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Let's get into it, shall we?

As we head into Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. (the unofficial start of summer), summer reading is heating up.

For many bookish content creators, our summer reading list is our hardest work of the year. This is the time of year when people read the most, so we want to provide you with our best recommendations!

In my first year blogging in 2020, I read over two dozen books with summer in the title to curate my list. Since then, I've read and updated the list yearly with as many new summer reads as possible. And I know other bloggers who plan their entire first half of the year around their list.

So, imagine the book world's surprise in learning that both the Chicago Sun-Times and my own Philadelphia Inquirer published, in print, an unchecked, AI-generated summer reading list with several books that do not exist and other factual errors, like pairing the wrong author with a book's title. Blatantly obvious to anyone who knows books!

And, boy, did readers sound off across social media! Some sentiments include:

• Shock that this happened at all
• Shock that this went unchecked by humans on several levels
• Confusion as to why AI generation was necessary when so many real people in the book industry would gladly provide real recommendations
• Disappointment that media space to promote real books and authors was wasted on junk content
• And so many more!

An internet friend told me I must feel vindicated for what I've known all along about big tech's hype of AI to the public's harm, and she couldn't be more spot on.

For 2+ years now, I've seen and experienced unregulated AI firsthand as a book blogger with my pulse on the tech industry. While it has many great and helpful uses, it's also spun out of control with zero safeguards.

For one, it's wiping out the writing industry. Big tech stole our content to train its AI systems and is now using its AI content to put us out of business--with bad content at that. It has been an incredibly bleak experience for us to lose most of our incomes, and I fear what industries are next.

But, on a positive note, this is a good firsthand example for the general public to learn about AI gone wrong: what it looks like and what it feels like. It requires us to be more discerning-- even of our own local newspapers. It's a tall order.

All that said, I hope to remain a trusted book source for you, and I appreciate your support of my work. I hope my 2025 summer reading list helps you have your best start to summer reading ever.

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Remember, it's a good day to read a book.

-Jules