Chicago Sun-Times Prints Summer Reading List Full of Fake Books

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10 fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on social media. The newspaper's uncredited 'Summer reading list for 2025' supplement recommended titles including 'Tidewater Dreams' by Isabel Allende and 'The Last Algorithm' by Andy Weir -- books that don't exist and were created out of thin air by an AI system. The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media (paywalled) that he used AI to generate the content. 'I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses,' Buscaglia said. 'On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed.'

A check by Ars Technica shows that only five of the fifteen recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder being fabricated titles falsely attributed to well-known authors. On Tuesday morning, the Chicago Sun-Times addressed the controversy on Bluesky. 'We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak,' the official publication account wrote. 'It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.' In the supplement, the books listed by authors Isabel Allende, Andy Weir, Brit Bennett, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Min Jin Lee, Percival Everett, Delia Owens, Rumaan Alam, Rebecca Makkai, and Maggie O'Farrell are confabulated, while books listed by authors Francoise Sagan, Ray Bradbury, Jess Walter, Andre Aciman, and Ian McEwan are real. All of the authors are real people. 'The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a 'summer reads' feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?' wrote novelist Rachael King.

A Reddit user also expressed disapproval of the incident. 'As a subscriber, I am livid! What is the point of subscribing to a hard copy paper if they are just going to include AI slop too!? The Sun Times needs to answer for this, and there should be a reporter fired.'

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