Two More 2025 National Book Awards Longlists

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

The 2025 NBA Longlists in Translated Lit and Poetry

And the National Book Awards longlists keep coming! The books under the Translated Literature category were originally published in Arabic, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Uzbek. In Poetry, the vast majority of authors are up for a NBA in this category for the first time. Here are the contenders in this year’s Translated Literature and Poetry categories:

• Translated Literature
  • On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
  • The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
  • We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers
  • The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from the Dutch by David McKay
  • Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton
  • We Computers: A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov, translated from the Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega
  • We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
  • Sleep Phase by Mohamed Kheir, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger
  • Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes
  • Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer

• Poetry
  • Death Does Not End at the Sea by Gbenga Adesina
  • The New Economy by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
  • Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che
  • Scorched Earth by Tiana Clark
  • Death of the First Idea by Rickey Laurentiis
  • Cold Thief Place by Esther Lin
  • Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero
  • I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken
  • The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith
  • TERROR COUNTER by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi

Anthropic Settlement Delayed

We have an update on the Anthropic settlement, which would have paid $1.5 billion to settle a case involving allegations that the AI company used pirated books to train its Large Language Model, Claude. Judge William Alsup postponed settlement approval, expressing disappointment in important unanswered questions left by the author plaintiffs’ lawyers and skepticism in the resolution process itself. Meanwhile, the Authors Guild CEO expressed confusion about “the court’s suggestion that the Guild and AAP were working behind the scenes in ways that could pressure authors to accept the settlement ‘when that is precisely the opposite of our proposed role as informational advisors to the working group.'” Whoo boy. Bartz v. Anthropic continues to be a tough nut to crack.

An Excerpt of Kamala Harris’s Upcoming Book

I’m more excited about this book than I was previously because of the Editor’s Note preceding the excerpt, and this part in particular: “This careful Harris is present, but so too is another Harris: blunt, knowing, fervent, occasionally profane, slyly funny. As you will see in the following excerpt—and throughout this newsworthy book—she no longer seems particularly interested in holding back.” Read the excerpt at The Atlantic.

Meet Spotify’s New “Big on BookTok” Audiobook Hub

If you continue to doubt the influence of BookTok, read the news about Spotify’s newest feature and reconsider.