This weeks Literary Ledger 10 to 17 October 2025

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) Join the Reading Revolution: The Sunday Times Campaign

The Sunday Times has launched a reading campaign to encourage Britain to keep reading, and it’s all about making books more accessible and enjoyable!

Here’s how you can get involved:

• Donate to Bookbanks to help put books in the hands of those who need them most.

• Volunteer to read in schools through Coram Beanstalk.

• Take the pledge to read for pleasure for at least ten minutes a day over the next six weeks.

We all know (and research backs it up) that reading benefits your life, it broadens your horizons, improves mental health, builds knowledge, and is just a really enjoyable pastime.

As I’ve highlighted here over the past few weeks, the number of children who never read for fun is rising across every age group, according to the National Literacy Trust. One in five children aged 11-13 never pick up a book voluntarily, and fewer parents are reading to their kids.

It’s great to see The Sunday Times stepping in to help change that. Publishers like HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan are supporting the campaign, along with more than 90 leading figures, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sebastian Faulks, Julia Donaldson, Graham Norton, Ian McEwan, Michael Palin, and Jamie Oliver.

If you want to get involved, here’s the link to sign up: https://link.thetimes.co.uk/join/74t/signup-get-britain-reading 

II) R.F. Kuang’s Big Year

Fantastic news! R.F. Kuang has signed a new four-book deal with HarperCollins UK. 2025 is shaping up to be an amazing year for her: Katabasis has been released, she’s continuing her PhD in East Asian Languages & Literatures at Yale, and now this new deal, she’s really doing brilliantly.

I’m super eager to see what she does with these four books. HarperCollins clearly can’t get enough of her! Kuang has said she already has ideas up to her 12th novel. Kuang seems to constantly let ideas/stories float around in her mind until they’re needed.

Her next novel, the seventh, is called Taipei Story, a coming-of-age story about a college freshman studying abroad in Taipei. She’s navigating loss, grief, and family histories, all while struggling with her Chinese. Stylistically, the book is influenced by Patricia Lockwood, Sally Rooney, and Elif Batuman.

III) Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 

Over five days, the Frankfurt Book Fair drew a massive crowd, over 200,000 people showed up.

Germany’s culture minister, Wolfram Weimer, kicked things off with a fiery speech warning that AI could tear literature apart, accusing tech companies of “digital colonisation” and cultural theft. His comments stirred controversy, former U.S. ambassador Richard Grenell even called it “a massive attack” on America’s digital industry on X.

At the same time, Rickard Lundberg, CEO of the Swedish AI company Aniara, said publishers are getting more comfortable with AI. Instead of worrying about whether it should be used, they’re now looking at how well it actually works.

Next year, the fair is shaking things up: publishers and exhibitors will move to the upper floors, leaving ground floors for public events, stages, and open spaces. According to fair organiser Christian Ebert, this will make life easier for publishers, all the upper floors are connected, and they can even avoid the public entirely if they want.

That said, organiSers still seem a bit unsure about the changes, which has frustrated some publishers. One compared it to the “BEA-ification of Frankfurt,” hinting it’s becoming more commercial and less industry-focused, and some are even reconsidering attending next year. Ebert insists professionals are still central to the fair, after all, two-thirds of its revenue comes from international publishers and agents.

Literary agent Markus Hoffmann summed up the mood perfectly: “Despite what is happening in the world, populist politics, wars, everything else, we’re all in this together. We all love books, we all love publishing. And we’re all still here.”

And of course, the great topic was Charlie Redmayne’s sudden departure as head of HarperCollins UK just a week earlier.

IV) Trump Reloaded: The Lawsuit Saga Continues

Trump has been a recurring figure in this blog, and I can only apologise for how much you have to read about him. Honestly, who knew that a man who can barely string a coherent sentence together would be causing such a ruckus on a book-inspired blog? The jokes really do write themselves.

Anyway, if you’ve been following my work, you’ll know that Trump tried to file a lawsuit in Florida, accusing The New York Times and four of its reporters of disparagement. Penguin Random House also found itself targeted.

A federal judge later threw out Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit, dismissing the massive 85-page filing as “florid and enervating.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump has now refiled the lawsuit, first brought on September 16. The new complaint is half the length of the original, and one of the NYT reporters, Michael Schmidt, has been dropped from the suit.

Both the Times and PRH have repeated their earlier comments: they say the lawsuit is without merit. We’ll see if this changes anything, fingers crossed for The New York Times and PRH.

V) Harper Edge: HarperCollins Launches a New Personal Growth Imprint

Harper Group is branching out! They’ve just announced Harper Edge, a brand-new nonfiction imprint focused on personal growth and self-development. The first book, What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins, is set to launch next spring.

Harper Edge plans to release around 10 titles a year, all designed to help readers unlock their potential, sharpen their skills, and take charge of their futures, according to the publisher.