This weeks Literary Ledger 01 to 08 May 2026

Welcome to your weekly roundup of all things books! We’re keeping it short and sweet, just five stories to keep you in the loop without overwhelming you. Think of this as your quick fix for staying connected to the book world.

I) Harry Potter Renewed for Season Two Already

Let’s start with the fun news! Yesterday it was announced that Harry Potter has already been renewed for its second season.

It’s going to be done by overlapping production schedules. Once season one has wrapped filming (which is set to premiere at Christmas), they’ll go straight into filming season two this autumn. Which honestly makes sense, because this is a pretty precarious project. Working with kids is always going to be the biggest challenge, especially if you don’t want them suddenly looking like they’ve aged three years instead of one.

I’ve noticed production companies love dragging out seasons on purpose, probably so you end up dragging out your subscriptions too, as we know its never about money issues. The Summer I Turned Pretty tv show managed to release all three of its seasons in the time it took Stranger Things to go from season four to its final season five.

It’s getting ridiculous. Bridgerton also springs to mind, where the very popular season two ended on March 25, 2022, and season three didn’t show up for over two years. And it being the weakest instalment didn’t help after such a long wait and all the hype, it was never really going to live up to expectations, and it definitely suffered for it. Whereas with the latest season, I suppose they learned a little, and we only had to wait 18 months this time (compared to the shocking 26).

Anyway, I was slightly worried HBO wouldn’t even film Harry Potter back-to-back to keep up with the kids’ ages, but this news has put my mind at ease. That said, a few people I know have already started saying it’ll get cancelled by season three or four. I’m not so sure. There will always be die-hard fans who’ll stick with anything just to keep it alive, even if what they’re watching isn’t exactly great anymore. But alas, we’ve got a couple of years before anyone confidently says “told you so!”

II) Ana Huang’s King of Sin Series Is Finally Coming to an End

It was announced that Ana Huang’s final book in the King of Sin series will be released in April 2027, following King of Gluttony. This series is a seven-part collection, based on the seven deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth). The books have been released since 2022.

I haven’t read any of them, although I did read one of her books from the Twisted series, and it was far from my taste. I also get the feeling these are fairly carbon-copy of each other (at least from what I’ve seen in reviews), but hey, she clearly has her audience, and it just wasn’t me.

So I’m sure there are many people who are delighted to hear about the new update. 

III) Meta Faces Copyright Lawsuit Over AI Training Data

We’ve got the big name of Mark Zuckerberg this week, who I’m sure you’ve heard is being sued (via Meta) by five US publishers, alongside author Scott Turow, for copyright infringement linked to training their AI.

The claim is that they allegedly downloaded millions of copyrighted books and journal articles, including from pirate sites, and basically scraped the internet to feed Meta’s AI system, Llama. This has been described as one of the bigger copyright infringement cases involving AI training data so far.

The five publishers involved are Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage, who have filed a class-action lawsuit seeking unspecified damages for the alleged infringement.

Although, to be honest, this kind of thing isn’t entirely new. Authors and publishers have sued AI companies before and not always come out on top. And with a company as massive as Meta involved, it’s going to be one hell of a legal battle, I’m sure.

IV) National Year of Reading Update: Where the Campaign Is Now

David Hayman, leader of the National Year of Reading, has spoken more about how the initiative is going so far, what they’re hoping to achieve, and what’s already been delivered.

First of all, he’s keen to stress that this is not just a short-term publicity campaign, but something much longer-term, with foundations still being laid.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Around 10 core delivery partners are involved

• Roughly 750 organisations have pledged support

• Schools are heavily involved, with around 10,000 teachers across approximately 6,500 schools

• Thousands more schools are taking part informally through activities

The campaign is also building both human and financial resources:

• Around 30,000 volunteers have been recruited so far

• The target is 100,000 volunteers

• Funding is expected to reach around £10 million, with most already secured at the time of writing

Hayman argues that success comes from consistency and local variation, rather than rigid, uniform messaging. In other words, the strength of the campaign is that it appears in lots of different places and formats, each shaped by local needs and audiences.

The campaign is also being pushed through a range of major media partnerships and even physical spaces like shopping centres, railway stations, and airports.

Overall, the key message from Hayman is that the National Year of Reading shouldn’t be treated as a one-off awareness campaign, but more as a long-term, nationwide behaviour-change project, something that continues for as long as it needs to.

V) Bo-sco: A New Scouting Service We Didn’t Know We Needed

Arianna Reiche, once a features writer, is now the founder of Bo-sco, a subscription-based scouting service designed for industry professionals.

The idea is that professionals don’t have to wait for books to become popular. Instead, subscribers receive regular, curated intelligence reports highlighting undiscovered or under-the-radar books that could be adapted for film or TV.

This service runs monthly and provides a small number of carefully selected titles, along with analysis explaining why those books might have strong adaptation potential.

I think this is a really cool and original idea. Having this kind of filter between publishers and the screen industry is something we didn’t even know we needed.