News of note for readers: August 7, 2025

Catch up quick with the bookish news of the past few days ... or take a deeper dive into each story. Your choice! 

• Read Quan Barry's new(ish) novelette, Redemption Song, in full online (Reactor).

• You can also check out an excerpt of Esther Freud's My Sister and Other Lovers, which came out Tuesday (Literary Hub).

• More than two hundred authors, including Zadie Smith, Irvine Welsh, Elif Shafak, and Jeanette Winterson, have signed a new letter calling for a boycott of Israel until sufficient humanitarian aid is given to Gaza (The Guardian).

• Meanwhile, award-winning Israeli author David Grossman described his country's actions in Gaza as "genocide" in an interview with an Italian newspaper (The Guardian).

• Bestselling crime writer James Patterson and investigative journalist Vicky Ward are co-writing a book about last year's murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson; the book doesn't have a public title or release date yet (Associated Press).

• A first edition, first impression of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien that a rare books specialist stumbled upon when sorting through books from a house clean-out has sold at auction for £43,000, or over $57,700 (The New York Times).

• Inspired by his late mother, a bookstore owner, former Sacramento Mayor and NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson has launched the National Association of Black Bookstores; its goal is to “amplify Black voices, and preserve Black culture by increasing the visibility, sustainability, and impact of Black bookstores and booksellers" (Literary Hub).

• Also newly launched, this time by award-winning poet Kwame Alexander: One Word at a Time, an organization that aims to promote literacy by connecting "kids and authors and great books" (Instagram).