Letter Issue 6,120


On the cover Shortlist of


The Bookseller’s New Adult Book Prize


Why downplay minor acts of censorship, asks Philip Jones


Editor, The Bookseller W


ords matter, writes my colleague, associate editor Natasha Onwuemezi, in her latest Discover Preview (see p18). They do. It is a short


phrase, but one often articulated and one that we hold to closely. Words matter, because what we do matters. But also because they have an impact. A book, as we know, can change lives. But words don’t act alone – they need publishing, platforming and, occasionally, defending. This freedom to express publicly is under threat.


Not my words but those of Index on Censorship, which has taken the lead on the UK version of Banned Books Week, due to take place from 5th to 11th October 2025, in partnership with the International Publishers Association and Hay Festival Global (and also now The Bookseller). Index continues: “Around the world, writers


face censorship, imprisonment and violence simply for putting words on a page. Booksellers from Iran to Belarus, Israel to Hong Kong have been harassed and silenced. Publishers in China and Russia are being pressured and censored. In places such as the US, Brazil, Hungary and even the UK, books are being banned and pulled off the shelves in libraries because of the ideas they hold and the questions they raise.” In the UK it might feel a bit of stretch to suggest that books are being removed from view – as the


The official charts This week’s number ones


Contents In this week’s magazine p32


chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Louis Coiffait-Gunn tells us this week “there is no strong evidence” of outright censorship in UK libraries. Nevertheless, CILIP has set up an Intellectual Freedom Committee to help library professionals “counter the disturbing effects of censorship”. Defending free expression has itself become a challenge. Words mattering means their impact matters – and that is not always benign. Words can damage. People take offence. Art is activism, said the publisher Crystal Mahey-Morgan in an interview published online this week. You will find similar sentiments expressed in the WritersMosaic Quarterly, the independent publication distributed with this magazine, which features the voices of Iranian women, a demo- graphic that needs more platforming. In her preview, Onwuemezi focuses on Palestinian writers, a cohort that has also been marginalised, and that is only now – in the face of huge devasta- tion – being published in the mainstream. But when we write that words matter, do we


Words mattering means their impact matters – and that is not always benign


really mean it? Or should it now be prefaced with a “some”? During the summer, the National Library of Scotland removed The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht (a Hachette title) from a collec- tion, despite a public vote backing its display, after concern was raised internally about its inclusion. The Polari Prize shuttered itself after longlisted authors objected to the inclusion of John Boyne’s Penguin Random House published novella Earth. In response to the former, the CEO of Index Jemimah Steinfeld called it an act of censorship, arguing that “a book moved from the front shelf to the back is a signal”. But CILIP Scotland (see p22) opted for what I call the Chief Wiggum swerve – named after the cop from The Simpsons who is famous for his “nothing to see here” approach to policing. Wiggum is a fool, of course, he convinces no-one and his actions often backfire, but he gives cover for others who should know better to follow his side-step. CS Lewis once wrote that “the pain I feel now


is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal”. The same can be said for books. The books we don’t like are part of the deal for having the ones we do. Or to put it another way: the battles over words some think they are winning today are part of a war on books we risk losing tomorrow.


Books Author Profiles: Jasmine Richards and Priscilla Mante QNTM


PRINT E-BOOK AUDIO


Fiction Preview Discover


Average selling price Year/Year rise £9.52 4.5% Library Focus


News NABP Shortlist


Charts The Official UK Top 50 Fiction


6-7 8-9


10-17 18-21


22-29 p08 30-31 05


Non-Fiction Children’s


Audio & Digital Market Spotlight


Classified Jobs in Books


32 34 35 36 37 38


40


Welcome


Comment


Leader


05.09.25


Newwave


The inaugural New Adult Book Prize shortlist is announced to universal acclaim, with the winner to be unveiled in October PP30-31


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