AI firms targeting London’s rare book shops in ‘dystopian’ hunt for training data AI London’s rare book shops appear to have been targeted by AI companies searching for books to train their models, after court documents revealed Anthropic bought, scanned and destroyed millions of physical books as part of a controversial project to feed an insatiable demand for training data. One London-based seller of rare books told Morning Wire [...]
Book review: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow Life&Style No subject has made me go more hot and cold than AI. Some days, I open Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT, set tough tasks and am dumbstruck by the speed and accuracy of the results. Wow, this is the future, I think to myself. On other days, I ask something simple and they get it all [...]
Waterstones books Rothschild as IPO plans ramp up Markets The owner of Waterstones is preparing to appoint Rothschild to advise its multibillion-pound flotation later this year, offering the clearest sign yet that London could turn the page on a dire run of form if it edges out New York for the listing. Elliott Management, which owns Waterstones and its US sister Barnes & Noble, [...]
Bloomsbury: Profit falls at Harry Potter publisher despite sales rise May 22, 2025 Profit at Bloomsbury Publishing, the giant most known for the Harry Potter series, was cut by almost a fifth during its latest financial year despite revenue rising. The London-listed company has reported a pre-tax profit of £32.5m for the year to 28 February 2025, down from the £41.5m it achieved in the prior 12 months. [...]
Waterstones: Return to the office helps profit almost quadruple January 21, 2025 The return of employees to offices in major UK city centres helped profit almost quadruple at Waterstones during its latest financial year. The bookseller cited the trend of the return to work as a key factor in its pre-tax profit surging from £11.2m to £42.9m in the 12 months to 27 April, 2024. In newly-filed [...]
Prince Harry’s best-selling memoir Spare drives sales at book publishing giant September 25, 2024 The success of Prince Harry’s best-selling memoir Spare helped drive sales at book publishing giant Random House, it has been revealed. The business, which is part of the Penguin Random House group, saw its turnover jump by 13.2 per cent to £262.3m in 2023, helped also by the Board of Lunch series which focuses on [...]
Upside down art: Rachel Cusk turns fiction on its head in Parade July 2, 2024 Everyone is imagined! Parade questions the viability of character, finds Lucy Kenningham