Posted on October 1, 2025 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Catch up quick with the bookish news of the past few days ... or take a deeper dive into each story. Your choice!
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PEN America has released a new report on the — horrifying — state of our freedom to read in the United States; the headlining fact is that since 2021, there have been 23,000 publicly reported bans in schools alone (Book Riot, NPR, and PEN America).
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Thomas Perry, author of The Butcher's Boy and the Jane Whitefield series and the husband of author Jo Perry, died September 15 at age seventy-eight (The New York Times).
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Yusuf/Cat Stevens is postponing his North American book tour because of visa issues; the singer emphasized in his announcement that the autobiography Cat on the Road to Findout will still come out October 7 (Associated Press).
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Bookshop.org, an online store that allows book buyers to support independent bookstores with their purchases, is expanding its offerings in the United Kingdom to include ebooks (The Guardian).
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McGill University has announced the finalists for the 2025 Cundill History Prize, which will be awarded on October 30 (Literary Hub).
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The Center for Fiction has also released a list of award nominees — the shortlist for the First Novel Prize — and will reveal the winner in December (Literary Hub).
Categories: Today in Books