The Philippine Book Festival, Jeremy Renner, James Baldwin, and OpenAI in this week’s edition
Philippine Book Festival 2025
The National Book Development Board (NBDB) has announced the dates and venue for this year’s edition of the Philippine Book Festival. This year’s edition will be held at the Megatrade Hall at SM Megamall from March 13 to March 16. Free entrance!
Aside from that announcement, the NBDB also shared the list of exhibitors for his year’s Festival. RomanceClass will be in the Booktopia section of the Festival!
Dark Horse Comics response to Neil Gaiman accusations
Last week, Dark Horse Comics told Publishers Weekly that they were “currently working on a statement” regarding the horrifying allegations against Neil Gaiman published in New York magazine. Yesterday, Dark Horse Comics announced on Twitter that they are taking the allegations against Neil Gaiman seriously and that they are no longer publishing his works. The company also confirmed that the Anansi Boys comic series and collected volume have also been cancelled.
Kids in the Night: A Novel German translation
Blaise Campo Gacoscos’ Kids in the Night: A Novel is getting a German translation thanks to Albino Verlag, a German publisher established in 1981 and publisher to authors Christopher Isherwood and Jean Cocteau.
The novel will be known in Germany as Der Junge aus Ilocos (The Boy from Ilocos) and will ~come out~ (See what I did there?) in Spring in hardcover.
Les Très Riches Heures goes on display
Les Très Riches Heures, a ‘book of hours’ from the Middle Ages whose châteux images partially inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland Paris, is going on display for the first time in 40 years.
The Guardian reports that the book will be on display at the Château de Chantilly for the first time since the 1980s. Nobody, even historians and academics, have seen the book since the 1980s and ever since its costly restoration was started. Read the article on The Guardian to find out more about the book!
Demand soars for Mariann Edgar Budde book
If you’re an American or are terminally online, you know of all the chaos that’s happening in the United States right now. One of the names that’s emerged amidst all the chaos is that of Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who confronted Trump and his cronies while they attended Mass.
Publishers Weekly reports that her 2023 book, How We Learn to be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, has been rushed into a second printing. Publishers Weekly quotes an editor at Avery as saying that demand for the book is high and that Penguin Random House is “reprinting as quickly as possible to get more books into the marketplace.” Penguin and Budde are also reportedly in talks about a follow-up book.
Jeremy Renner’s memoir
People reports that Jeremy Renner will be releasing his memoir, My Next Breath, on April 29, with pre-orders now open. The memoir will feature his near-fatal snowplow accident, with the book’s synopsis promising that Renner will write about it in “blistering detail”.
Here’s more from the synopsis: “This retelling is not merely a gruesome account of what happened to him; it’s a call to action and a forged companionship between reader and author as Jeremy recounts his recovery journey and reflects on the impact of his suffering.”
Translated Bikol poem nominated for a translation award
The Bikol poem Sagkod/Thereafter has been nominated for the Best Literary Translations, a special anthology project of Deep Vellum for 2026 to be edited by the poet Arthur Sze. The poem is by Kristian Sendon Cordero and was translated into English by Bennard Cariño Fajardo.
New James Baldwin biography
Way back in the olden days, I read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and was wrecked. Now a new biography focusing on his “most intimate personal relationships” is available for pre-order.
People reports Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs will be hitting the shelves on August 19 this year and will “delve into his relationships with Beauford Delaney, the Black American painter who was also Baldwin’s mentor; Swiss painter and lover Lucien Happersberger; Baldwin’s muse and last great love French artist Yoran Cazac and Turkish actor Engin Cezzar.”
Bertelsmann announces “strategic collaboration” with OpenAI
Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, has announced a “strategic partnership” with OpenAI.
Publishers Weekly reports that the German media, services, and education company will be using OpenAI on many of its operating units as well as to help with the “development of new products and services”. Bertelsmann CFO Rolf Hellerman is quoted as saying that this “targeted and responsible use of AI” is in aid of the work of their creative professionals.
From what I understand of the report, Bertelsmann isn’t giving its books to help train OpenAI. Last month, HarperCollins announced a three-year deal with Microsoft that allows the tech company to use the publisher’s “select nonfiction backlist titles” to train its still unnamed AI and that drew mixed reactions, to say the least.
The Manzano Memoirs book talk
Last week, the Ateneo de Manila University Press announced the launch of The Manzano Memoirs: The Life and Military Career of Colonel Narciso L. Manzano by Craig Scharlin on February 6. Now, the university press is also announcing a talk about the book to be held at Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio. The talk will be on Saturday, February 8, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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