This is the Winner of the 2026 International Booker Prize

Are AI suspicions the new normal for literary awards?

Three of the five shortlisted works for the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Award have been accused of being generated by AI. It started when an article gained attention that had some hallmarks of AI writing and was flagged by (erroneous) AI detection software as 100% AI-generated. Now, two other shortlisted novels have also been accused of being partially written by AI. wired We see this as the new normal. It is difficult to know how to respond to such accusations. Text written by AI is a legitimate concern, especially when prize money is involved. However, it is also very difficult to determine with certainty whether AI is involved. Also, you don’t want to ruin a new writer’s career by using em dashes or parallel sentence structures.

Meanwhile, Olga Tokarczuk issued a statement regarding the use of AI. Specifically, she says, “None of my writing, including the novel that will be published in Polish this fall, has been written with the help of artificial intelligence, except when I use it as a tool to speed up preliminary research.” This controversy raised new questions. Many (most?) readers avoid books written by AI, but what counts as written by an AI? Are books edited by an AI acceptable? What if I want to use it for research? Tools like Grammarly are also AI, but does that matter to readers? I think this conversation is going to get even trickier.

StoryGraph is integrated into Kobo e-readers

Since Amazon acquired Goodreads, they have integrated Kindle and Goodreads. StoryGraph is currently partnering with Kobo on a similar integration. Starting in June, your progress will be synced to StoryGraph. When you finish reading a book on Kobo, it will be added to your Read shelf in StoryGraph. The goal is to allow Kobo users to seamlessly participate in StoryGraph challenges, continuous reading, and community features. Given Kobo’s status as a Kindle alternative and StoryGraph’s status as a Goodreads alternative, this seems like a great partnership, especially for readers who avoid Amazon.

Read more this AAPI Heritage Month

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To celebrate, we’ve curated a list of great books by AAPI authors that also tick off the 2026 Read Harder Challenge. Choose from non-binary fantasy series, anti-colonial gothic novels, Chinese-American romance novels, Native Hawaiian picture books, and more. Join All Access To read the full post!