UK Librarians See Impact of US Censorship, Censorship at the Naval Academy,Indie Booksellers Face Harassment &Threats, Meta Trains AI on "Worthless" Books, Impact of Book Bans, Quote of the Day, PKD Winner, The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods,Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore,When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi, and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

Hola book amigos! It's already nearing the end of the month, and we're closer than ever to summer! April has just flown by, but I've still managed to get enough reading done, despite all the craziness in my household and the illnesses that seem to plague us. There's a lot going on in the world of books and libraries, so without further ado, here's the latest tidbits and my own book reviews.

 

IT makes me physically ill to think that there are so many racist fascists out there, a mother's group among them, who are trying to get books about race and the LGBTQ community and even the second World War and the Holocaust removed from libraries across the globe. I laud librarians for resisting this invasive evil, and I hope that US Censorship will be a thing of the past in the next couple of years.

 

UK Librarians See Impact of US Censorship Attempts

Librarians across the pond are reporting an increase in requests to remove books from their shelves , a change they attribute to the growing influence of US-based pressure groups. As in the States, many of the books being targeted for banning center on LGBTQ+ themes. At present, most of the book challenges in the UK come from individuals and small groups, but librarians report being harassed by members of US-based groups online, and one librarian found propaganda from a US-based group on her desk. While library professionals in the UK report that the situation there is not (yet) as dire as it is here in the US, the global media ecosystem and the rise of far-right groups worldwide make this a serious threat to intellectual freedom. You’d be right to wonder if Moms for Liberty (named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) is among the US groups now reaching overseas. The Guardian does not specify.

 

Again, this nausea-inducing censorship has got to stop! It's pure evil. Young people need to know about the racism and sexism and fascism of the past if they're to form an opinion on shaping the future.

Pete Hegseth Orders Books Critical of Racism Removed from Naval Academy Library

 As a post going around social media puts it, Maya Angelou is out, but Mein Kamf can stay. Citing a January 29 executive order by Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently instructed the Naval Academy to remove books with diversity, equity, and inclusion themes from the school’s Nimitz Library. Politically appointed leaders in the Department of the Navy decided which books to remove, ultimately pulling 381 titles from shelves. Among the books removed ( see the full list) are Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, How to Be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, studies of the KKK, and histories of the Holocuast. It’s a move academics and Naval Academy alumni are calling ” a case study in ideological censorship.” As Risa Brooks, a professor at political science at Marquette University, puts it:

“I think it does a real disservice to the students to suggest that they can’t handle difficult ideas or face ideas they disagree with…We are training these people to go out and command troops and to lead people potentially in war. We want them to be resilient, because what they’re going to face is far worse than a book on a bookshelf with a title that possibly makes them uncomfortable.”

This is a predictable development from an administration that knows it will benefit from citizens’ ignorance. One encouraging development: many Naval Academy alumni, including some very high-ranking former officials, are speaking out and even working with local bookstores to make the banned titles available to academy midshipmen. Gentlemen, welcome to the resistance.

Independent Booksellers Discuss Facing Harassment & Threats

Whether targeted for the books they carry, the events they host, the

views they express, or their identities, independent booksellers have

had to contend with all manner of harassment, threats, and attacks in

recent years. While some indies are unfortunately no strangers to it,

others have only recently seen themselves become targets, with many

worrying that as the second Trump presidency continues, bad actors will

feel ever more emboldened.

Shelf Awareness has talked to a number of indies around the country to

discuss the incidents they've experienced and how they've coped. More

accounts will appear in a second part to this article in a future issue.

"It is unfortunately absolutely becoming normal," said Hannah Oliver

Depp, co-owner of Loyalty Bookstores in Washington, D.C., and Silver

Spring, Md. Though the store has seen some amount of harassment off and

on since its opening in early 2019, there has been a notable increase

since the Covid-19 pandemic and again since President Trump took office

for the second time.

Asked what form the harassment took, whether it occurred over the phone,

online, or in-person, Depp said it was "all of the above," and with

regard to frequency, she said that on average, harassment occurred

"multiple times a week." Sometimes the store will go a few days without

experiencing any sort of harassment, and then have three incidents in a

single day. The frequency is such, Depp added, that it's "becoming a

part of life."

One particularly common attack that Depp and her team have to deal with

is fake orders of different editions of Mein Kampf. It is a title that

the store has no interest in selling, and while specific editions can be

removed from the store's website, it is not currently possible to simply

block all editions of the book. When an order comes through, the store

will refund it and send an e-mail with a link to the Library of Congress

website, where the text can be found for free. Depp characterized this

primarily as a "tactic to waste your time."

On the subject of harassment coming over the phone, Depp said that it,

too, has been going on since the store first opened, and it was so bad

in 2019 that the bookstore actually removed its phone number from all of

its online listings. A recent spate of harassing calls made Depp

consider doing the same again, but she noted that not having a phone

number is also a disability rights issue. And while screening calls by

letting them go to voicemail first can be an effective way to avoid

harassment, some legitimate callers will not want to wait and "you can

lose the sale."

Due to in-person incidents, Depp and the Loyalty team have done

de-escalation training and have installed security cameras inside the

bookstore. The store's Silver Spring location moved earlier this year,

and shortly after reopening in the new space, Depp was there alone when

a group of young men came in to "scout" the place, which involved noting

things like entrances, exits, and how many people are working there.

Though they left when Depp asked if she could assist them, they returned

later that day. Luckily, Depp recounted, they were "only" there to

record videos of themselves putting books about gender, sexuality, and

race into biohazard bags, and when asked to leave, they complied.

Because of "who I am and the books we sell," Depp continued, Loyalty has

been a target for a long time, as have many Black- and queer-owned

bookstores, and by necessity she has had to spend a lot of time thinking

about things like safety protocols. She advised other booksellers,

especially those who haven't experienced this sort of harassment before,

to think about policies and protocols in advance, so they and their

staff aren't caught unaware. In this political climate, Depp said, "it's

no longer just happening to marginalized bookstores."

WOW, This is a Horrible LIE! This is stealing and plagiarism and its just plain wrong and illegal, and I hope that the suit against Meta wins their case, because books that they steal are not worthless!

 

Meta Describes Books Used to Train AI as “Essentially Worthless”

Here’s a fun one: documents in a major copyright suit against Meta reveal that while the tech giant determined that books were essential for building their data models, “their defense also hinges on the argument that the individual books themselves are, essentially, worthless.” That is, any one book’s presence in or absence from the model is inconsequential, but the aggregate value of the thousands of books Meta allegedly pirated to train its LLMs is immense and irreplaceable. You can’t make the whole without the parts, but since the parts are apparently interchangeable (at least until they run out of books?), Meta doesn’t think it should have to pay for any of them.

As Vanity Fair‘s Kezieh Weir puts it, this is like a symphony board arguing that they shouldn’t have to compensate individual members of the orchestra because “a solo bassoon cannot play every part in “The Rite of Spring.”” It’s the kind of twisty logic that makes you understand why lawyer jokes are so popular and why Mark Zuckerberg is the most disliked public figure in American life.

Copyright law was complicated before AI, and it’s only going to be more complex as the law attempts to catch up with technology. I can’t begin to guess how this—and the 15+ other large cases about AI and copyright that are active right now—will be resolved under our existing legal standards (and under an administration whose relationship to ethics is, let’s say, flexible). May the plaintiffs’ efforts succeed.

 

 A small ray of light in dark times, it appears that banned books are more popular than ever, probably because there are a a lot of people who can't resist "forbidden fruit."

 

New Study Explores the Impact of Book Bans on Library Circulation

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and George Mason University have published a new study about the impact of book bans on the consumption of banned books, and the results might surprise you. Using book circulation data from a “large library content and services supplies to major public and academic libraries in the United States” about the top 25 most-banned titles, found that:

• Book bans increase the circulation of banned books by 12% compared to a control group. That is, book bans lead to a Streisand effect rather than having a chilling effect on readership.
• The effect spills over to states without bans and is only slighlty lower (11.2% increase).
• The increase in readership centers on books related to race, gender, and LGTBQ+ issues.
• Book bans expose new readers to inclusive content; on average, children read banned books 19% more than the control titles after a book banning event.
• Circulation of banned books increases in red states that have book bans and in blue states regardless of book ban status.

(This feels like a good time to remind you that, regardless of circulation and readership numbers, book bans are not good for authors.)

The findings above might lead you to wonder: if book bans are driving increased engagement with the very content activists claim to be trying to protect children from, why do they continue to pursue book bans? Follow the money. The study also looked at political messaging and donations and found that Republican politicians in red states saw an estimated 30% increase in donations under $500 after book ban events.

 

Quotation of the Day

'Anti-Wisdom' at the Naval Academy

"The men and women at the Naval Academy will go on to lead combat

missions, to command aircraft carriers, to pilot nuclear-armed

submarines and run enormous organizations. We will soon entrust them

with incredible responsibilities and power. But we fear they'll be

hoodwinked or brainwashed by certain books?

"Hitler's Mein Kampf was not one of the books removed from the Naval

Academy library, and as heinous as that book is, it should be accessible

to scholars and students of history. However, this makes the removal of

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings inexplicable. Whatever

one thinks of D.E.I., we are not talking about the writings of external

enemies here, but in many cases, art, serious scholarship and legitimate

criticism of America's past. One of the removed books is about Black

soldiers in World War II, another is about how women killed in the

Holocaust are portrayed, another is a reimagining of Kafka called The

Last White Man. No one at any public institution should have to fear

losing their job for pushing back on such an obvious overreach, let

alone those tasked with defending our freedom. Yet here we are.

"The decision by the academy's leaders to not protest the original

order--which I believe flies in the face of basic academic freedoms and

common sense--has put them in the now even stickier position of trying

to suppress criticism of that decision... I felt I could not, in good

conscience, lecture these future leaders and warriors on the virtue of

courage and doing the right thing, as I did in 2023 and 2024, and fold

when asked not to mention such an egregious and fundamentally

anti-wisdom course of action."

--Ryan Holiday, author of The Daily Stoic, and owner of the Painted Porch

Bookshop, Bastrop, Tex., in a New York Times guest column "The Naval Academy Canceled My Lecture on Wisdom," about how his recent lecture at the Naval Academy was cancelled after he declined a request not to mention "the recent removal of 381 supposedly controversial books from the Nimitz library on campus."

I must have a copy of this, as I'm sure it's fascinating.

 

Awards: Philip K. Dick Winner 

Time's Agent by Brenda Peynado (Tordotcom) is the winner of the 2025

Philip K. Dick Award, honoring the best "original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2024 in the U.S." and given with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust, sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, with the award ceremony sponsored by Norwescon. A special citation was given to Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit).

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods is a magical realism romance with a sweet protagonist and a delicious storyline. Here's the blurb: 

Nestled among the cobblestone streets of Compiègne, there existed a bakery unlike any other.

Rumours were whispered through the town that its pastries offered a taste of magic, chasing away the darkest of sorrows. Just one bite of a croissant might bring luck, unlock a precious memory or reveal hidden longings.

But dark clouds were looming on the horizon…

For Edie Lane, a recipe for disaster doesn’t require that many ingredients. Take an unhealthy amount of wishful thinking and a sprinkle of desperation and that’s how Edie left everything behind in Ireland for her dream job at a bakery in Paris. Except the bakery isn’t in Paris – and neither is Edie.

This might not be where Edie intended to be but she soon realizes it's exactly where she needs to be.

 

I loved reading that small town life in France is basically the same as small town life in America, with the same struggles and heartaches and hopeful times full of joy. I loved the lustrous prose and the dancing plot that kept me turning pages. I'd give this book an A- and recommend it to those who like Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allens books.

 

Rules For Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore is an LGBTQ paranormal romance that revolves around a young trans man and his family's Jewish funeral home. Here's the blurb: 

To save his family's failing funeral home—and his own chance at a queer love story—a reluctant clairvoyant must embrace the gift he long ignored in this poignant and warmhearted debut.

Ezra Friedman sees ghosts, which made growing up in a funeral home complicated. It might have been easier if his grandfather’s ghost didn’t give him scathing looks of disapproval as he went through a second, HRT-induced puberty, or if he didn’t have the pressure of all those relatives—living and dead—judging every choice he makes. It’s no wonder that Ezra runs as far away from the family business as humanly possible.

But when the floor of his dream job drops out from under him and his mother uses the family Passover seder to tell everyone she’s running off with the rabbi’s wife, Ezra finds himself back in the thick of it. With his parents’ marriage imploding and the Friedman Family Memorial Chapel on the brink of financial ruin, Ezra agrees to step into his mother’s shoes and help out . . . which means long days surrounded by ghosts that no one else can see.

And then there’s his unfortunate crush on Jonathan, the handsome funeral home volunteer . . . who just happens to live downstairs from Ezra’s new apartment . . . and the appearance of the ghost of Jonathan’s gone-too-soon husband, Ben, who is breaking every spectral rule that Ezra knows.

Because Ben can speak. He can move. And as Ezra tries to keep his family together and his heart from getting broken, he realizes that there’s more than one way to be haunted—and more than one way to become a ghost.

This book, though fairly well written, needed a good editor to excise about 75-100 pages. There was just too much time spent on long paragraphs detailing Ezra's every single emotion and mood and memory, which became stale and boring after awhile, because it was obvious that she was forced to become a parent to her parents and a caregiver to the family business at a young age, and that her parents, instead of heaping praise on her and building her self esteem, allowed her to believe that nothing she does will ever be enough. So Ezra spends a lot of time self-sabotaging her relationships because she feels unworthy of love. She seeks validation from everyone around her, but its not until she starts a relationship with Jonathan that she finally gets the love and care she needs. I did like the fact that Ezra found a family of LGBTQ people who became her besties and helped her realize her value as a person. I loved her room mates, but I detested her selfish and weak parents. Still, the slow plot made me take longer than normal to read this novel. I'd give it a B+ and recommend it to anyone who is looking for HEA trans romances.

 

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi is a delightfully satirical science fiction novel by the author of the Old Man's War series and Starter Villain, among many other humorous science fiction novels, most of which I've read. Here's the blurb: New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi flies you to the moon with his most fantastic tale to date: When the Moon Hits Your Eye

The moon has turned into cheese.

Now humanity has to deal with it.

For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now... something absolutely impossible.

Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and terminal patients at the end of their lives -- over the length of an entire lunar cycle, each get their moment in the moonlight. To panic, to plan, to wonder and to pray, to laugh and to grieve. All in a kaleidoscopic novel that goes all the places you’d expect, and then to so many places you wouldn’t.
It’s a wild moonage daydream. Ride this rocket. 

 

I loved this book, which was laugh out loud funny at different points, while it also made some good points about the crappy leadership in Washington, DC and the science community's struggle against false and twisted information. I also liked how insane the public became after the news of the moon becoming cheese was released. Then, when it is apparent that a chunk of cheese will wipe out humanity in two years, like the dinosaurs millennia ago, the reaction from banks and the government (trying to find ways to squeeze the public for more money, though in two years money will not matter) to people holding "flip off the moon" parties was spot on (and hilarious in a dark comedy way). I was especially thrilled about the demise (or fake demise) of the Jeff Bezos character being crushed by moon cheese after doing an illegal moon landing in his own rocket. I would give this brilliantly written and plotted science fiction satire an A, and recommend it to everyone. Seriously, read this book. 

 

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett is a fantasy/mystery that takes place on a world that seems similar to ancient China with unusual flora and fauna. Here's the blurb: The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup.

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, a Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—vanishing from a room within a heavily guarded tower, its door and windows locked from the inside.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial detective, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Ana soon discovers that they are investigating not a disappearance but a murder—and one of surpassing cunning, carried out by an opponent who can pass through warded doors like a ghost.

Worse still, the killer may be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud, where the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen his superior solve impossible cases before. But as the death toll grows and their quarry predicts each of Ana’s moves with uncanny foresight, he fears that she has at last met an enemy she can’t defeat

 

This is the second Ana and Din mystery that I've read, and while they're not easy or fast reads, they're still unique mysteries that always manage to surprise me. The way that this society uses potions and animal parts and herbs/plants to effect their environment and each other is breathtaking. The use of special drinks to bring out mental powers reminded me of the Mentats of the Dune series by Frank Herbert. I also like the fact that I'm never sure whodunit until the final chapter...the author doesn't make his mysteries easy to solve. And Ana is bizarre and funny at the same time...kind of like a Chinese female version of House, MD. Din, on the other hand is always in some kind of trouble that Ana has to help him out of, in the end...he's very much the Doctor Watson to Ana's Sherlock. The prose is intricate and the plot marches along in a crisp fashion. All in all, I'd give this book a B and recommend it to those who like genius sleuths who have to solve impossible murder mysteries.