The printed book is destroyed in the process.<\/p>\n But wait, there’s even more Bond villain where this came from! Apparently, the offending team\u2019s logo \u201cis a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.\u201d<\/p>\n So the Rex is out of the park, Mr. Bezos.<\/p>\n Perhaps you too are wondering: beyond the silent plaintiff part, what makes rare books so valuable for AI companies?<\/p>\n According to documents WaPo<\/em> uncovered re: Project Panama, “one Anthropic co-founder theorized that training AI models on books could teach them ‘how to write well’ instead of mimicking ‘low quality internet speak.'”<\/p>\n Maiberg echoed this theory. “Printed books are valuable as training data because a lot of the text they contain is not readily available on the internet, which AI companies have already scraped,” he wrote in this morning’s brief.<\/p>\n The data is also conveniently organized and, if the book was printed before 2022, is guaranteed to be free of AI-generated text, which can make any AI model that is trained on it worse via a recursive process called ‘model collapse.’<\/p>\n Here’s hoping.<\/p>\n There is another<\/em> silver lining here. The American public is, generally speaking, still pretty against book destruction. On the optics level, if nowhere else.<\/p>\n Certain companies<\/a> have already seemed to respond to public pressure about this un-beautiful, all-too-on-the-nose practice.<\/p>\n So assuming they don’t collapse on themselves, let us pray the shame spigot will short these machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Per a 404 Media report published this morning, Amazon, that evil empire, “is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process.” This news follows slow-creeping revelations that other AI companies have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17066,"featured_media":275844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43201,43099,43109,43092,43095,43444,43445,43646],"tags":[100607,20922,2120,104316,32209,99337,51624,111810,111809,99290,16671,52888,6952,49477,71331],"class_list":["post-275763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-news-newsandculture","category-design-newsandculture","category-events","category-newsandculture","category-politics","category-science","category-technology","category-the-hub","tag-404-media","tag-ai","tag-amazon","tag-anthropic","tag-book-burning","tag-bummer","tag-copyright-infringement","tag-creative-destruction","tag-destructive-scanning","tag-llms","tag-meta","tag-openai","tag-rare-books","tag-scoop","tag-to-be-clear-jeff-bezos-is-sauron-here"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19JN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-23.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17066"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":275782,"date":"2026-08-17T06:30:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T10:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275782"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:12:18","slug":"lit-hub-daily-august-17-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/lit-hub-daily-august-17-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Lit Hub Daily: August 17, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":" TODAY: In 1935, Charlotte Perkins Gilman dies. <\/span>\n
\n(Scribner)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>David McCloskey<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9780593854549-199x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Tiny Reparations)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Kirkus<\/em><\/p>\n![\"maltese](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9780374619480-194x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(FSG)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>T\u00e9a Obreht<\/p>\n![\"dorthe](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/dorthe-nors-range-200x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Graywolf)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Kirkus<\/em><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/71J5-i99VfL._AC_UF10001000_QL80_-197x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Celadon)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Lisa Jewell<\/p>\n![\"Finding](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-2.40.08-PM-198x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n(HarperOne)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Jonathan Eig<\/p>\n![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-4-199x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Viking)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/713tpGqwBnL._AC_UF10001000_QL80_-194x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Crown)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Booklist<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Hello](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/243338906-194x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Hogarth)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Lydia Kiesling<\/p>\n![\"Danny](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/244773580-200x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Soft Skull)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Vancouver Sun<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Camille](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593597507-199x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Random House)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013The Millions<\/em><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/The-Song-of-Stork-and-Dromedary-196x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(FSG)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Elizabeth DeNoma<\/p>\n![\"Malavika](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Malavika-Kannan-Unprecedented-Times-196x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Holt)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Booklist<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Togetherness,](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593802663-200x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Knopf)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Bill McKibben<\/p>\n![\"first-summer\"](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/first-summer-9781668225790_lg-194x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Summit)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Booklist<\/em><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-loneliest-tree-in-the-world-199x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Catapult)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Jennifer](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/244671594-199x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Little Brown)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Nina McConigley<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Vardey_GreenSoul_HC-197x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(HarperOne)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Jennifer Kavanagh<\/p>\n![\"Siren](\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593714386-199x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Putnam)<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2013<\/em>Diane Marie Brown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n