This story is so wild. It started, as these things often do, with a list. A sunny-season tradition: the trusted newspaper summer reading list. But this year, one went viral for all the wrong reasons.
The Chicago Sun-Times published a feature recommending new books for summer 2025. Just five of the 15 titles were real. Ray Bradbury wrote Dandelion Wine, Jess Walter penned Beautiful Ruins and Françoise Sagan Bonjour Tristesse.
The rest? Pure fiction. Literally. Titles like Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende (which she never wrote) and The Rainmakers by Pulitzer-winner Percival Everett (also fake) were invented by AI and published as if they were real.