AI-generated summer reading list gets published in major newspapers

Posted on May 20, 2025 in News

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Some newspapers around the country, including the Chicago Sun-Times and at least one edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer have published a syndicated summer book list that includes made-up books by famous authors.

Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende never wrote a book called Tidewater Dreams, described in the “Summer reading list for 2025” as the author’s “first climate fiction novel.”

Percival Everett, who won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, never wrote a book called The Rainmakers, supposedly set in a “near-future American West where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity.”

Only five of the 15 titles on the list are real.

Ray Bradbury, who coincidentally hated computers, did write Dandelion Wine, Jess Walter wrote Beautiful Ruins and Françoise Sagan penned the classic Bonjour Tristesse.

According to Victor Lim, marketing director for the Chicago Sun-Times’ parent company Chicago Public Media, the list was part of licensed content provided by King Features, a unit of the publisher Hearst Newspapers.