Monday a broad coalition including Texas bookstores, national booksellers, authors and publishers filed an appellate brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, requesting that it affirm the preliminary injunction of the “Reader Act” (formerly HB 900) granted by Judge Alan D. Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. The Reader Act would require independent bookstores, national chain bookstores, large online book retailers, book publishers and other vendors to review and rate millions of books and other library materials according to sexual content if those books are sold to school libraries, and to do so according to vague labels dictated by the state without any process for judicial review. On September 18th of this year, Judge Albright issued a written opinion granting a preliminary injunction, ruling that the Act “likely violates the First Amendment by containing an unconstitutional prior restraint, compelled speech, and unconstitutional vagueness.” The State defendants filed an appeal later that day. Oral argument is scheduled for Wednesday, November 29th.

The lack of a breakout print hit did not prevent unit sales in the first half of 2017 from being 3% higher than in the first six months of last year, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan (which captures 80%–85% of print unit sales). Units for the January–June period in 2017 were 310.7 million, up from 302.8 million a year ago. Just as it was in the first six months of 2016, the backlist favorite Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss was the most popular title in the first half of this year, selling more than 482,000 copies (up from 458,000 copies in January–June 2016). All four of the major segments did better this year than in the first six months of 2016. Juvenile fiction had the best performance, with unit sales up 5%. In addition to higher sales of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, the segment benefitted from strong sales of two editions of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, which together sold approximately 500,000 print copies. The animal category had the biggest gain among juvenile fiction segments, with sales up 21%. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Global logistics service provider UPS (NYSE: UPS) and the Hong Kong Airport Authority have entered into an agreement that improves UPS service to customers and enhances the company’s operations in Asia with a new hub at the Hong Kong International Airport and near the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. The new hub will serve as UPS Hong Kong’s main facility for processing and sorting imports, exports, and transshipments, to and from Europe, the U.S., and other parts of Asia. The hub is expected to be completed by 2028 and will be built on a land parcel of 20,000 square metres with direct access to aircraft. The facility is being designed to handle close to 1 million tons of annual capacity, giving UPS and its customers around the world better and more reliable connectivity to Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area1, and the growing Asia Pacific consumer market.