This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Authors Can See If They Can Get a Piece of that $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement
There is $1.5 billion (less lawyer fees and administrative costs) up for authors to grab if their work was among the training data subject to the massive (but maybe even somehow still too small) lawsuit against Anthropic, and authors can now officially see what works are in there and how to get in on the settlement. The FAQ is your best place to start. You do have to file a claim through the website to be eligible for a payout and taking that payout also means you are giving up your right to sue Anthropic individually. All claims will be paid out equally, so if you are Stephen King or….not Stephen King, you will be paid the same for each valid claim. Weirdly, the fewer claims made, the more per claim the payout will be. I tried to do some math based on the number of works in the dataset, but there are too many confounding factors. I will wait to see some screenshots of happy/sad/resigned awardees.
Where to Start with Thomas Pynchon
Maybe you are one of those people who have always heard about the famously reclusive, brilliant, and difficult Thomas Pynchon. Maybe you have one or two under your belt. Maybe you are a completist. There is something for all Pynchon (and Pynchon-curious) readers in A.O. Scott’s guide. As for me, I have a very standard rec for people who want to grab a seat on the Pynchon Carousel: The Crying of Lot 49. Not only is it probably the most accessible, it is also crucially the shortest. Not everyone wants to stay on the ride after all.
Today In Books
Sign up to Today In Books to receive daily news and miscellany from the world of books.
Is a Dedicated Social Media App Something That Can Work in 2025?
Bindery Books is an influencer-centric publisher which pairs new books with social media influencers as sorta micro-publishers. Basically, folks with meaningful online platforms can get a piece of the action for hyping books. This kind of business is supremely subject to social media algorithms, on the upside as well as down. So it makes a sort of sense that Bindery would be interested in an app of one’s own that they can control. The devilish bit will be getting people to use it. Other devilish bits will follow (content moderation at scale is a nasty business), though it is unlikely to make it that far.
Rebecca Schinsky and I do our monthly triage of the contenders to be the It Book of the month.