In this week’s edition: new bookstores in malls are on the rise, a new ALA poll finds the majority of Americans decry book banning efforts, defining what makes a work “transformative” is the subject of an upcoming copyright case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Russia’s last independent news outlet suspends publication under “free press” crackdown under Putin, and more.

ALA Poll Finds Public Broadly Opposes Book Banning Efforts
Publishers Weekly
A new poll conducted by the American Library Association found that 71% of Americans oppose book banning efforts currently taking place across the country and that 74% of American parents trust their school librarians to select appropriate books for their children.

A Bookstore Revival Channels Nostalgia for Big Box Chains
Bloomberg
After the closure of more than 1,000 chain bookstores across the U.S. between 1991 and 2011, many malls have begun adding bookstores back into the mix. Barnes & Noble will be adding between 22 and 25 new stores to its current 625 in 2022, and approximately 172 new independent book stores opened in 2021, some of them in malls.

LGBTQ Books Removed from Target.com
Publishers Weekly
After a debut gay author posted on Twitter that his book was no longer available for purchase on Target’s website, other writers noticed and helped compile a list of 118 books no longer listed for sale, most of them by LGBTQ+ authors. The authors reached out to Target, which claimed several books inadvertently got removed during a website refresh. So far, 94 of the 118 books have been restored to the site.

Novels, Screenplays, and the Writers Who Do Both
Lit Hub’s Crime Reads
This essay explores the differences between the process of writing a novel versus the process of writing a script and how the ability to do both can enhance the end result of either one.

Supreme Court to Hear Copyright Fight Over Andy Warhol’s Images of Prince
The New York Times
The Supreme Court has agreed to take on a copyright dispute related to the definition of “transformative” under the fair use doctrine: Did Warhol violate a photographer’s copyright when he took her photos of Prince and turned them into paintings?

Novaya Gazeta, The Hard Hitting Russian Newspaper, Suspends Publication
The New York Times
Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper that helped define fearless journalism in the post-Soviet era and whose editor shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year, suspended publication on Monday, leaving Russia without any major media outlets critical of the Kremlin as it wages war in Ukraine. Though the paper held out longer than any other, it couldn’t fight the news crackdown in Russia any longer. Hundreds of Russian journalists have fled the country, fearing enforcement of a law signed by Vladimir Putin this month that threatens prison terms of up to 15 years for anyone whose reporting about the war in Ukraine deviates from the Kremlin narrative.