London Book Fair roundup: Idris Elba’s sensational deal, the rise of romantic comedies, and the fight against censorship | London Book Fair

The annual London Book Fair concluded on Thursday, marking the end of three days that saw 33,000 people connected to the book industry – agents, publishers, authors and more – gather at Olympia to cut deals and discuss the state and future of the publishing world. Here’s our roundup of the biggest deals, trends and takeaways from the show.

The most stellar book deal of the week was a new thriller series he co-authored Idris Elbawhich features an MI6 field agent deployed to Mauritius to investigate an attempted murder. Elsewhere, rights have been taken away Alex FergusonThe first autobiography by a broadcaster in 13 years Mishal HusseinThe first children’s book and designer’s story Paul Smithlife.

It’s been a strong week for imaginary and Romcomwith acquisitions including journalist Moya Lothian MacLean’s “edgy, edgy romantic comedy”, Matchmakers, and two adult fantasy books by Shannon Chakraborty, acquired for a seven-figure sum. Topics driving non-fiction deals are included GLP-1s (Reset Appetite by Federica Amati), Sober curiosity (Hangxiety by Millie Gooch) and Assisted dying (The Struggle to the Death by Paul Brand).

the government National Year of Reading It was a major discussion point across dozens of talks and panels at the show. The Society of Publishers’ Dan Conway shared its origins: In late 2024, he was sitting in a windowless room in the House of Lords with the Penguin chair Gail Rebuck when she proposed the idea. Campaign director David Hayman provided an update on progress: they have so far recruited 16,000 of their targeted 100,000 volunteers. Reebok encouraged the international publishers in attendance to launch similar campaigns in their own countries using the UK’s “playbook”. However, a sobering note came from Rosemary Thomas of the National Literacy Endowment: “Behavior change doesn’t happen in one year,” framing the campaign as a “starting point” rather than a fix-it-all.

Some of the most complex and pressing questions facing contemporary publishing were discussed in the English PEN Literary Salon, where one such panel explored whether American-style book censorship spreads to the UK. While there is anecdotal evidence that librarians are increasingly facing removal requests, particularly for LGBTQ+ titles, a lack of data makes assessing the scale of the problem difficult. In the UK, challenges to book bans tend to be raised by individuals – parents, carers and school administrators “increasingly”, “rather than by organized groups as in the US, such as Mothers for Freedom”, Alison Hicks told the audience. An associate professor in library and information studies at University College London conducted a small qualitative study on book bans in the UK.

Louis Covet-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, stressed the need for better evidence. There is a sense of heightened censorship as the UK catches a cold due to the diseases America is currently suffering from. But we still rely too much on a few deeply troubling tales. He spoke alongside Juno Dawson, author of This Book is Gay, among the most banned books in the United States, and Faber associate publisher Louisa Joyner.

Another PEN talk focused on Rolling back on diversity, equity and inclusion In publishing. Selina Brown, who started the Black British Book Festival in 2021, said she sees fewer books by black authors being presented at pitch meetings with publishers each year. Some major publishers even said: We don’t have any books for you this year. They will never turn around and say: “We don’t have white books.” That would be crazy.” Brown spoke of “ingrained” stereotypes in the industry, that “certain communities are hard to reach – I’ve been told indirectly that ‘black people don’t read’.”

Author Nikesh Shukla said many books published in the wake of the 2020 killing of African-American man George Floyd were moved quickly “without a lot of editorial work” or support for the writers. Some authors who write about racism “may have felt like they had to focus on writing a book and they had a moment where maybe they wanted to write a science fiction book, or a picture book about friendship, or what have you.”

the The effect of tyranny Publishing was also a focus of English PEN. “Books are the absolute opposite” of tyranny, said Arabella Pike, publishing director at William Collins. I have defended books including Katherine Bilton’s Putin’s People and Tom Burgess’s Kleptopia from SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) intimidation measures.

Pike also published Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina, who was killed by a Russian missile in 2023 in Ukraine. She told the audience that after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, HarperCollins decided to continue selling books in Russia, unlike some other major publishers, on the basis that it was “extremely important” for Russian people to have access to fact-checked books that are not “distorted by censorship.” She also spoke of abuses of the English legal system by oligarchs with “very deep pockets”, and said libel laws “are in desperate need of reform”.

Authoritarian leaders “are very afraid of these things called books,” said Kit Fan, an author who renounced his Chinese citizenship. The “first thing” totalitarian governments do is “burn all records.” Dictators “are afraid of these things, because they know that no matter how many books they burn, how many people they try, these words, these stories, these poems are passed from one person to another.”