NEW BOOKS and REVIEWS ARCHIVE [page 1]
 
MORRISSEY WANTS TO 'SET RECORD STRAIGHT' WITH MEMOIR [CBC, 10/25/08]
Britain's Steven Patrick Morrissey, the former lead singer of the Smiths and now a solo singer-songwriter, has announced he is writing his memoirs. Morrissey said he wants to set the record straight with his fans, without having to deal with the media. "With every printed interview, there's lots of misquotes," he said in an interview with the BBC. "Lots of them are really silly and really extreme, which you have to live with the rest of your life. So it's setting the record straight." Morrissey is known for his criticism of political leaders, such as Margaret Thatcher and George W. Bush and has been outspoken against the seal hunt and in favour of vegetarianism. In 2006, he refused to perform in Canada in protest against the seal hunt. He has also conducted feuds with others in the music industry, including a lawsuit by drummer Mark Joyce, a diatribe against the Band-Aid humanitarian project and the dismissal of singers such as Madonna and Elton John as empty and pointless. "So much crap is written about me, and it's quite hard to live with sometimes, because it all gets burned down in history and becomes part of whatever it is you are, the legacy, and it becomes very annoying," Morrissey said in the BBC interview. He did not announce a publisher or publication date for his memoir. Morrissey is working on a new album, Year of Refusal, to be released February, 2009.
 
PERSECUTED WRITERS REMEMBERED AT TORONTO LITERARY FESTIVAL [CBC, 10/23/08]
It's been a long road back for journalist Zdenka Acin. Ten years after she was expelled from Yugoslavia, now Serbia and Montenegro, by warlord Slobodan Milosevic, the former television host has been appointed PEN Canada lecturer-in-residence at George Brown College. "Milosevic actually expelled me from my homeland and I lost everything I had earned as a high professional person — I lost my career, I lost my homeland and I found a new homeland in Canada," she said Wednesday, October 22 in an interview with CBC News. Acin is one of the writers-in-exile helped by PEN Canada, which holds its annual gala to open the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Wednesday evening, October 22, 2008. PEN is celebrating its 25th anniversary of fighting for freedom of expression around the world. Acin, host of the television show Press Club, had her show removed from the airwaves three times and was fired from several jobs at magazines for her outspoken brand of journalism. "The art of good questions is like revealing the other side of the moon, the dark side of the moon," Acin said. "My questions always were more dangerous than the answers themselves. I always wanted to be provocative. I always wanted to reveal truth which was hidden for political or historical or any other reasons." As part of its ceremonies Wednesday, PEN Canada plans to honour Burmese writer Maung Thura with its One Humanity Award. A comedian and activist who works under the name Zargana, Thura has been arrested many times by the military junta in Burma, also known as Myanmar, and served four years in solitary confinement. He has been in jail since June 2008, after being arrested for criticizing Burma's response to Cyclone Nargis. An empty chair will remain on stage during every reading and presentation at the IFOA in honour of Zargana. The empty chair is a longtime collaboration between PEN Canada and the festival to acknowledge a writer who is not free to travel to the literary festival. Pen's benefit features a talk between Canadian screenwriter Don McKellar and Irish writer Roddy Doyle. Readings, roundtables and panel discussions at the IFOA begin Thursday and run until Nov. 1, 2008. Among the highlights of the festival are readings by Giller-nominated writers Joseph Boyden, Marina Endicott and Rawi Hage and by selected nominees for the Governor General's Awards in Literature.
 
HAGE, RICCI TO VIE FOR GOVENOR GENERAL'S LITERARY HONOURS [CBC, 10/22/08]
Rawi Hage's second novel, Cockroach, will compete in the Governor General's Literary Awards with novels by previous winners Nino Ricci and David Adams Richards. They were among 70 writers nominated Tuesday, October 21 for Canada's oldest literary awards, which come with a cash prize of $25,000 each. Other nominees in the English fiction category were Rivka Galchen, originally of Toronto, for her debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, and Fred Stenson of Cochrane, Alta., for The Great Karoo. Hage's "Cockroach", about an immigrant to Montreal coping with poverty and his own violent past, is also nominated for the Giller Prize. The Montreal-based writer won the IMPAC Dublin Award for his first novel, De Niro's Game. Toronto-based Ricci, who won the Governor General's Literary Award for Lives of the Saints in 1990, has been nominated for The Origin of Species, set in Montreal in the 1980s. Richards, a Giller winner and two-time recipient of the Governor General's Award, is nominated for The Lost Highway, a psychological thriller set in his native Miramichi, N.B. The English non-fiction list includes works by Globe and Mail reporter Christie Blatchford and international humanitarian James Orbinski, who accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières. The non-fiction nominees are: Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army by Christie Blatchford, the stories of Canadian men and women serving in Afghanistan. God's Mercies: Rivalry, Betrayal and the Dream of Discovery by Douglas Hunter of Port McNicoll, Ont., whose book tells the exploration stories of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain. The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek by Sid Marty of Lundbreck, Alta., a story of the interactions between a single bear and a small town. An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the 21st Century by Toronto's James Orbinski, a firsthand perspective on humanitarian work. The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need by Chris Turner of Calgary, which looks at projects around the world that improve the environment. Nominees were also selected for drama, English-language children's literature, illustration, translation from French to English and English-language poetry.  The winners of the 2008 Governor General's Literary Awards will be announced Nov. 18, 2008 in Montreal.
 
"THE WAY I AM": EMINEM TELLS ALL IN HIS NEW MEMOIR [AP, 10/20/08]
Guess who's back? Shady's back. So is Eminem, and Marshall Mathers, too. Whatever you might call him, the man recently named the "best rapper alive" by a poll of Vibe magazine readers has returned in a major way. The 36-year-old superstar's re-emergence comes four years after his last studio album, three years after he was treated for a sleep medication dependency and two years since the violent death of his best friend and the collapse of a second marriage to his childhood sweetheart. His new track, "I'm Having a Relapse," has caused a stir on the Web and is fueling talk of a new record and maybe even a tour. But before Eminem moves forward musically, he first is taking a step back with a memoir out Tuesday, October 21 that shares quite a few revelations about a man whose autobiographical lyrics have tantalized fans for years. In "The Way I Am," the man born Marshall Bruce Mathers III takes readers into his painful childhood and adolescence and inside the studio and beyond as the former Detroit factory floor sweeper and short-order cook enters the rap game and becomes a worldwide hip-hop sensation. The book is 200-plus pages worth of text, behind-the-scenes photographs and reproductions of Eminem's original lyric sheets — hotel stationery and other scraps of paper he used to scratch out partial verses of the songs that would make him famous: From "My Name Is" and "Stan" to "Lose Yourself" and "Without Me." Eminem may not love being in the public eye, but he loves music, and that's drawn him out, said publisher Brian Tart, president of Dutton Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The book kicks off with a prologue that provides one of the reasons Eminem has shunned the spotlight for the past few years. He describes in-depth just how difficult it has been for him to come to grips with the loss of his longtime best friend and fellow rapper Proof (Deshaun Holton), who was gunned down at a Detroit after-hours club in April 2006. It was Proof, he says, who not only urged him to become an emcee, but also served as a "ghetto pass" — allowing the white Eminem the street cred he needed to enter Detroit's black-dominated hip-hop scene. "If Proof hadn't gotten me ... into the rap game, I don't know where I'd be," he writes. "I certainly wouldn't be someone you've heard of." But millions of people have heard of him, and the 2002 semi-autobiographical film, "8 Mile."
 
COUNTRY SINGER TIM McGRAW CO-WRITES CHILDREN'S BOOK [Aceshowbiz, 10/20/08]
Willing to share his experience as a father of three young daughters with any other fathers out there, Tim McGraw co-writes a children's book with writer Tom Douglas. The book, titled "My Little Girl," tells the story of a father who spends a fun day with his little girl, Katie, stopping by the farm, laying in the grass, gazing at the clouds and playing on a tire swing, the Associated Press reports. McGraw, who openly admits he enjoys spending time with his daughters; Gracie Katherine (b. 1997), Maggie Elizabeth (b. 1998) and Audrey Caroline (b. 2001), states he doesn't always do what the girls love to do, like shopping at the mall or getting pedicures. "It's something that as a father you kind of have to sacrifice what you want to do, because boys do what you want to do. If I want to go to the farm and shoot guns or ride four-wheelers in the mud when it's 40 degrees ... the girls aren't really interested in doing that," he explains. The country music singer, moreover, advices other fathers to get their children involved in their regular routines, like "running to the grocery store or stopping by the office." "My Little Girl", meanwhile, is set to be published Tuesday, October 21 by Thomas Nelson Publishers. It will also be made available for purchase at Barnes & Noble for $16.99. As stated on his official website, McGraw will be at the Barnes & Noble in New York on 555 Fifth Avenue at 46th Street at 6 P.M. EST Thursday, October 23 to sign copies of "My Little Girl". Attendees who want to get the star's autograph are required to bring 2 copies of the book at the maximum. Gracie, Maggie, and Audrey are McGraw's daughters with his country music singer wife Faith Hill. The celebrity couple has been married since October 1996.
 
FACED WITH DEATH THREAT, WRITER OF MAFIA BOOK LEAVING ITALY [AP, 10/19/08]
The author of a book examining how the Mafia operates in Naples, Italy, says he's leaving his country after spending two years in hiding. Roberto Saviano has been under 24-hour police protection since his book Gomorra came out in 2006. It has since become a massive bestseller in Italy and been translated into 42 languages. The film adaptation won second prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival in France. Saviano told the daily La Repubblica that he's planning to leave the country after reports surfaced that the Neapolitan Mafia, known locally as the Camorra, is stepping up its plans to assassinate him by Christmas. "I shall leave Italy, at least for a period and then we'll see," said the author, who has faced repeated death threats from the Casalesi crime clan of Naples. "I want a life. I want a home. I want to fall in love. I want to [be able to] drink a beer in public, go to a bookshop and choose a book after browsing the back cover," said the 28-year-old writer. "I want to go for a walk, enjoy the sun, walk in the rain and see my mother without fear — and without frightening her." He compared his life in hiding to that of imprisoned crime boss Francesco Schiavone, head of the Casalesi. "He deserved it," said Saviano. "But what has been my crime?" Saviano, who comes from Naples, said he can't be a writer if he's not living in the real world and felt he had deteriorated as a person. "In private I become an unlovely person — suspicious, wary and, yes, mistrustful to a completely irrational degree," he noted. "My humanity had been impoverished."
 
MARTIN LUTHER KING SIBLINGS TRY TO JUSTIFY SUIT [AP, 10/19/08]
The Rev. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III haven't spoken to their brother in months, and their painful family feud has kept Dexter King from meeting his only niece, his two remaining siblings said Saturday, October 18. The middle children of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King told The Associated Press that the ongoing fight may seem at odds with their parents' peacemaking example. But they maintain their decision to face their brother in court, though difficult, is in keeping with what they were taught. "No one wants to be at this place," Martin Luther King III said, adding that negotiation and direct action are part of the non-violent strategy espoused by his parents. "Certainly, Bernice and I would not want to be here, but we didn't have a choice. We were not able to get a resolution to the conflict we are engaged in. My father also used the court system." "This was a very agonizing decision for us because we are family," Bernice King added. The three surviving King children have looked more like adversaries than siblings in recent months as they struggle to settle three lawsuits. On Tuesday, lawyers for Dexter King asked a judge to demand that Bernice King — as administrator of her mother's estate — turn over personal papers, including love letters between the civil rights icons. The case is ongoing in Atlanta civil court, and the judge has appointed a special master to catalogue dozens of boxes belonging to Coretta Scott King. Control of the documents is threatening to derail a $1.4 million book deal with New York publisher Penguin Group for a memoir about the civil rights matriarch. Bernice and Martin Luther King III both say that the book goes against their mother's wishes. And they say it exemplifies how her brother has effectively shut them out of the corporation that controls their father's legacy. "It's almost like a dictatorship," Martin Luther King III said. "That's how it felt to us." Craig Frankel, one of the attorneys representing Dexter as CEO of King Inc., did not immediately return a phone message Saturday evening. But Dexter King said Tuesday that he was not an instigator in the feud, which he called "a power struggle between siblings" that did not honor the spirit of his parents. However, he did express hope that the conflict could be resolved. "Healing takes time. We do love each other," Dexter King said. "We were raised in a loving family. I think that will prevail." He and his sister acknowledged that their rift with Dexter King has developed over several years. In the past, when they disagreed, they respectfully deferred to their mother. Coretta Scott King's death in 2006 — and the sudden death of their sister, Yolanda, in 2007 — failed to bring Dexter King closer to his siblings. Instead, they have become increasingly estranged. Yet all three maintain hope for reconciliation. "One would hope that through tragedy, ultimately, people become closer," Martin Luther King III said. "That has not happened yet. It's something we have to work towards. But we have to resolve these issues first." Bernice King said she loves and has forgiven her brother. "I want something different because I know who he is," she said, adding that she has not spoken to Dexter King in nearly a year. "I really want my brother back ... but the trust, for me, that's where there's a problem." Martin Luther King III said he has not spoken to his brother since June. He also said Dexter King — who lives in Malibu, Calif. — has yet to see his niece, Yolanda. "He's the only uncle," Martin Luther King III said, his voice filled with emotion at the mention of his first child, whom he said sometimes looks like Dexter King. "It's tough from that standpoint." Even as they have grown apart from their brother, Bernice and Martin Luther King III say the challenges of the past two years have improved their relationship with each other. "Now, we talk many times every day," Martin Luther King III said. "This has brought us closer. That is where we need to be with our brother." For now, their legal troubles stand in the way. But they are not trying to keep their mother's story from being told, Bernice King said. "We don't have a problem with the memoir being done," she said. "The question is how is it being done." Dexter King negotiated the contract with Penguin Group as chief executive officer of King Inc. — the corporation established to manage their father's estate — without his siblings, who said Coretta Scott King decided against using author and minister Barbara Reynolds, and never settled on a new writer for the book. "Nobody has the monopoly on Martin and Coretta Scott King," Bernice King said. "This is ours, and it should be governed that way."
 
FERNANDO SAVATER WINS SPAIN'S RICHEST LITERARY PRIZE [AP, 10/18/08]
A detective novel by Spanish writer and philosopher Fernando Savater has won the lucrative Premio Planeta literary prize, which comes with an award of 601,000 euros ($962,260 Cdn). Savater was declared the winner Wednesday evening, October 17 at a ceremony in Barcelona for his novel La Hermandad de la Buena Suerte, which means "The Brotherhood of Good Luck." The book, which has not yet been translated into English, is about a rich man who hires mercenaries to find a jockey who disappears before a big horse race in which he was to ride the favoured mount. Savater is a Basque-born political activist who spent the Franco years in exile in France and has been a critic of Basque separatist terrorism. He is currently an ethics professor at the University of Basque Country. He is the author of more than 20 novels and books of philosophy. More than 500 writers, including novelists from the U.S., Mexico and Argentina, entered the annual contest. The Premio Planeta has been awarded since 1952 by the publisher Planeta to the best new book published in Spanish.
 
MATTHIESSEN, ROBINSON AMONG BOOK AWARD FINALISTS [AP, 10/16/08]
Talk about second chances: Peter Matthiessen, 81, received a National Book Award nomination Wednesday, October 15 for "Shadow Country," an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s. Others in the fiction category included Marilynne Robinson for "Home," a companion novel to her Pulitzer Prize-winning "Gilead"; Aleksandar Hemon for "The Lazarus Project"; and debut authors Salvatore Scibona ("The End") and Rachel Kushner ("Telex From Cuba"). Among the nonfiction finalists were Jane Mayer for "The Dark Side," an investigation into the war against terrorism, and Annette Gordon-Reed's "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." Richard Howard and Mark Doty were nominees for poetry, while Laurie Halse Anderson was cited for young people's literature. Winners, each of whom receive $10,000, will be announced Nov. 19, 2008 at a ceremony hosted by author-performance artist Eric Bogosian. Honorary prizes will be given to author Maxine Hong Kingston and publisher Barney Rosset. Matthiessen, long known as an environmentalist, travel writer and spiritualist, is among the oldest writers to receive a fiction nomination. He won a National Book Award in 1979 for his nonfiction "The Snow Leopard," and in the 1950s was a founder of the Paris Review. His other novels include "Far Tortuga," "Race Rock" and "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," adapted into a feature film of the same name. Matthiessen worked for years condensing and reorganizing "Killing Mr. Watson," "Lost Man's River" and "Bone by Bone". Besides Mayer and Gordon-Reed, the non-fiction finalists were Jim Sheeler's "Final Salute," Joan Wickersham's "The Suicide Index" and Drew Gilpin Faust's Civil War history, "This Republic of Suffering." In poetry, the nominees were Frank Bidart, for "Watching the Spring Festival"; Doty, "Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems"; Reginald Gibbons' "Creatures of a Day"; Howard's "Without Saying"; and Patricia Smith, for "Blood Dazzler." The young people's literature finalists were Anderson's "Chains," Kathi Appelt's "The Underneath," Judy Blundell's "What I Saw and How I Lied," E. Lockhart's "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" and Tim Tharp, for "The Spectacular Now." Founded in 1950, the awards are sponsored by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization that offers numerous educational and literary programs.
 
FIRST TIME AUTHOR ADIGA WINS BOOKER PRIZE [AP, 10/15/08]
First-time Indian novelist Aravind Adiga on Tuesday, October 14 won the Man Booker Prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary awards, with "The White Tiger." The 33-year-old is only the third debut novelist to claim the award in the Booker's 40-year history and one of its youngest winners. He receives a cheque for 50,000 pounds ($88,000) and can expect not only overnight literary fame but also a significant spike in book sales in the runup to Christmas. Booker organizers say last year's winner, Anne Enright, has sold around 500,000 copies of "The Gathering," largely due to the prize. The White Tiger is published by Atlantic Books. Michael Portillo, chairman of the five-member judging panel, praised "The White Tiger" for tackling important social and political issues in modern-day India. "For many of us this was entirely new territory -- the dark side of India. "It's a book that gains from dealing with very important social issues -- the divisions between rich and poor and the impossibility of the poor escaping from their lot in India. "It tackles these global issues and social issues with tremendous humor, and it is a book which is extremely readable. It is his first novel, and I imagine (this prize) will come as rather good news to Aravind Adiga." The White Tiger follows Balram Halwai, the son of a rickshaw puller whose dream of escaping poverty of his village takes him on a journey to the bright lights of Delhi and Bangalore, where he will do almost anything to get to the top. Portillo said the central character was sympathetic while also being "absolutely vile and absolutely unrepentant," and likened him to Shakespeare's tragic hero Macbeth. He added: "The overarching evil is poverty, the chicken coop from which the poor not only can't escape but have no wish or ambition to escape." Adiga said his attempts to give literary voice to those who are being written out of the narratives of our time -- the poor." He beat the bookmakers' favorite Sebastian Barry of Ireland "The Secret Scripture." Also nominated were India's Amitav Ghosh "Sea of Poppies," Britons Linda Grant "The Clothes on Their Backs" and Philip Hensher "The Northern Clemency" and Australian-born Steve Toltz's "A Fraction of the Whole." Adiga is the third debut novelist to claim the prize, after Arundhati Roy in 1997 and DBC Pierre in 2003. He is the second youngest winner after Ben Okri, who won in 1991 aged 32.
 
McCORMICK TELLS ALL ABOUT 'BRADY,' DRUG ADDICTION [AP, 10/14/08]
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Fans of "The Brady Bunch" know Maureen McCormick as Marcia Brady, the wholesome older sister on the classic sitcom about a blended family. But in her new memoir, "Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice," the actress writes of her romance with TV sibling Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady, dates with Michael Jackson and Steve Martin, and her many addictions. Things became hot and heavy while McCormick and Williams were filming episodes in Hawaii. "We couldn't hold back any longer," she writes in the book published by William Morrow. "It was our first kiss, and it was long, passionate and deep. It was wonderful, too, though as we continued to kiss and press against each other so closely that we could feel each other's body heat, a part of me — a tiny part, admittedly — said to myself, 'Oh my God! I'm kissing my brother. What am I doing?'" Now 52, McCormick — who endured a battle with drug addiction and depression — also discusses her dates with Martin and Jackson. It was several years after "The Brady Bunch" ended that McCormick went out with Martin, who had asked for the actress' phone number through friend Chevy Chase. "I remember him being a very good kisser," McCormick writes about Martin. "But I was insecure and either high or spaced out (most likely both), and I didn't laugh at his jokes. "Though Steve was too polite and confident of his talent to say anything, I'm sure my inability to carry on a normal conversation or respond intelligently put him off," she writes. McCormick's time with Jackson was innocent. They met while she was starring on "Brady" and he was part of the Jackson 5. In the book, hitting stores Tuesday, October 14, she discusses cocaine binges and parties at the Playboy Mansion and the home of Sammy Davis Jr., an unwanted pregnancy and trading sex for drugs. McCormick was 14 when "The Brady Bunch" debuted on ABC, running from 1969 to 1974. Despite her role as a sunny Miss Perfect, she grappled privately with anxiety and insecurity, the youngest of four children born to a mercurial father who abused and cheated on their mother. 
 
"BOOKER PRIZE" MEANS CASH AS MUCH AS KUDOS FOR AUTHORS [Reuters, 10/14/08]
Whatever the winner of the 40th Booker Prize says, victory at the awards ceremony in London on Tuesday, October 14 is as much about cash as literary kudos. The annual award for the best novel in English by a writer from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth counts, because it helps the winning book sell tens of thousands of extra copies, while an appearance on the shortlist means thousands more sales. Little wonder publishers cherish the prize, first held in 1969 to rival France's Prix Goncourt which ensured sales of up to 300,000 copies for the victor. "When you walk into a bookstore and see your novel smothered by the gazillions of other books there, like seeing your child overwhelmed by all the other kids in the playground, you want something to help them stand out," said Steve Toltz, one of this year's six shortlisted novelists with "A Fraction of the Whole." "A Booker shortlisting will do that." Mohsin Hamid, whose "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" was shortlisted in 2007 but did not win, said his book had performed poorly in Britain before the nominees were read out. "In my case, we went from something like a very few single digit thousand copies before the prize was announced to something closer to 200,000 by the end of this year in the UK," he told Reuters. "It has been the same book throughout this process. That's for me why prizes are valuable." This year's overwhelming favorite with the bookmakers is "The Secret Scripture," by Dublin-born writer Sebastian Barry, followed by "Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh, one of two Indian nominees alongside Aravind Adiga with "The White Tiger." Also on the 2008 shortlist is Linda Grant's "The Clothes on Their Backs," Philip Hensher's "The Northern Clemency" and Toltz's "A Fraction of the Whole." Despite its prestige, the Man Booker Prize commercially plays second fiddle to the Richard & Judy Book Club, set up by celebrity television couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan and based on the format established by U.S. chat show host Oprah Winfrey. An appearance on their list is seen as the holy grail for British authors and publishers alike, catapulting sales to several hundred thousand copies in some cases.
 
HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS TELL LOVE STORY [AP, 10/13/08]
In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple. He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man. She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began. As they tell it, they returned the following day and she tossed an apple again. And each day after that, for months, the routine continued. She threw, he caught, and both scurried away. They never knew one another's name, never uttered a single word, so fearful they'd be spotted by a guard. Until one day he came to the fence and told her he wouldn't be back. "I won't see you anymore," she said. "Right, right. Don't come around anymore," he answered. And so their brief and innocent tryst came to an end. Or so they thought. * * * Before he was shipped off to a death camp, before the girl with the apples appeared, Herman Rosenblat's life had already changed forever. His family had been forced from their home into a ghetto. His father fell ill with typhus.They smuggled a doctor in, but there was little he could do to help. The man knew what was coming. He summoned his youngest son. "If you ever get out of this war," Rosenblat remembers him saying, "don't carry a grudge in your heart and tolerate everybody." Two days later, the father was dead. Herman was just 12. * * * It was in Schlieben, Germany, that Rosenblat and the girl he later called his angel would meet. Roma Radziki worked on a nearby farm and the boy caught her eye. * * *It all seems too remarkable to be believed. Rosenblat insists it is all true. Now, the Rosenblats' story has inspired a children's book, "Angel Girl." And eventually, there are plans to turn it into a film, "The Flower of the Fence." Herman expects to publish his memoirs next year. Michael Berenbaum, a distinguished Holocaust scholar who has authored a dozen books, has read Rosenblatt's memoir and sees no reason to question it. "I wasn't born then so I can't say I was an eyewitness. But it's credible," Berenbaum said. "Crazier things have happened." Herman is now 79, and Roma is three years his junior; they celebrated their 50th anniversary this summer. 
 
AUTHOR RUSHDIE WINS JOYCE AWARD [BBC, 10/12/08]
Author Sir Salman Rushdie has been honoured by an Irish university with an award in memory of his greatest inspiration - writer James Joyce. Accepting the James Joyce Award at University College Dublin, Sir Salman said he said he had learnt "a daring of language" from Joyce. Previous winners include author Bill Bryson, comedy actor Will Ferrell and ex-footballer Gary Lineker. Sir Salman's Midnight's Children won the Best of the Booker prize in July. After a public vote, his 1981 book beat five other former Booker winners, shortlisted from the prize's 40-year history. The Indian-born author told students: "My little contribution has been to create an Indian English to go alongside the Irish English, Caribbean English and Australian English." He also read a passage from latest novel The Enchantress of Florence. Sir Salman went into hiding in 1989 after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. The book sparked widespread protests by Muslims and Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him. The author returned to public life in 1998.
 
SEVEN-FIGURE BOOK DEAL FOR SIMON PEGG [BBC, 10/12/08]
Film and TV actor Simon Pegg has signed a publishing deal worth seven figures to write three non-fiction books. The Hot Fuzz star's first title will be a memoir about his career and is due to come out in 2009. The second book is expected to be humorous, while the third is a "highly illustrated, lavishly-produced title", according to Hodder and Stoughton. Pegg, who is to play Scotty in next year's Star Trek film, stars in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. The Hollywood comedy topped the UK and Ireland box office this week. Pegg's memoirs, which have yet to be titled, will cover his career from his first stand-up performance to working with collaborators Jessica Stevenson and Nick Frost on projects including Spaced and Shaun of The Dead. His subsequent books are due to be published in 2010 and 2011. The publisher plans to sell the rights to the books in the US, where he is gaining recognition thanks to his work in Hollywood.
 
GAY AUTHOR UNWELCOME TO ADDRESS N.B. STUDENTS [CBC, 10/11/08]
A plan to have an acclaimed gay author speak to students in Charlotte County high schools has been scrapped after a few parents objected. Alex Sanchez writes books about gay youth and their struggle to find acceptance, but local school principals were not comfortable allowing him to address their students. Jay Remer, spokesman for the Charlotte County Rainbow Support Group, said Sanchez is a terrific public speaker whose message is about tolerance. He said Sanchez’s mission is “to help the gay youth in the community to feel less isolated and more part of the community as a whole.” Remer’s group is one of the sponsors bringing Sanchez, who lives in Florida, to New Brunswick. "The idea was to try and have an audience of maybe as many as 1,500 students," Remer said. But Sanchez won’t be able to spread his message in School District 10 because some parents have pressured principals, he said. Keith Pierce, District 10 superintendent, said he changed his mind about allowing the author to speak in area schools after meeting with school principals. "A few of them were getting pressure from a few parents, and they just weren’t comfortable going in that direction," Pierce said. Some principals felt their schools were just “not ready” for the kind of presentation that Sanchez will give, he said. In 2002, the American Library Association named Sanchez’s book Rainbow Boys to the list of Best Books for Young Adults. Sanchez is still coming to New Brunswick. He will give a presentation at Wesley United Church in St. Andrews.
 
WOULD-BE KING BIOGRAPHER CAUGHT IN SIBLING FEUD [AP, 10/11/08]
An author and minister who spent hours interviewing Coretta Scott King for her biography said Friday, October 10 that she may abandon the project because of the drawn-out, public legal feud among the King siblings. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the Rev. Barbara Reynolds said she did not want the 30-year relationship she shared with the civil rights matriarch tarnished by the ongoing fight among the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s children. "She was a woman of dignity, but I don't see anything dignified about all of this," Reynolds said, noting that she'd like to finish the book with the family's blessing. "I just may walk away and refuse to write anything. I'm not going to soil that relationship nor that memory." The siblings are expected to appear Tuesday, October 14 in Fulton County court to argue over who should have control of several personal papers, including intimate correspondences between their parents, that could be part of a $1.4 million publishing deal negotiated by Dexter King as head of his father's estate. The lawsuit — one of three involving the Kings filed since July — could derail Reynolds' book deal. New York-based publisher Penguin Group is threatening to yank the contract if the papers are not turned over by Oct. 17. Reynolds, who now lives in Maryland, said she's caught in the middle. "I'm just a little fish out here that's in the way of this battle for control that's going on," Reynolds said. "I am sure neither Dr. King nor Mrs. King would ever want me to disturb anybody's peace like this or be a part of any public war." Reynolds said her relationship with the Kings began in the 1970s, when Mrs. King invited her to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and she wrote a story about it while working as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Lin Wood, the attorney representing the estate of Martin Luther King Jr. — known as King Inc. — did not immediately return a phone message left at his office Friday afternoon. Reynolds said she does not plan to attend next week's court hearing, though she said she was asked to come. But Reynolds said she does not want to be involved and does not talk to any of the King children. But she also said she and Bernice King — who is also a minister — should be able to work out their differences so the book can be finished. "My prayer is that somehow God will touch Bernice to understand that I'm not her enemy," Reynolds said. "There's no group of people in the world I respect more than the Kings."
 
AUTHOR POSTPONES BRITISH RELEASE OF "THE JEWEL OF MEDINA" [CBC, 10/11/08]
American writer Sherry Jones has decided to postpone the U.K. publication of her novel The Jewel of Medina and has cancelled a publicity tour to London planned for next week. Publisher Gibson Square announced the change Friday, October 10 saying it respects Jones's decision. Last weekend, the London building that serves as Gibson Square offices and the home of publisher Martin Rygja was targeted with a firebomb. After the bombing, Jones said she wanted to proceed with the U.K. release of her book, a first-person narrative telling the story of the Prophet Mohammad's favourite wife, Aisha. She appears to have reversed her decision, but Gibson Square has not outlined her reasons. "It is not an easy call for any author, particularly in the case of a debut novel that attracts so much attention from the British media," the publisher said in a statement. "We appreciate that she will continue to make time available to any interested British groups to dispel misinformation about The Jewel of Medina." London's Gibson Square said publication of the book in Germany and Italy is going ahead. It invited discussion of the book by groups that might be concerned it would offend religious sensibilities. "We hope that they will get in touch with us to receive further information about her hopes for her novel to foster greater understanding of Islam for Western readers," the publisher said. "Despite the controversy of the past two weeks, Sherry Jones's intention remains as it was from the start to engage with a current debate in a positive way." No future date for publishing in Britain was set. Random House initially agreed to publish the debut novel in August, but backed down when it was told the book might incite violence. Beaufort Books and Gibson Square are among several smaller publishers around the world who subsequently bought rights to the book. 
 
FRANCE'S Le CLEZIO WINS NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE [AFP, 10/10/08]
French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, whose vast world travels form the poetic and descriptive backdrop for his body of work, on Thursday, October 9 won the 2008 Nobel Literature Prize. The Swedish Academy hailed Le Clezio, 68, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." The newest Nobel laureate is one of the French writers best known outside his country and one of the most wide-ranging in his choice of subject matter. The Academy cited his novel "Revolutions" from 2003 as summing up "the most important themes of his work: memory, exile, the reorientations of youth, cultural conflict." Le Clezio is an avid traveller, and his fiction is as likely to be set in Mexico or the Sahara as in Paris or London. With his first novel, "Le Proces-Verbal" (1963, The Interrogation), published when he was only 23, Le Clezio was seen as a newcomer to the Nouveau Roman (New Novel) movement spearheaded by Alain Robbe-Grillet. A passionate admirer of two other great travellers, Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad, Le Clezio won the Renaudot award in 1963 for "Le Proces-Verbal," France's second most prestigious literary award after the Goncourt prize. His latest novel "Ritournelle de la faim" (Same Old Story about Hunger) released this year has been hailed as breaking new ground, exploring French guilt over its wartime past. Le Clezio was born in the Riviera city of Nice on April 13, 1940 to an English father and French mother; the family had roots in both Brittany and the Indian Ocean island state of Mauritius. He went on to study literature, and taught briefly at the universities of London and Bristol. Married and the father of two daughters, he and his wife now share their time between Albuquerque, New Mexico, the island of Mauritius, and Nice. Earlier this year, he won Sweden's Stig Dagerman literary prize, a distinction he shares with Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek who took the honours in 2004 before going on to win the Nobel later the same year. Le Clezio said he planned to travel to Stockholm to receive that prize on October 25, before returning on December 10, 2008 to receive the Nobel diploma, medal and a cheque for 10 million kronor (1.02 million euros, 1.42 million dollars) at a gala ceremony.
 
MASSACHUSETTS JUDGE REJECTS HOLOCAUST MEMOIR SUIT [AP, 10/10/08]
A woman who admitted fabricating a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust by living with wolves cannot be sued by her former publisher because the lawsuit was filed too late, a Massachusetts judge ruled. Middlesex Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley on Tuesday, October 7 dismissed the lawsuit filed by publisher Jane Daniel, saying she had missed a one-year statute of limitations. Daniel sued Misha Defonseca, author of the 1997 book "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," and her ghostwriter Vera Lee to overturn a $32.4 million court judgment they had won against her in an earlier fight over profits. Daniel argued that because the story was false, Defonseca "perpetrated a hoax" on the trial judge and the jury. Defonseca's book was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France. Feeley wrote in his ruling that the authenticity of the memoir was not an issue in the earlier court battle between Defonseca and Daniel. "Defonseca's fraud, misrepresentations, and misconduct did not go to the heart of the case," he said. Daniel's lawyer, Joseph Orlando, said he plans to appeal the ruling. Daniel contends that the jury at the 2001 trial would not have issued a verdict against her if they had known that Defonseca made up the story. "The poor, poor Holocaust survivor and the evil publisher who had victimized her — that's how it was characterized in the trial, and that's what's being allowed to stand," Daniel said Thursday. Defonseca and Lee could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. Lee's attorney, Frank Frisoli, said he was not surprised by the judge's decision. "I did not see any merit to the action that was filed and apparently the court agreed," he said. Defonseca, 71, of Dudley, acknowledged in February that the stories of her childhood living with wolves to escape the Nazis, killing a German soldier in self-defense, and walking 3,000 miles in search of her parents were all false. She also admitted that she isn't Jewish. In 2001, a Middlesex District Court jury found that Daniel had failed to promote the book as promised and had hidden profits. The jury awarded Defonseca $7.5 million and Lee $3.3 million. Those amounts were later tripled by a judge who found Daniel and her small publishing company, Mt. Ivy Press, had misled both women and tried to claim royalties herself by rewriting the book.
 
"HARDLY KNEW HER" by Laura Lippman [AP, 10/9/08]
Laura Lippman had her share of good fortune as she made the transition from frustrated newspaper reporter to part-time crime novelist to critically acclaimed best-selling author. But her bold career move didn't happen by chance. Truth is, the creator of the Tess Monaghan series always had an eye on her second act. Lippman didn't become a journalist out of a deep-seated desire to work confidential sources, root out corruption and speak truth to power. She was curious and outgoing, enjoyed talking to people and wanted a job that would pay her to write. In her spare time, she dabbled in fiction, but a novel seemed a faraway goal. Then came motivation, from an editor she describes as "a cold-blooded professional assassin." He told her she needed to work on her writing. "No one had ever said to me, 'You're not a good writer.' Normally, I think I would have burst into tears," Lippman said. Instead, she told herself that if she wrote a book and got it published, her career wouldn't depend on one man's opinion of her talent. "And the secret, secret, almost never-stated endgame was ... 'I'm going to quit my day job and be a novelist,'" Lippman said. She can recall only one time she said these words out loud. "I said it to my first husband one night when I was drunk," she said. "I told him I thought I could write full time. And I also told him that I thought I would be a New York Times best seller. I was really drunk, sitting at my kitchen table." Lippman's first novel, "Baltimore Blues," was published in 1997. She left The (Baltimore) Sun, her professional home for more than 20 years, in 2001. And last year she cracked The New York Times list of best sellers for the first time with "What the Dead Know," a riveting, time-hopping mystery about the aftereffects of a decades-old abduction. "She slowly became an overnight best seller," said Carrie Feron, Lippman's editor at William Morrow. "There are a lot of authors who, book by book, they're building their sales, they're polishing their craft. When it all works right, this is how it's supposed to be." She began work on "Baltimore Blues" in 1993 and credits Sara Peretsky, creator of V.I. Warshawski, with the idea of writing about a female private eye. Since then she has knocked out a novel and two novellas, one of which was serialized in The New York Times Magazine. The other is contained in a collection of short stories, "Hardly Knew Her," which hit shelves this week. 
 
GILLER PRIZE 'PUTS SPOTLIGHT' ON NEW AUTHORS [CBC, 10/8/08]
Joseph Boyden and Rawi Hage are among five finalists announced Monday, October 6 for the $50,000 Giller Prize for Canadian fiction. Boyden, who splits his time between Northern Ontario and New Orleans, has been nominated for his latest novel, Through Black Spruce.  Montrealer Hage, winner earlier this year of the IMPAC Dublin Award, was named for his sophomore novel, Cockroach. The other finalists, announced in Toronto Tuesday morning, are: Toronto writer Anthony De Sa for his short story collection Barnacle Love; Edmonton-based writer Marina Endicott for the novel Good to a Fault; Guelph, Ont.'s Mary Swan for the novel The Boys in the Trees. That this year's list includes several writers with just one or two books under their belt demonstrates the continuing strength of the Canadian literary scene, jury member Margaret Atwood said following the short-list announcement. "This is what the Giller can do. This is what prizes, in general, can do. They can put people into the spotlight who might never have been there," she told reporters. "It's astonishing how much talent there is out there," said the past Giller winner, who is serving her third stint as a juror. "You open up a cultural space like that and I guess I've always said — and have been saying recently — Canada is full of creativity. You make a space for that, for that creativity to be and to flourish, and there it is." Atwood and her fellow jurors, politician Bob Rae and author Colm Toibin, began reading an initial 95 contenders this spring and had to produce a long list of 15 selections by August and a short list just a few weeks later. While each cull was difficult, trimming the list down to five was especially tough because "we were struck by quite a few," Atwood said. The trio now has a month to mull over their final decision, which will be made the day of the awards gala as usual, Atwood said, adding that this would be her last time as a Giller juror. "Three is enough, for me. And you need a variety of tastes coming in always." The 15th annual Scotiabank Giller Prize gala will pay tribute to all five finalists on Nov. 11, 2008 in Toronto. The author of the best English-language Canadian novel or short story collection will receive the $50,000 prize, while the four remaining finalists will receive $5,000 each. Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch founded the Giller Prize in 1994 in memory of his wife, literary journalist Doris Giller.
 
AMY HEMPEL NAMED WINNER OF SHORT STORY AWARD [AP, 10/8/08]
Author Amy Hempel, whose candid takes on modern life have brought her a small, but devoted following, has been named this year's winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story, a $30,000 prize that in previous years has been given to Paul Bowles, Eudora Welty and Grace Paley. "Amy Hempel is one of our masters of the dire emotional state rendered with an offhandedness that, combined with tenderness, results in fiction that's at once dispassionate and compassionate," the Rea judges said Tuesday, October 7 in a statement. A native of Chicago who now lives in New York, the 56-year-old Hempel has published such acclaimed collections as "Reasons to Live" and "The Dog of the Marriage." The Rea award was established in 1986 by Michael M. Rea, a publisher and collector of first-edition short stories who died in 1996.
 
MOHAMMAD WIFE NOVEL RELEASED EARLY IN U.S. AFTER FIRE [Reuters, 10/7/08]
A controversial novel about the Prophet Mohammad's child bride was rushed to U.S. stores on Monday, October 6, nine days ahead of schedule, after the office of the book's British publisher was attacked. Beaufort Books picked up "The Jewel of Medina" by journalist Sherry Jones after it was dropped by Random House in May because of concerns it could incite violence. Beaufort said it sent out an initial print run of 40,000 copies. The novel traces the life of the child bride, Aisha, from her engagement to Mohammad at age 6, until the prophet's death. The headquarters of the book's British publisher, Gibson Square Books, was set on fire on September 27. No one was injured, but the publication date was suspended. British police arrested three men on suspicion of terrorism. Beaufort's president, Eric Kampmann, said neither he nor Jones, 37, had received threats but both wanted to get the book out as soon as possible. "We felt that, given what was happening, it was better for everybody... to let the conversation switch from a conversation about terrorists and fearful publishers to a conversation about the merits of the book itself," Kampmann said in an interview. Random House said in August it had received "cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." The decision sparked controversy on Internet blogs and in academic circles. Some compared it to previous cases where portrayals of Islam were met with violence. Protests and riots erupted in many Muslim countries in 2006 when cartoons, one showing the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban resembling a bomb, appeared in a Danish newspaper. At least 50 people were killed and Danish embassies attacked. British author Salman Rushdie's 1988 book "The Satanic Verses" set off riots across the Muslim world and the author was forced into hiding for years after Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a death edict, or fatwa, against him. Jones, who has never visited the Middle East but spent several years studying Arab history and said the novel was a synthesis of all she had learned.
 
"1,000 RECORDINGS TO HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE" by Tom Moon [CBC, 10/5/08]
Music critic and National Public Radio contributor Tom Moon is not afraid to take a tiger by the tail. His new book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die is a compendium of seminal musical experiences from all genres. Moon knows that every music lover will have a bone to pick with his list — their favourites will have been given short shrift, or worse still, left off the list. But that's not whom he wrote it for. "This is for people who are just beginning their exploration of music," Moon told CBC cultural affairs show Q on Friday, October 3. "This is not for hipsters. [For] if you're a little bit curious and you're starting out and you don't know Mozart and you don't know the history." Moon took three and a half years to put together his "life list" of the world's best music, ranging from David Bowie to Beethoven to Talking Heads. The list is alphabetical — he made no attempt to rank the entries. "It can't be Mozart versus the Beatles; 'Who's better?'," he said. "If you're an interested curious mind, you need all of it. You need definitely need Ornette [Coleman], you need Wayne Shorter, you need John Coltrane in mega-doses ... and you need the great bossa nova composer Antonio Carlos Jobim." Moon is a musician who has played with the likes of Tony Bennett and Maynard Ferguson and he has written about music for more than 30 years for publications like GQ, Rolling Stone, Spin, Vibe and Esquire. But he says making choices for his list involved reassessing each of his selections, even his own personal choices. 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die is published by Workman Publishing. "I started with stuff like Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, the Beatles records, stuff that you are stuck with whether you like it or not. The Beethoven symphonies, Bach's cello music, you know the Schubert piano sonata — things that most right-minded people would say 'yes I want this to be in the big-time capsule.'" He enlisted the help of Wilco's Jim Tweety to refine his choices. Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Arcade Fire are among the Canadians included in the book.  But Moon is quite ready to debate his choices, saying his book is just meant to be a starting point for the reader. "What I want to build is an account of an exploration."
 
KING SIBLINGS' LAWSUIT COULD DERAIL BOOK DEAL [AP, 10/4/08]
A lawsuit involving the three surviving children of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is threatening to derail a $1.4 million deal for a book on their mother. The New York-based Penguin Group agreed to pay $1.2 million plus royalties to King Inc., which controls the civil rights icon's intellectual property. The publisher would pay another $200,000 to the Rev. Barbara Reynolds, who taped conversations with Mrs. King before she died in January 2006. This week, Penguin said it would terminate the contract and demand the return of a $300,000 advance if the publisher does not receive photos, personal writing and letters within seven business days. A message was left Friday, October 3 with Penguin general counsel Karen Mayer. The lawsuit — the third among the three siblings in as many months — was filed Sept. 24 in Fulton County probate court. Bernice King is listed as plaintiff and administrator of her mother's estate, and the estate of Martin Luther King Jr., which Dexter King controls, is listed as the defendant. The siblings are feuding over whether the documents should be turned over. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III maintain that their mother no longer wanted to work with Reynolds on the book. They are asking that the documents be distributed among Coretta Scott King's heirs and not given to the publisher. Dexter King, president and chief executive officer of King Inc., signed the book contract. Craig Frankel, Dexter King's personal attorney, said his client was within his rights to sign the contract and had discussed the deal with his siblings. The siblings have received equal shares of the money. Coretta Scott King died in January 2006. Jock Smith, an attorney for Bernice and Martin Luther King III, said his clients had no knowledge of the book deal until they were asked to turn over the documents a few weeks ago. "This basically comes down to a situation where Dexter has done things on his own," Smith said. Smith added that such actions were the basis for a separate lawsuit filed in July by Bernice and Martin Luther King III attempting to force their brother to open the books of their father's estate. In August, Dexter King sued them, alleging that they each established foundations that compete with The King Center. All the cases could be resolved before they make it to a courtroom, though prospects for a meeting between the estranged siblings were unclear. "I'll tell you this: There has been no meeting called since the death of Coretta Scott King."
 
'30 ROCK' STAR TINA FEY TO WRITE HUMOUR BOOK [AP, 10/4/08]
Tina Fey, already the busiest of stars thanks to her Emmy-winning role in "30 Rock" and definitive impersonation of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is working on a book. According to two publishing officials with knowledge of the negotiations, Little, Brown and Company will release a book of humorous essays by the 38-year-old Fey. Her many writing credits include "30 Rock" and "Saturday Night Live," and the feature film "Mean Girls." The officials asked not to be identified, citing the confidentiality of negotiations, and declined to give financial details Friday, October 3. Little, Brown spokeswoman Heather Rizzo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The deal was first reported Friday by The New York Observer.
 
AGE GUIDANCE ON NEW WILSON BOOK [BBC, 10/4/08]
Dame Jacqueline Wilson's new book has been age banded, despite the children's author having joined an online campaign protesting against the practice. The hardback version of Cookie includes the 9+ age band on its back cover. Wilson is one of 800 authors to sign the No To Age Banding petition, which is being spearheaded by Philip Pullman. "Cookie" tells the tale of a shy girl who is teased at school and terrorized by her father, until she and her mother decide to run away. In a statement Random House said Wilson had agreed to the banding on the back of the hardback after "close discussion". "Jacqueline can see the arguments both for and against printed age guidance on books but does retain some reservations about the subject," the statement said. "She has agreed for age guidance to be put on the cover of "Cookie", but Random House will maintain the discussion with her and her agent over the matter and will review the situation on a book by book basis." Wilson told The Guardian that her future titles would not be age banded, but that as this one had been produced "ages ago" with special "cookie tin" packaging, she had not deemed it worthwhile making a fuss over the inclusion of the 9+ graphic. "They'd all been done before the controversy started and I felt I couldn't possibly be mean enough to the publisher to say throw away all these jackets," she said. "I'm not in favour of age banding, but also I can be a reasonable person. "I particularly felt delighted that Random House had presented the book in such an original way. It would just have been incredibly ungracious to say no thanks." The decision to introduce age banding to books has caused controversy. Publishers announced books would carry the guidance rating, indicating which books are suitable for readers aged 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen, earlier this year. Research within the book industry suggested people buying books for children would welcome the guidance. But many authors and independent booksellers fear the age banding would stigmatize children who are not good readers, and encourage complacency in those reading above their age. Age banding currently appears on books in the U.S, with pre-school, 5-7, 8-12 and 13+ categories, but is only implemented by some publishers.
 
"A MAN MOST WANTED" by John Le Carre [Reuters, 10/2/08]
British writer John Le Carre tackles thorny issues of immigration, terrorism and "extraordinary rendition" in his new novel "A Most Wanted Man," which he hinted may be his last. The 76-year-old author of bestselling Cold War espionage thrillers like "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" takes aim at Western governments and their policies in his latest story, published last week. "I know I've always tried to write about the now, the moment we live in, to catch the wave of today not yesterday," Le Carre, whose real name is David Cornwell, said during a lecture about his work late on Wednesday, October 1. "It doesn't surprise me that I can't in the novel find any very nice things to say about those who, in the name of the 'war on terror' have consigned men and women ... to black prisons around the world." He was referring to the U.S. practice of secretly flying terrorism suspects to prisons abroad, where some suspects have said they were tortured. Human rights groups have strongly condemned the practice. The central character in A Most Wanted Man is Issa, a young Chechen-Russian and devout Muslim who arrives in Hamburg and arouses suspicion in the German spy community for possible links with Islamist militants. German civil rights lawyer Annabel tries to save him from deportation and inherit the money his father left in a secret account, controlled by 60-year-old British banker Tommy Brue. Rival intelligence services from Germany, Britain and the United States have their own theories about who Issa and his associates are, and ultimately decide their fates. Le Carre drew from personal experience when writing A Most Wanted Man. As a diplomat, he was posted to Hamburg in the early 1960s and was in the city on September 11, 2001. He recalled that Mohamed Atta, who flew one of two airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, was part of an al Qaeda cell based in Hamburg. Issa is based on a young Chechen Le Carre met in Moscow around 20 years ago, and during his research the author consulted members of Reprieve, a group representing prisoners' human rights including many held at Guantanamo Bay. Reviews of A Most Wanted Man have been mostly positive, with the Telegraph calling it "a first-class novel about the most pressing moral and political concerns of our time," although the Financial Times described it as "a startlingly slipshod effort."
 
PUBLISHER SPEEDS UP RELEASE OF BOOK ABOUT MUHAMMAD [AP, 10/2/08]
With British publication in doubt for Sherry Jones' "The Jewel of Medina," the U.S. publisher of her controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad has moved up the release date from Oct. 15 to Monday, October 6. "By speeding up the publication, we wanted to reduce or eliminate the chance of violence," Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, said Thursday, October 2, noting that three men were arrested in London last weekend for a fire-bomb attack on the offices of publisher Gibson Square. "What had occurred in London, we didn't want to have occur here. We wanted people to have a chance to read the book. Once they read the book, we thought the violence part of this story would disappear and people would be focusing on the story, and the book and Sherry." Kampmann said he knew of no threats in the United States. Jones said she was not concerned about her safety. "I have spoken to a member of the FBI and have been assured I have not been targeted, so I will continue to go about my life as usual," she said. "I'm excited that the book is coming out Monday because once people read it, any possible threat will be eliminated." After the arrests in London, plans for the British release have stalled, although Gibson Square initially said it would release the novel this month. "Jewel of Medina" is still scheduled to come out in more than a dozen countries, including Serbia, Italy and Hungary. Jones' debut novel was supposed to be released in the United States in August, but publisher Random House Inc., changed its mind, saying in a statement that "credible and unrelated sources" had warned that the book "could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." Beaufort, which took on O.J. Simpson's once-rejected "If I Did It," signed up the author and is releasing "Jewel of Medina" with an announced first printing of 50,000. The novel is about Aisha, who according to tradition was 9 when she became the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and later a political and military leader in her own right. Jones has already completed a sequel about Aisha's adult life that Beaufort plans to publish next year. Jones so far has appearances scheduled in Spokane, Wash., where she lives, and at the Montana Festival of the Book, in Missoula. Barnes & Noble, Inc. does not plan to have Jones read at any of its stores, but will stock the novel. "It will be shelved in our hardcover new release fiction section," said spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating. "We've been in touch with the publisher who assures us that neither he nor the author feels there are any immediate safety or security concerns around this title."
 
TORONTO WRITER'S "THE OUTLANDER"  WINS FIRST NOVEL AWARD [CBC, 10/2/08]
A debut novel about a 19-year-old widow fleeing her ruthless brothers-in-law through the Rockies in the winter of 1903 has won the $7,500 First Novel Award. The Outlander by Toronto's Gil Adamson was named best first Canadian novel on Wednesday evening, October 1. The main character, Mary Boulton, is running for her life after killing her husband, and her journey is a picaresque race through the wilderness. The novel has been hailed by critics as racy and suspenseful. It was also nominated for the Commonwealth Book Prize, the ReLit Award and the Trillium Award. Adamson, who has written a poetry book, Ashland, and a collection of short stories, Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, took 10 years to write "The Outlander". Her book was one of six finalists for the First Novel Award, backed by Amazon and Books in Canada. The others were: Soucouyant by David Chariandy; The Letter Opener by Kyo Maclear; The End of the Alphabet by C.S. Richardson; Big White Knuckles by Brian Tucker; Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn. Well-known writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry and Nino Ricci have previously won the award.
 
HAGE, TOEWS TO VIE FOR WRITERS' TRUST AWARDS [CBC, 10/2/08]
Rawi Hage, Miriam Toews and Margaret Visser are among the Canadian authors nominated for this year's Writers' Trust Awards, organizers announced Wednesday, October 1. Montrealer Hage, winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award this summer for his debut novel De Niro's Game, is in the running for the $25,000 fiction prize with his sophomore effort, Cockroach. His competition includes Winnipeg author Miriam Toews for The Flying Troutmans. Toews's novel A Complicated Kindness won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 2004. Rounding out the category are New York-based Rivka Glachen (Atmospheric Disturbances) and B.C. writers Patrick Lane (Red Dog, Red Dog) and Lee Henderson (The Man Game). Visser, who divides her time between Canada and France, will vie for the $25,000 non-fiction prize for her latest book The Gift of Thanks: The Roots, Persistence and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual. Also nominated are Montreal food and travel writer Taras Grescoe for Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood and Toronto professor, author and critic Mark Kingwell for Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City. Other contenders include London-based Carl Honoré (Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting) and Russell Wangersky of St. John's (Burning Down the House: Fighting Fire and Losing Myself ). In addition to the possible prize win, each finalist receives $3,500. Three writers are up for the $10,000 Journey prize, which recognizes excellence in an emerging writer who has published a short story or excerpt from an in-progress novel in a Canadian literary journal. The journal that published the winning entry will receive $2,000. This year's nominees are: Toronto's Dana Mills for Steaming for Godthab, published in Geist; Montreal's Saleema Nawaz for My Three Girls, published in Prairie Review;  Vancouver's Clea Young for Chaperone, published in Grain Magazine. In addition to the three categories listed above, organizers will also present four awards recognizing a body of work: the Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life; the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature; the Writers' Trust Award for Distinguished Contribution; and the Writers' Trust Notable Author Award ($25,000). The eighth annual Writers' Trust Awards gala will take place in Toronto on Nov. 17, 2008.
 
BRITISH PLANS FOR "THE JEWEL OF MEDINA" STALLED [CBC, 10/1/08]
Plans for the British publication of the controversial novel The Jewel of Medina are in doubt three days after a firebomb was thrown at the London publisher's office. On Tuesday, September 30 The Bookseller magazine in London reported publisher Martin Rynja was reconsidering a decision to publish the novel, written from the point of view of the Prophet Mohammad's favourite wife. The Bookseller quoted Alan Jessop of Compass, the publisher's sales representative, as saying Rynja had "put publication in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is." Rynja himself did not comment. London police are questioning three suspects in connection with the fire bombing of Rynja's home, which also doubles as offices for publishing house Gibson Square. Gibson Square was scheduled to publish The Jewel of Medina on Oct. 30 in the U.K. A fire was started Saturday night in the offices of Gibson Square, which doubles as Rynja's home, but was quickly extinguished. Following the fire, Beaufort Books, the U.S. publisher of the book, closed its New York headquarters as a precaution. Random House backed out of publishing the novel by U.S. writer Sherry Jones in August after being advised that Muslims might be offended by the content. Part of the concern in Britain might be whether bookstores are willing to carry the novel, which tells the story of Mohammad's third wife, Aisha, who became a leader in Islam. Waterstone's, a major British chain of booksellers, said it had not decided what it would do, but that the safety of customers and employees was paramount. Waterstone's said it would not comment further until the book's status was clear. In 1989, there were mass protests worldwide following the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which Muslims said was offensive. Rushdie, who lived in hiding for years after the outcry, criticized Random House in August for failing to publish The Jewel of Medina. Beaufort Books has issued a statement saying it plans to go ahead with U.S. publication of the book on Oct. 15, 2008.
 
CARIOU, SIMPSON TO JUDGE CHARLES TAYLOR NON-FICTION LITERARY PRIZE [CBC, 10/1/08]
A writer, a journalist and an arts administrator have been selected to judge next year's Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, organizers announced on Tuesday, September 30. Saskatchewan-born, Winnipeg-based writer Warren Cariou — a past Charles Taylor finalist himself — will serve on the three-member panel jury for the 2009 edition, along with award-winning Globe and Mail columnist, magazine writer and non-fiction author Jeffrey Simpson, who is based in Ottawa. Rounding out the judges is Ottawa-based arts administrator Shirley Thomson, who has served executive positions with the Canada Council for the Arts, the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Commission to UNESCO. The $25,000 award recognizes a Canadian writer who has written a book that "demonstrates a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style and a subtlety of thought and perception." The other finalists are awarded $2,000 each. Cariou, Simpson and Thomson will whittle down this year's submissions into a short list, which they will reveal on Jan. 6, 2009. The finalists will be celebrated on Feb. 9 at a luncheon ceremony in Toronto, where the latest winner will also be announced. The Charles Taylor Prize was established in memory of the former Globe and Mail columnist, essayist and non-fiction author who died in 1997. First awarded in 2000, the non-fiction literary prize was initially presented every two years, but became an annual event in 2004. Past winners have included Carol Shields, Wayne Johnston, Rudy Wiebe, Charles Montgomery, Isabel Huggan and J.B. MacKinnon.
 
AUTHORS, PUBLISHERS SETTLE SUIT AGAINST GOOGLE [AP, 10/29/08]
Eager to cool the debate over copyrighted text online and anxious to make some money, Google and the publishing industry announced Tuesday, October 28 that they have settled their three-year legal battle over the Internet giant's book search program. Under an agreement reached by Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, librarians and the public will have an easier time tracking down millions of out-of-print books. At the same time, Google and the book business will have greater opportunities for online sales. "We're trying to create a new structure where there will be more access to out-of-print books, with benefits both to readers and researchers and to the rights holders of those books — authors and publishers," Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the publishers association, said Tuesday in an interview. "This is an extraordinary accomplishment," Paul N. Courant, university librarian for the University of Michigan, said in a statement. "It will now be possible, even easy, for anyone to access these great collections from anywhere in the United States." Under the Google Print Library Project, snippets from millions of out-of-print, but copyrighted books have been indexed online by Michigan and other libraries. Google has called the project, which also scans public domain works, an invaluable chance for books to receive increased exposure. But in a class-action suit filed in 2005, the Authors Guild alleged that Google was "engaging in massive copyright infringement." Within weeks, publishers also sued, citing the "continuing, irreparable and imminent harm publishers are suffering ... due to Google's willful (copyright) infringement to further its own commercial purposes." The settlement expands the amount of text to be scanned, makes it available for free online at "designated" libraries, available for subscription for colleges and universities, and allows readers to pay for full online access of copyrighted works. Google is to contribute $125 million, including about $34.5 million for a non-profit Book Rights Registry that will store copyright information and coordinate payments. Google will also pay for the millions of copyrighted books already scanned — $60 per complete work to the rights holder — and for the legal fees of the Authors Guild and publishing association. Any sales, subscription and advertisement revenue that occur through the search program will be divided 63 percent and 37 percent, respectively, between the copyright holders and Google. "This may be the biggest book deal in publishing history," guild executive director Paul Aiken said Tuesday. If approved by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the settlement will end a conflict that had been closely followed by the publishing industry as it examines how copyright law should work on the Internet and whether sales are hurt or harmed by access to digital text. Authors and publishers once strongly resisted free online books, but over the past year, they have softened. During the year, entire works have been made viewable and even downloadable for free, including Charles Bock's novel, "Beautiful Children," and works by Paulo Coelho and Neil Gaiman. The court is expected to rule on the agreement by next summer. Since emerging as the Internet's most influential and profitable company, Google has fended off a variety of claims alleging that some of its success has been built on the legally protected work of others. News organizations have either filed lawsuits or threatened legal action against Google for including snippets of copyright stories on its site. Google still faces an even bigger copyright battle over its popular video-sharing site, YouTube. Viacom Inc. is seeking at least $1 billion in damages in a lawsuit alleging that YouTube has illegally profited by tens of thousands of pirated clips from copyrighted shows like "South Park," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "MTV Unplugged." Google, which bought YouTube for $1.76 billion two years ago, has adamantly denied the allegations and blasted Viacom for threatening to stifle free expression on the Internet. A trial date in that New York federal court case still hasn't been scheduled.
 
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK" by Neil Gaiman [AP, 9/30/08]
Cemeteries don't scare Neil Gaiman. Far from it. The best-selling author of horror and fantasy fables finds them "incredibly peaceful places." "I love going to graveyards. I love going to graveyards not because they're spooky, but because there's something marvelously restful. You know, you've got all these headstones. They have these wonderful little messages on them," Gaiman says. Gaiman's new novel, "The Graveyard Book," takes place in a cemetery, where an orphaned boy is raised by a vampire, a werewolf and a witch. The seed for the idea was planted some 25 years ago, Gaiman says, when he was living in his native England and would take his young son Michael to ride his tricycle in a nearby cemetery, since there was no real garden or yard at home. Inspiration struck. Gaiman thought he could write a book similar to Rudyard Kipling's classic "The Jungle Book," about a child adopted by wild animals. Instead, Gaiman would write about a child "who is adopted by dead people and taught all the things that dead people know." After more than two decades of starts and stops, Gaiman finally finished "The Graveyard Book" last year. To kick off publication, Gaiman launches a U.S. tour this week, reading a chapter of the eight-chapter book in each city (one long chapter will be split in two). Video of each reading will be posted the next day on Gaiman's new, kid-friendly Web site, www.mousecircus.com, where fans can view it for free. When Gaiman wraps up the tour Oct. 8, 2008 in St. Paul, he will have read the entire 312-page book. "The Graveyard Book" is a metaphor for life, family and leaving home, Gaiman says. The book opens with a baby boy escaping an assassin who has massacred his parents and older sister. The boy totters to a decrepit cemetery, where he's adopted by ghosts, christened Nobody Owens (Bod for short) and given the Freedom of the Graveyard. "Essentially, the world of the graveyard is this glorious extended family," says Gaiman, who chose a British cemetery as the book's setting so Bod could interact with historic characters. "The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America you go back 250 years (in a cemetery). Gaiman, 47, says it took him so long to write "The Graveyard Book" because he kept putting off the idea.
 
LONDON PUBLISHER OF "THE JEWEL OF MEDINA" FIREBOMBED [CBC, 9/30/08]
Three men have been charged after the office of the British publisher of the controversial novel The Jewel of Medina was firebombed Saturday, September 27. Martin Rynja, who owns London-based Gibson Square, says he plans to go ahead with publishing the novel, based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad's favourite wife, on Oct. 30, 2008. The New York offices of publisher Beaufort Book, which has bought the rights to The Jewel of Medina in the U.S., were closed Monday as a precaution. The bomb was placed through a letter slot in Rynja's north London home, which doubles as the office of Gibson Square. Police had the home under surveillance and broke down the door to put out the fire with the help of firefighters. Three men were arrested on suspicion "of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," the police said. Damage was limited and nobody was hurt in the blaze caused by the firebomb. A U.S. imprint of publisher Random House cancelled plans to publish The Jewel of Medina in August after it was warned the book could inflame Muslim militants. U.S. author Sherry Jones said her novel, written from the point of view of Muhammad's third wife Aisha, is meant to be a portrayal of a "wonderful heroine who overcame obstacles to become a prominent figure in Islam." In an interview with the Guardian in London, she hailed Rynja as a courageous publisher and said she still planned to travel to Britain to promote the book. She said she was not concerned for her safety. "There is no indication this is the beginning of a larger movement ... It doesn't seem to me from where I sit that this was an actual assassination attempt," Jones told the Guardian. Since the Random House cancellation, plans to publish the book have since been announced in 15 countries, including Spain, Germany, Italy, Brazil and Hungary. Beaufort Books said The Jewel of Medina has already been sent to bookstores in the U.S. for an Oct. 15, 2008 publishing date.
 
MILEY CYRUS "ADORABLE" AS SATC's CARRIE BRADSHAW [E! Online, 9/30/08]
Will Miley Cyrus get her wish of playing a younger, cleaner Carrie Bradshaw? News hit last week that Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell will pen a series of books for the young adult audience following the iconic Carrie in her early years. The author herself tells E! News she doesn't mind Miley as a potential for Carrie Jr. "I think she's adorable," Bushnell told us at an intimate bash for the release of her new book One Fifth Avenue at the Salvatore Ferragamo Rodeo Drive boutique in Beverly Hills. While Bushnell is flattered by the Miley fandom (the pop sensation has said she'd love to do a version of Sex and the City for her set), she does admit it's a bit early on in the creative process to see who little Carrie will become. After all, Miley would likely be pushing 20 before a single frame is shot. "The books aren't going to come out until 2010, so it's just too soon to predict anything—but again, I think she's adorable," said Bushnell.
 
MARIO LOPEZ PENS CHILDREN'S BOOK [Aceshowbiz, 9/27/08]
Having had his own fitness book, Mario Lopez is expanding his writing skills, penning a children's book. He's teaming up with his sister Marissa to write the book, titled "Mud Taco", which according to report will be an illustrated work of fiction based on his own experience growing up in California. In Touch Weekly cited an insider as saying, "Mario wants to share his amazing experiences as a kid. It's called Mud Taco, and it's based on Mario's experiences growing up." And they are keen the book will help teaching "children to be strong and creative" now that they have grown up. "Mud Taco" is due to be published by Penguin Books in 2009. Both Mario and Marissa have yet commented on their partnership. Writing a book isn't something new for Mario. Back in May 2008 he launched a fitness book, titled "Mario Lopez's Knockout Fitness." The set, which was published by Rodale Books, discusses a "diverse exercise regimen that brings together sweat, discipline, and excitement to help readers achieve the best body possible."
 
FORMER ASTRONAUT BUZZ ALDRIN WORKING ON MEMOIR [AP, 9/26/08]
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, is working on a memoir about his triumphs in space and the hard times back on Earth. "Magnificent Desolation: The Long Road Home from the Moon" will be published next year by Harmony Books, in time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. "From the pinnacle of Apollo, my greatest challenge became the human one — overcoming alcoholism and living beyond depression — a challenge that required more courage and determination than going to the moon," Aldrin, 78, said in a statement issued Thursday, September 25 by Harmony. "I was 39 years of age, had achieved my grandest goal, and should have been on top of the world, but there were no roadmaps, and few signposts if any along the way that could lead me out of the quagmire into which I had tumbled. For 10 years, I floundered." Neil Armstrong and Aldrin were on Apollo 11's lunar module, which landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.
 
BULL MARKET FOR BOOKS ON ECONOMIC DISASTER [AP, 9/25/08]
The crisis on Wall Street has been good for books about financial disasters. "When the world seems to be ending, people still turn to books for help," says Nancy Sheppard, vice president of marketing at Viking, publisher of Kevin Phillips' "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism," one of several such works getting a boost in sales. According to Viking, "Bad Money" sold 5,000 copies in the two days following Phillips' appearance Friday on Bill Moyers' PBS program. As of Wednesday night September 24, the book was in the top 20 on Amazon.com's best-seller list. Other popular titles include Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," David M. Smick's "The World is Curved" and a classic from decades ago, John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Great Crash 1929."
 
DEL TORO TO RELEASE BOOK TRILOGY [BBC, 9/25/08]
Director Guillermo del Toro has announced plans to write a trilogy of vampire novels with crime author Chuck Hogan. The 43-year-old, best known for making Pans Labyrinth, Hellboy and The Devil's Backbone, said the trilogy would advance in "unexpected ways". The first book, The Strain, will be released next summer. Earlier this month it was reported that del Toro had signed a four-picture deal with film studio Universal. Trade magazine Variety said the deal would tie him up for the next decade. There are plans to remake Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Frankenstein and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Del Toro has also been lined up to direct two films based on The Hobbit and other works by J.R.R Tolkien. However, the Mimic director has a very clear idea of how the books will read. "Each book contains unique and surprising revelations about the history, physiology and lore of the vampiric race, tracing its roots all the way back to its Old Testament origins." Hogan's novels include The Blood Artists, The Killing Moon and Prince of Thieves, which is being adapted into a feature film, starring and directed by Ben Affleck.
 
LIFE ONLINE: MAG'S PHOTOJOURNALISM TO BE ARCHIVED ON NEW SITE [CBC, 9/25/08]
Venerable American photojournalism magazine Life will be resurrected on the web early next year, publishing giant Time Inc. announced on Tuesday. "Time" is teaming up with photo agency Getty Images to relaunch the title online as a premiere photography destination. Launching in early 2009, the new site will allow viewers to peruse Life's archive of approximately 10 million photos, which comprises both the iconic images of presidents, celebrities and news events that people will remember from the magazine as well as millions of outtakes and unpublished photos. Thousands of new photos will be also be added to the archive daily, so as to continue Life's dedication to capturing current events. Taking advantage of recent technology, the site will also allow people to order Life prints as well as create and purchase personalized photo books compiled from the site's images. Launched in 1936 as a weekly newsmagazine emphasizing photojournalism, Life was a household name for decades. It featured serialized memoirs of both Harry Truman and Winston Churchill and was renowned for its wide range of striking images: from photo essays of John F. Kennedy and his family to the moon landing to the photos captured during the Vietnam War. By the 1970s, however, Life's readership began to fall. Publication ceased in 1972 before the title was revived as a monthly four years later. Time Inc. suspended its publication once again in 2000. The company decided in 2004 to try again as a newspaper supplement. The initiative was axed in 2007, though the publisher vowed at the time to revive the brand online.
 
"DOWNTOWN OWL" by Chuck Klosterman -You'll Either Hate or Love [Scriber, 271 pages, $24] [AP, 9/25/08]
The best thing about "Downtown Owl," Chuck Klosterman's first stab at fiction, is this: Every key character sounds suspiciously like Chuck Klosterman. For the vaunted pop-culture critic's well-established — and notoriously devoted — fan-base, this will be a wildly welcome discovery, like a North Dakota corn farmer who finds his late-planted crops staving off Mother Winter's frost for a vital extra week. Something near pure joy.  Others will shake their heads by, approximately, page 65. They will openly rue Klosterman's fiction and their investment of time in it beginning on page 125 (or thereabouts). About 30 pages later, owing to particularly sublime humor, they will warmly appreciate aspects of it. Then, by the novel's (rather abrupt) climax, they will end up undecided and possibly confused. They will neither regret their book purchase, nor pat themselves on the back for sage navigation of a bookseller's titles. It is tempting to leave the argument here. If you appreciate Klosterman's distinctive non-fiction writing, "Owl" will be just the sort of novel for which you've been waiting. If you don't, it is not. But in the end it's just not that simple. "Owl" is, essentially, a literary postcard from a town that could exist, but does not. Owl, N.D., has seven bars, a hopping bowling alley and a struggling movie theater. In 1983, when the novel is set, residents are deeply ambivalent about Gordon Kahl, perpetually disgusted with the form of the local football team and unconsciously happy to pick through one another's personal debris. The problem is that the sum does not quite feel as good as its composite parts. There are linking elements and a plot — albeit a mostly actionless one until the end of the book — but "Owl" feels slightly disjointed. The abruptness makes it feel more like a first novel than it should. This boils down to an issue with Klosterman's voice, a not quite love-it-or-leave it argument but a deeply polarizing one, nonetheless. Some will depart Owl's wide boulevards a little punch drunk, wondering about cohesion but fairly well entertained. Others will be happy to dive into the many grand diversions the author's prose and approach offer. In the end, a better balance could be struck.
 
BALDWIN BOOK RAILS AGAINST FAMILY COURT SYSTEM [AP, 9/23/08]
Alec Baldwin blamed the bitter custody battle between him and ex-wife Kim Basinger in part for the anger and frustration he was feeling when he berated his daughter in a phone message leaked to the media last year. In the message, Baldwin called the 11-year-old a "rude, thoughtless little pig." He was apparently upset that she had missed his phone call. "I'm disappointed, I'm ashamed to say this: You get angry," the 50-year-old actor told a crowd Monday, September 22 of about 120 people at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, where he was promoting his new book, "A Promise to Ourselves." "I wanted to see my daughter." In the book, Baldwin rails against the family court system in Los Angeles, offers advice based on his own experience with divorce litigation and talks about how one parent can turn a child against another parent. Baldwin said he's apologized to his daughter, Ireland, for the phone message, which he said was wrong and "horrified" him. But he added that it never should have been released without his permission. Baldwin has blamed Basinger, 54, for leaking the tape. She has denied the claim. Baldwin won an Emmy on Sunday for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series for his role as TV executive Jack Donaghy in NBC's "30 Rock." He snagged a Golden Globe for the same role last year.
 
KELLY OSBOURNE TO RELEASE MEMOIR EARLY NEXT YEAR [Aceshowbiz, 9/23/08]
Working as television personality, singer, actress, radio presenter and fashion designer, Kelly Osbourne is trying her hand at writing, signing deal with Virgin Books to release an autobiography, which is slated for early 2009 release. The tome, reportedly, will be a tell-all, exposing Kelly's wildlife including her rehab stint, struggle with addiction, and bitter feud with Christina Aguilera. Virgin Books' editor John Sadler says, "We can't wait for Kelly to take the book trade by storm in the way her mother did" referring to Kelly's mother Sharon Osbourne's book "Extreme" which sold more than two million copies when it was released in October 2005. Terms of the deal are not mentioned.
 
SALES TOP 500,000 FOR PAOLINI'S "BRISINGR" [AP, 9/23/08]
First day sales in North America topped half a million for Christopher Paolini's "Brisingr," the third of his million-selling "Inheritance" fantasy cycle and unveiled last weekend with a Harry Potter-like midnight opening. According to publisher Random House Children's Books, "Brisingr" sold 550,000 copies in the first 24 hours, four times higher than "Eldest," the second of Paolini's planned four-book series. It was the highest opening ever for a Random House children's book, but far below the 8.3 million copies in the United States alone for the launch of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and the 1.3 million for Stephenie Meyer's "Breaking Dawn," released at midnight on Aug. 2, 2008.
 
JACKIE, THE EDITING YEARS, IS SUBJECT OF NEW BOOK [AP, 9/23/08]
Jacqueline Kennedy's years as a book editor, many of them at Doubleday, will be the subject of a Doubleday book coming out in 2011. Historian William Kuhn, who has written about British royalty and politics, is writing a biography, currently untitled, about the years that Kennedy worked in the publishing business, starting in 1975 with a brief time at Viking Press and then her 16 years at Doubleday, right up to her death in 1994. Kennedy's authors ranged from celebrities Michael Jackson and Carly Simon to Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist. "Her books were a way of revealing the experiences, recollections and passions of a lifetime; in the end she told her own story — her journey as a wife, a mother, aesthete, armchair intellectual and unwilling celebrity — through the medium of other people's books," Kuhn said in a statement issued Monday, September 22, 2008 by Doubleday. "My book will mine this critical period in her life, the one in which she became the woman she'd always intended to be." 
 
ROBERT WAGNER REVEALS AFFAIR WITH STANWYCK [AP, 9/23/08]
Robert Wagner's marriage to Natalie Wood was known to all. His love affair with Barbara Stanwyck was a secret — until now. In his new memoir "Pieces of My Heart," Wagner writes of his four-year romance with the star of such classics as "Stella Dallas" and "Double Indemnity." They met on the set of "Titanic," released in 1953, when he was 22 and she 45 and divorced from actor Robert Taylor. The press knew nothing about their relationship and neither did most of Hollywood, except for such friends as Nancy Sinatra, the first wife of Frank Sinatra; and Spencer Tracy, whose bond with Katharine Hepburn was the ultimate show business secret. "I would say she gave me self-esteem," writes the actor whose successful TV series included "It Takes a Thief" and "Hart to Hart," but the relationship didn't hold. They were both too busy working and the age difference was too great. Stanwyck eventually broke it off. "I would always have been Mr. Stanwyck," Wagner, now 78, writes, "and we both knew it."
 
SEAN LENNON RECOUNTS DAD'S TEMPER, FELINE LOVE [E! Online, 9/23/08]
John Lennon's beautiful boy is speaking out about some purportedly ugly behavior by the late Beatle great. In a potentially myth-shattering new Lennon biography due out next month, son Sean Lennon recounts for the first time a violent outburst by his peace-espousing papa that resulted in a trip to the doctor. "[He was] teaching me how to cut and eat steak, which was a mystery to me at age 4; how to stick the fork in and cut behind it, and that was how you got a piece in your mouth," the younger Lennon, John's sole child with Yoko Ono, reveals to author Philip Norman in John Lennon: The Life. "I think it was that night when he got very upset with me, I think because of something I did very cheekily with the steak. He did wind up yelling at me very, very loudly to the point where he damaged my ear, and I had to go to the doctor." The quotes were confirmed to E! News by Michael McKenzie, spokesman for Echo Publishing, an imprint of HarperCollins. There was no immediate comment by a representative for the younger Lennon or Yoko Ono. In the book, Sean Lennon, now 32 and a musician in his own right, says his father was ashamed by the incident and was instantly remorseful. "I remember when I was lying on the floor and hurting, and him holding me and saying, 'I'm so sorry.' He did have a temper." Sean also recalls that his father was a compassionate person, even bursting into tears at the death of the family feline. "Alice, our black cat, had jumped out the window after a pigeon and died, and I remember that was the only time, I think, I ever saw my dad cry."
 
L.M. MONTGOMERY SUICIDE REVEALED [CBC, 9/22/08]
The granddaughter of Lucy Maud Montgomery has revealed a long and closely held family secret about how the author of Anne of Green Gables died. In an essay in the Globe and Mail on Saturday, September 20 Kate Macdonald Butler said Montgomery committed suicide. She said there was a note, which she's never seen, but she was told it asked for forgiveness. Macdonald Butler said it seemed appropriate to lift the secrecy on the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Montgomery's first and most famous book. She was inspired to reveal the truth because of a series published in the Globe on mental health, and she hoped it would help get rid of the stigma of mental illness. Society has the idea that depression happens to "other people," she wrote, and in particular that it doesn't happen to our "heroes and icons." Lucy Maud Montgomery published about 500 short stories and poems and 20 novels, 19 of which are set on P.E.I. Both Montgomery and her husband Ewan Macdonald suffered from depression. She died in 1942 at the age of 67. He died a year later. Macdonald Butler said she discussed revealing Montgomery's suicide with her family and that they agreed. CBC News spoke with Dr. Mary Rubio, Canada's best-known Montgomery scholar, who declined to be interviewed but did say the note and the context around it will be part of her upcoming Montgomery biography.
 
DAD ALEC BALDWIN AND THE QUEST FOR QUANTITY TIME [E! Online, 9/22/08]
Try to forget the vituperative voice mail none of us can forget, least of all the man who made it, Alec Baldwin. Turns out he's a sensitive hothead who's penned an emotional new book, A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. Without taking sides in his very public custody debacle with ex-wife Kim Basinger over daughter Ireland, it's easy to appreciate Baldwin's perspective. Here's a little of the flavor from Chapter 3, "Olives and Cheese": "When you lose custody of your child, so much of what is magical and priceless in this experience is taken away from you. The moments still occur, but you are no longer there to share them. You find yourself constantly wondering what your child is doing now. An overwhelming pain comes from the knowledge that she is learning life through so many people's eyes, but least of all your own. You want to share your own perspective on life, to influence your child just as your parents influenced you. Above all you want to give your child the gifts of time and attention, but your opportunities become dramatically limited." You can read the whole chapter on Yahoo Shine, which touches on Baldwin's own poor but happy childhood and his problematic quest to spend quantity time with his daughter, so that quality time has a chance to happen.
 
BUFFETT BIOGRAPHY REVEALS HIS FLAWS, RECOUNTS TRIUMPHS [AP, 9/21/08]
Warren Buffett's youthful confidence about his business acumen hid a self-doubt about nearly everything else, yet the son of a Nebraska congressman grew into one of the world's greatest investors. The tale of how the brilliant but needy Buffett built a fortune by investing in undervalued companies is recounted in the first authorized biography "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life," of the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The Associated Press obtained an audio version of the book Friday, ahead of its Sept. 29 release. The book's author, former insurance analyst Alice Schroeder, writes that when Buffett was a newlywed in his early 20s, he relied on his wife Susan to help cut his hair, stock the pantry and help him deal with other people. "In every area of life except business, Susie was discovering her husband was riddled with self-doubt," Schroeder wrote. "He had never felt love, and she saw, he did not feel lovable." The book, goes on to explain how Susan Buffett left Warren Buffett in 1977 and moved to San Francisco. But the couple never divorced before her death in 2004, even though he lived with another woman most of those years. Buffett married his longtime companion, Astrid Menks, in a private ceremony on his 76th birthday in 2006. In 2006, Buffett announced plans to gradually give away his billions to five foundations, with the biggest share going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Berkshire is now a major player in the insurance field and owns more than 60 companies including furniture, clothing, candy, brick, electricity and corporate jet firms. And at last report, Berkshire had total assets of nearly $278 billion, including significant stakes in well-known companies such as Wells Fargo & Co., American Express and the Washington Post Co. Pre-orders of the book have already pushed it into the top 75 of Amazon.com's best-seller list. The publisher says the first printing is 1 million copies.
 
"THE GIVEN DAY" by Dennis Lehane  IS THOUGHTFUL, PROVOCATIVE
[William Morrow, 704 pages, $27.95] [AP, 9/20/08]
"The Given Day," is both a sweeping historical epic and the intimate saga of two remarkable American families, one black and one white. World War I is drawing to close, and without the stimulus battle brings, the U.S economy is imploding. Blacks and women, many of whom received their first decent paychecks because of the war, are being laid off by the thousands. More than a million doughboys returning from the killing fields of France find few jobs waiting for them. Violent strikes cripple key industries, and race riots break out in several large cities. This watershed year is the backdrop for "The Given Day," a superbly written, meticulously researched new historical novel by Dennis Lehane. As the story begins, the venerable port city of Boston is on the brink of class warfare, and two opposing forces eagerly seek to take advantage. Lehane, a writer who takes pride in not repeating himself, "The Given Day" is a remarkable departure. His first five novels, including "Darkness Take My Hand" (1996), were beautifully written detective stories featuring the Boston crime-fighting team of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Then came "Mystic River" (2001), a searing exploration of the lifelong consequences of one episode of childhood violence in the lives of a group of old friends. Next was "Shutter Island" (2003), a gothic mystery with echoes of both Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock. Historical figures including leftist Jack Reed, playwright Eugene O'Neill, NAACP founder W.E.B. Du Bois, U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, anarchist Luigi Galleani, and a young federal prosecutor named John (J. Edgar) Hoover, make cameo appearances. And Babe Ruth, portrayed as a self-centered, egomaniacal dullard, is a major character. Lehane's predominant themes are class rage between the haves and have-nots and the conflict between security and civil liberties. He is careful not to lecture, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions about parallels to 2008. The book is also a thoughtful, provocative exploration of race, fame, power and political corruption in American culture. Except for the curious detour represented by "Shutter Island," Lehane has grown in ambition and stature with each book. "The Given Day" places him the first rank of modern American novelists. That doesn't mean he'll stop rivaling Elmore Leonard as Hollywood's favorite storyteller, however. Columbia Pictures has bought the rights to "The Given Day" and has lined up Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") to direct. Movies made from two of Lehane's books, "Mystic River" and "Gone Baby Gone," were both critical and box-office successes, and a film based on "Shutter Island" is scheduled for release next year.
 
"THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE" GETS THE NOD FROM WINFREY  [AP, 9/20/08]
Thanks to Oprah Winfrey, one of the summer's hottest reads is sure to sizzle in the fall. Publishing's biggest hitmaker has chosen David Wroblewski's "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle," a 500-page debut novel, as her latest book club pick, two booksellers told The Associated Press. "Edgar Sawtelle" was released in June and became a smash thanks to strong reviews, word of mouth and a blurb from Stephen King. Winfrey was to make the announcement later Friday on her Chicago-based TV talk show. The Associated Press purchased a copy of the novel, which has a Winfrey book club sticker on the cover, from a bookseller that placed "Edgar Sawtelle" on sale early. The two booksellers, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement, had previously told the AP that Wroblewski's work was Winfrey's choice."Edgar Sawtelle," which Wroblewski worked on for more than a decade, is the story of a mute boy who communicates best with his dogs. Wroblewski grew up in rural Wisconsin, the setting for his book, and now lives near Denver with his partner, writer Kimberly McClintock.
 
JUDGE DISMISSES LIBEL SUIT AGAINST JOHN GRISHAM [AP, 9/18/08]
A federal judge has dismissed a libel lawsuit filed against best-selling author John Grisham and two other writers over books they wrote about the wrongful conviction of two men in a 1982 murder. The lawsuit was filed last year by former Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigator Gary Rogers and Melvin Hett, a state criminalist. All three helped win the original convictions in the slaying of cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants conspired to commit libel, generate publicity for themselves by placing the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. But U.S. District Judge Ronald White rejected those claims in his ruling Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. The two men initially convicted in the slaying — Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz — were later cleared by DNA evidence and freed after 12 years in prison. A key witness for the prosecution, Glen Gore, was later linked to the crime by DNA, found guilty of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. In his ruling, the judge wrote that it was important to be able to analyze and criticize the judicial system "so that past mistakes do not become future ones." "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor," White wrote. The lawsuit named Grisham — whose account was titled "The Innocent Man" — his publishing company and the authors and publishing companies of two other books critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases. Also named as a defendant was Barry Scheck, founder of the New York-based Innocence Project and an attorney for one of the men falsely accused in the murder. "This is a victory for free speech and for holding officials publicly accountable for their role in wrongful convictions," Scheck said in statement. Gary Richardson, the attorney for Peterson, Rogers and Hett, said he was still reading the judge's order to determine whether he would file an appeal. "Of course, I'm quite disappointed and a bit surprised at the ruling," Richardson said. "I felt that we had a solid case for defamation." A message left Wednesday with Grisham's publishing company was not immediately returned.
 
RICK HILLIER INKS BOOK DEAL [CBC, 9/18/08]
Retired general Rick Hillier has signed a two-book contract, HarperCollinsCanada announced Wednesday, September 17. The first book by Canada's chief of defence staff until this past July will be published in October 2009. It will be a memoir of Hillier's career in the Canadian Forces, including the mission in Afghanistan. In the second book, to be published in the fall of 2010, Hillier will share his insights on leadership he learned as a military commander. Hillier served in the U.S., Europe and across Canada in a military career that spanned three decades. He is credited with leaving the Canadian Forces in the best shape it's been in years. Born in 1955 in Campbellton, Nfld., Hillier assumed his duties as Canada's chief of defence staff on Feb. 5, 2005. He stepped down from the position July 1, 2008. On July 3, he began a term as chancellor of Memorial University of Newfoundland, his alma mater.
 
SEX ED AND THE CITY? BUSHNELL BOOKS IT [E! Online, 9/18/08]
Talk about your graphic novels. Candace Bushnell is doing her best to milk the cash cow that is Sex and the City completely dry, announcing plans to publish The Carrie Diaries, two young adult novels that will take readers back to the lady Bradshaw's more formative high school years. In other words, think Candies, not Manolos; Medium rather than Big. HarperCollins has the enviable task of publishing the teen tomes, the first of which is due out in fall 2010. "I've always been interested in exploring Carrie's teenage years," Bushnell said. "Carrie in high school did not follow the crowd—she led it. It was there that she began observing and commenting on the social scene." According to HarperCollins, the books will give readers something they haven't been clamoring for, but will probably buy anyway: "an inside look at Carrie's friendships, romances, and how she realized her dream of becoming a writer." For those either not in the know or in possession of a Y chromosome, it was Bushnell's mid-90s New York Observer column that became the basis of the HBO turned big screen megahit starring Sarah Jessica Parker & Co. HarperCollins publisher Donna Bray told the Observer this week that the books will be set partly in New York City and partly in the apparently as-yet-undetermined suburb in which the teenage Bradshaw resided. As for the big (not Big) question, Bray said it has yet to be decided whether Carrie will lose her virginity in the books, though much has already been made about the fact that, should it happen, the formative scene was already set in episode 38 of the series when Carrie shorthanded the magic moment to Charlotte—to recap, "half a joint," a Ping-Pong table and an 11th grader named Seth Bateman were all major players. While the terms of the book deal have not been disclosed, it's probably safe to say that Bushnell won't have to choose between dinner and Vogue anytime soon. Her fifth book, One Fifth Avenue, is due out next week.
 
GILLER PRIZE LONG LIST UNVEILED [CBC, 9/15/08]
New novels from Austin Clarke, David Adams Richards and Rawi Hage are in the running for one of Canada's top literary awards, organizers of the $50,000 Giller Prize revealed Monday, September 15, 2008. Past Giller winners Clarke, Richards and David Bergen made the cut for their novels More, The Lost Highway and The Retreat, respectively. Hage — fresh off winning the lucrative and prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, De Niro's Game, in June — has been longlisted for his follow-up, Cockroach. Altogether, the three-member jury selected 15 books as semi-finalists out of the 95 submitted. The other longlisted entries are: Joseph Boyden for his novel Through Black Spruce; Anthony De Sa for his collection of short stories Barnacle Love; Emma Donoghue for her novel The Sealed Letter; Marina Endicott for her novel Good to a Fault; Steven Galloway for his novel The Cellist of Sarajevo; Kenneth J. Harvey for his novel Blackstrap Hawco; Patrick Lane for his novel Red Dog, Red Dog; Pasha Malla for his collection of short stories The Withdrawal Method; Paul Quarrington for his novel The Ravine; Nino Ricci for his novel The Origin of the Species; Mary Swan for her novel The Boys in the Trees. "These fifteen books vary widely in technique, in setting and in tone — from the historical to the contemporary, from the comic to the satiric to the tragic, from the local to the international," according to the jury, which this year comprises Liberal MP Bob Rae and authors Margaret Atwood and Colm Toibin. "Each contributes something fresh, original, thoughtful or vital to the practice of fiction." The jury will reveal its short list of finalists for the 15th edition of the prize on Oct. 7, with the winner to be announced at a Toronto gala on Nov. 11 2008. Established in memory of the late literary journalist Doris Giller by her husband, Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch, the Giller Prize honours the best Canadian novel or book of short fiction over the past year.
 
SERENA WILLIAMS TO SERVE UP MEMOIR IN 2009 [AP, 9/16/08]
A memoir by Serena Williams will be released in 2009 by Grand Central Publishing, which beat out a handful of other publishers bidding for the life story of the No. 1 ranked women's tennis player. "Serena Williams is one of the world's most remarkable athletes," Grand Central editor Karen Kosztolnyik said Tuesday in a statement. "We've watched her rise to No. 1 despite physical and emotional setbacks, and her hard work and determination have inspired legions of fans young and old. Serena will give her memoir a strong motivational slant." Financial terms for the book, currently untitled, were not disclosed, although a publishing official with knowledge of the negotiations said bidding reached at least $1.3 million. The official, citing the confidentiality of the negotiations, declined to be identified. Williams, 26, has won nine Grand Slam titles and, with sister Venus Williams, won a gold medal in women's doubles at the recent Olympics in Beijing. Grand Central Publishing is a division of the Hachette Book Group.
 
NOVELIST DAVID FOSTER WALLACE FOUND DEAD [AP, 9/15/08]
David Foster Wallace, the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead in his home, according to police. He was 46. Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home about 9:30 p.m. Friday, September 12, said Jackie Morales, a records clerk with the Claremont Police Department. Wallace taught creative writing and English at nearby Pomona College. "He cared deeply for his students and transformed the lives of many young people," said Dean Gary Kates. "It's a great loss to our teaching faculty." Wallace's first novel, "The Broom of the System," gained national attention in 1987 for its ambition and offbeat humor. The New York Times said the 24-year-old author "attempts to give us a portrait, through a combination of Joycean word games, literary parody and zany picaresque adventure, of a contemporary America run amok." Published in 1996, "Infinite Jest" cemented Wallace's reputation as a major American literary figure. The 1,000-plus-page tome, praised for its complexity and dark wit, topped many best-of lists. Time Magazine named "Infinite Jest" in its issue of the "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005." Wallace received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 1997. In 2002, Wallace was hired to teach at Pomona in a tenured English Department position endowed by Roy E. Disney. Kates said when the school began searching for the ideal candidate, Wallace was the first person considered. "The committee said, 'we need a person like David Foster Wallace.' They said that in the abstract," Kates said. "When he was approached and accepted, they were heads over heels. He was really the ideal person for the position." Wallace's short fiction was published in Esquire, GQ, Harper's, The New Yorker and the Paris Review. Collections of his short stories were published as "Girl With Curious Hair" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men." He wrote nonfiction for several publications, including an essay on the U.S. Open for Tennis magazine and a profile of the director David Lynch for Premiere. Born in Ithaca, N.Y., Wallace attended Amherst College and the University of Arizona.
 
AUTHORS GRIEVE OVER WALLACE'S APPARENT SUICIDE [AP, 9/15/08]
The literary world is in grief for David Foster Wallace, an author of seemingly unstoppable curiosity, imagination and ambition who apparently killed himself last week. Readers are seeking out his work, including his 1,000-page novel "Infinite Jest" and the essay collection "Consider the Lobster." Wallace, who wrote with an explosive, ironic, but deeply serious passion about subjects ranging from tennis and politics to mathematics and cruise ships, was found dead by his wife in his home Friday night, according to the Claremont, Calif., police department. The 46-year-old author apparently hanged himself. "He was the best of our generation, and his death is a loss beyond describing," Richard Powers, winner of the National Book Award in 2006 for the novel "The Echo Maker," told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I am so sad — stunned — it reminds us all of how fragile we are, and how close at hand the darkness is," said fellow author A.M. Homes, whose books include the novel "The End of Alice" and "The Mistress's Daughter," a memoir. "He was a wonderful writer, a generous friend, and a singular talent." A native of Ithaca, N.Y., Wallace was often compared to Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo as an avatar of the Information Age, a visionary and eclectic as hip to ancient Greece and British poetry as he was to computers and television and popular culture. He also wrote often about addiction, depression and suicide, a post-1960s Dystopia in which "irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling." Wallace was far better known to his peers than to the general public, but news of his death led to a quick jump in sales for his books. As of Sunday night, "Infinite Jest" was in the top 20 on Amazon.com and "Consider the Lobster" was in the top 75. Several of his books were out of stock. His longtime editor, Michael Pietsch, said Sunday that his last contact with Wallace had been a "wonderful exchange of letters" around a month ago. He declined to say what they had written about or offer any comment on the author's private life. Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown and Company, told The Associated Press that from the start he found Wallace's talent "jaw dropping" and shining with "unexpected hilariousness." "From the first paragraph you read of him, you realize he's biting off more than anybody, taking on gigantic subjects in unexpected ways and delivering undreamed of pleasures and insights, at the largest levels and the most microscopic levels." Asked what Wallace had been working on at the time of his death, Pietsch offered no specifics, but said: "He was always writing something. He was always doing something ambitious."
 
NICK CAVE TO RELEASE 2ND BOOK IN 20 YEARS [CBC, 9/14/08]
Musician Nick Cave will publish his second novel, nearly two decades after he first waded into the literary pool. Publishing House Canongate announced Friday, September 12 that it had secured rights to The Death of Bunny Munroe, set for release in the fall of 2009. The novel has been described as "a modern Faustus of sorts," by Canongate publisher Jamie Byng. "This novel is going to shock and amaze a lot of people," Byng told the Bookseller.com, a trade paper. The Death of Bunny Munroe chronicles the fortunes of a man and his son on a road trip in England after the suicide of his wife. Canongate plans a multimedia launch, with an audiobook narrated by Cave and an e-book — featuring a "soundscape" — launching simultaneously. A signed and numbered limited edition will also be available. The Australian's last foray into novel writing was the highly-acclaimed And the Ass Saw the Angel, published in 1989. The book, which achieved cult status, told the story of the revenge the mute son of an alcoholic mother and a sadistic father wreaks on those who caused him pain. Many compared the book to Cave's dark songs with his band, the Bad Seeds. Penguin is planning to re-release And the Ass Saw the Angel next September as a 20th anniversary special edition. The 50-year-old musician and artist is currently working with long-time collaborator John Hillcoat on the soundtrack for the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale, The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, due out in November, 2008.
 
WRITER HIRSI ALI EMERGES TO ACCEPT AWARD  [AP, 9/12/08]
Best-selling author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent critic of Islam, said it's difficult living in isolation because of death threats from Muslims offended by her work. The Somali-born Hirsi Ali made a surprise appearance at the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony Thursday to accept an award for her book "Infidel: My Life." Security was tight, and she left with armed guards. Hirsi Ali, a 38-year-old former Dutch lawmaker, lives under protection in Washington. "Yes, it is a lonely journey," she said later in an interview with The Plain Dealer. "But you overcome it. If you get to the plateau where you no longer have to survive and can start living again — meet people, exchange stories — a bit of that loneliness is relieved. And you appreciate life even more." Ronn Richard, executive director of the Cleveland Foundation, which administers the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, said Hirsi Ali's prize was kept secret to protect both her and members of the audience. Some of the 600 audience members gasped at Hirsi Ali's appearance, then rose to encircle her with applause. In "Infidel," Hirsi Ali writes how she was subjected to genital mutilation in Somalia and later forced into an unwanted marriage that led her to flee to the Netherlands. She also argues that some tenets of Islam are inherently violent and must be rejected.
 
"HILLS" STAR LAUREN CONRAD TO PEN BOOK SERIES [Reuters, 9/12/08]
Lauren Conrad, star of the MTV reality show "The Hills," has signed a book deal for a young adult fiction series based on her own transformation from regular California teen to celebrity darling, HarperCollins Publishers said on Thursday, September 11. Called "L.A. Candy," the three-book series is billed as a work of fiction, but it centers on the story of a young woman who moves to Los Angeles and unexpectedly becomes the star of a reality television show. Conrad, 22, and her group of young friends, Audrina, Heidi and  Whitney, have become Hollywood celebrities and household names in the United States and some 16 other countries, thanks to the popular two-year-old TV show. "I have always loved books that I could lose myself in, ones that would transport me to another place, but had characters I could relate to," Conrad said in a statement. The first book is due to be published in the summer of 2009 by HarperCollins.
 
SCOTTISH AUTHOR WELSH FINDS RELIEF IN SPOOF FILM [Reuters, 9/12/08]
The topic of Scottish author Irvine Welsh's latest novel -- pedophilia -- is so harrowing that he worked on a spoof documentary film about a darts player while writing the book just to lighten his mood. And yet Welsh insists that "Crime" is his most uplifting novel to date. "Most of my books have been about people who (mess) up," said Welsh, best known for the drug-fueled mayhem of his debut novel "Trainspotting," which was made into a hit movie. "This one is different, it's about how people heal." While researching "Crime," published this month by W.W. Norton, Welsh met survivors of sexual abuse and said he was moved by their resilience. "It was great to see people rising above all of that," Welsh told Reuters in an interview. "Instead of trying to find darkness in the light, I'm trying to find light in the darkness." Still, the troubling subject matter of "Crime" prompted him to work concurrently on a more comic project -- "Good Arrows," a "mockumentary" set in Wales about a professional darts player with health problems who loses his winning touch. Welsh calls the spoof "a parable about cheap celebrity and fame." Welsh has made short films and music videos but "Good Arrows," which he co-wrote and co-directed, is his first full-length film. He hopes to show a version on British television in January and take it to the Cannes Film Festival next year. "Crime" tells the story of a troubled Edinburgh policeman, scarred from working a child murder case and abusing drink and drugs, who flies to Miami with his fiancee to recuperate. But his deepest demons come along for the ride and he gets mixed up with Florida's seedy underbelly. The police officer, Ray Lennox, first appeared in Welsh's 1998 novel "Filth" and Publishers Weekly called "Crime" Welsh's best work since then. "Welsh's most coherent and satisfying novel in a decade showcases the Scottish author's inimitable combination of dark realism, satire and psychological insight," Publishers Weekly wrote in its review of "Crime."
 
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST SELLERS [AP, 9/12/08]
  1. "Dark Curse" by Christine Feehan (Berkley)
  2. "The Book of Lies" by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central)
  3. "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House)
  4. "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)
  5. "Devil Bones" by Kathy Reichs (Scribner)
  6. "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (Dial)
  7. "The Gypsy Morph" by Terry Brooks (Del Rey)
  8. "Silks" by Dick and Felix Francis (Putnam)
  9. "Smoke Screen" by Sandra Brown (Simon & Schuster)
  10. "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski (Ecco)
  11. "Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Sanction" by Eric Van Lustbader (Grand Central)
  12. "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" by Sean Williams (Del Rey)
  13. "Off Season" by Anne Rivers Siddons (Grand Central)
  14. "Home" by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
  15. "Sweetheart" by Chelsea Cain (St. Martin's Minotaur)
 
NONFICTION/GENERAL
  1. "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion)
  2. "Stori Telling" by Tori Spelling (Simon Spotlight)
  3. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria Books/Beyond Words)
  4. "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" by Chelsea Handler (Simon Spotlight Entertainment)
  5. "The Obama Nation" by Jerome R. Corsi (Threshold Editions)
  6. "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)
  7. "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate" by David Freddoso (Regnery)
  8. "Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, The Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Governments Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It" by Dick Morris, Eileen McGann (Harper)
  9. "Faith of My Fathers" by John McCain with Mark Salter (Random House)
  10. "The Limits of Power" by Andrew J. Bacevich (Metropolitan Books)
  11. "You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press)
  12. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)
  13. "The First Billion is the Hardest:Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future" by T. Boone Picken (Crown Business)
  14. "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria (W.W. Norton)
  15. "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism" by Ron Suskind (Harper)
 
MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS
  1. "8 Sandpiper Way" by Debbie Macomber (Mira)
  2. "Book of the Dead" by Patricia Cornwell (Berkley)
  3. "Stone Cold" by David Baldacci (Vision)
  4. "Nights in Rodanthe" by Nicholas Sparks (Warner Vision)
  5. "Protect and Defend" by Vince Flynn (Pocket)
  6. "Compulsion" by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)
  7. "Playing for Pizza" by John Grisham (Dell)
  8. "The Edge of Desire" by Stephenie Laurens (Avon)
  9. "You've Been Warned" by James Patterson, Howard Roughan (Vision)
  10. "Dark Light" by Jayne Castle (Avon)
  11. "Noah" by Jacquelyn Frank (Zebra)
  12. "Sweet Revenge" by Diane Mott Davidson (Avon)
  13. "Wild Card" by Lora Leigh (St. Martin's)
  14. "Seduction of a Proper Gentleman" by Victoria Alexander (Avon)
  15. "Sweet Trouble" by Susan Mallery (HQN)
 
TRADE PAPERBACKS
  1. "The Shack" by William P. Young (Windblown Media)
  2. "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin)
  3. "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin)
  4. "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central Publishing)
  5. "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle (Plume)
  6. "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers)
  7. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen (Algonquin)
  8. "Skinny B----" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (Running Press)
  9. "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama (Three Rivers)
  10. "Eat This Not That!" by David Zinczenko, Matt Goulding (Rodale)
  11. "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  12. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage)
  13. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz (Riverhead)
  14. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
  15. "Barefoot" by Elin Hilderbrand (Back Bay Books)
 
NEW OPRAH WINFREY BOOK PICK COMING NEXT WEEK [AP, 9/11/08]
Oprah Winfrey will announce her next book club pick on Friday, Sept. 19, her first choice since last winter's selection of Eckhart Tolle's " A New Earth." An e-newsletter sent Wednesday to book club members says of the new release: "Once you start it, you won't want to put it down! Until then, it's a great time to reflect on the lessons you've learned from 'A New Earth' — and how you'll continue to apply them to your everyday life." Tolle's book, a spiritual self-help guide heavily promoted by weekly Web seminars with Winfrey and Tolle, has sold millions of copies this year and is believed to be the talk show host's most popular pick yet.
 
"FLETCH" AUTHOR GREGORY McDONALD DIES AT 71 [AP, 9/11/08]
Gregory Mcdonald, whose best-selling "Fletch" mystery books also were made into films, has died, according to his manager. He was 71. Mcdonald died Sunday, September 7 at his antebellum farm in Pulaski, Tenn., about 60 miles southwest of Nashville, according to Mcdonald's manager, David List. List said Wednesday that Mcdonald had been diagnosed with cancer. "Fletch," published in 1974, was the first in a series of books about an investigative reporter named Irwin M. Fletcher. Actor Chevy Chase portrayed the lead character in the 1985 movie "Fletch" and the 1989 sequel "Fletch Lives." Mcdonald twice won the Edgar Allen Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America and published 26 books, including "Running Scared," "Flynn," and "The Brave." He also was a journalist with the Boston Globe. List said no funeral is planned, as requested by Mcdonald, but a memorial service may be held later. "When the Fletch novels came out, they sold over 100 million copies," List said. "He told me that he got to experience what very few writers got to experience, which was being a celebrity." List said the Harvard graduate moved to Tennessee in 1986 to avoid that celebrity, but he continued to write. His last book, "Souvenirs of a Blown World," a republished collection of his writings while at the Globe, will be released in early November, according to Dan Simon, the publisher at Seven Stories Press. After moving to Pulaski, Mcdonald became an outspoken opponent of white supremacists who wanted to march there because the city was where the Ku Klux Klan originated. He is survived by his wife, Cherlye, and five children, List said.
 
TELL-ALL BOOK BY MP's EX-GIRLFRIEND TO HIT STORES BEFORE ELECTION [CBC, 9/11/08]
Julie Couillard is releasing her autobiography ahead of schedule, before the federal election, a decision that could embarrass the Conservatives with revelations about her affair with former cabinet minister Maxime Bernier. The 320-page book was originally to be released on Oct. 14, Canada's election day — but the English version will now be available in bookstores on Oct. 6, 2008. The French version will be on sale a few days later. "She has been completely open and honest about her life from the beginning to the present day and talks about everything that she's ever been involved in," Josh Glover, a spokesman for McClelland & Stewart in Toronto, said Tuesday. "There's definitely some things that will be perceived as being very timely, especially given that the election is coming." The highly anticipated autobiography is expected to include details of Couillard's relationship with Bernier, who dated her for about eight months, while he was foreign affairs minister. "She did not hold back," Glover said. Bernier resigned from the post in May 2008, after it was revealed he left classified NATO briefing documents at Couillard's Laval home. The book, titled Julie Couillard: My Story, is supposed to include details of her past relationships with various high-ranking members of Quebec biker gangs. The launch of Couillard's book at the close of the federal election campaign "certainly won't hurt" its sales, but wasn't intentional, Glover said. He said Couillard signed the book deal on July 20, before anyone knew a vote would be held in the fall. "We were very lucky in that the initial product that we were delivered was much more polished than we were expecting so we were able to do that much more quickly and were able to move the date up two weeks from what we initially thought," said Glover, who noted Couillard will be doing interviews to promote the book. Couillard was not involved in the decision to release the book ahead of its original launch date, a spokesperson for Les Éditions de l'Homme told Montreal newspaper La Presse. Les Éditions de l'Homme is publishing the French version of Couillard's book, Ma vie. McClelland & Stewart is issuing the English version. A Conservative spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. Bernier is a Conservative candidate in the Beauce riding, southeast of Quebec City.
 
"HELPLESS", "SOUCOUYANT" NOMINATED FOR TORONTO BOOK AWARD [CBC, 9/10/08]
Barbara Gowdy's novel Helpless, winner earlier this year of the Trillium Book Award, and Soucouyant, a debut novel that also was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Literature, are both finalists for the Toronto Book Award. They were among five works, including a biography and a poetry collection, nominated for the $16,000 award, announced Tuesday by Mayor David Miller. The other nominees are: Loyalty Management, poetry by Glen Downie; Long Story Short, a novella and short story collection by Elyse Friedman; And Beauty Answers: The Life of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, a biography about two women artists by Elspeth Cameron. "Helpless" is a novel about a child abduction and "Soucouyant" is the story of young immigrant man trying to unravel the secret of his mother's past. The shortlist was chosen from among 68 books considered evocative of Toronto. The winner is to be announced Oct. 17, 2008. Last year's winner was Michael Redhill's novel Consolation.
 
JUDGE HALTS UNOFFICIAL HARRY POTTER LEXICON [Reuters, 9/8/08]
A U.S. judge on Monday, September 9 halted publication of an unofficial encyclopedic companion to the popular Harry Potter book series in a copyright case author J.K. Rowling argued would threaten other authors. Judge Robert Patterson in U.S. District Court in Manhattan wrote an opinion that said independent U.S. book publisher RDR Books "had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use" and that publication of "The Harry Potter Lexicon" should not proceed. The ruling said Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc and Rowling had established copyright infringement of the Harry Potter series and two companion books, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages. The British author and Warner Bros, a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc, sued RDR Books, which planned to publish the lexicon, a 400-page reference book written by Steve Vander Ark, based on his fan Web site.  Lawyers for RDR Books could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday's ruling, which said that if an injunction on the lexicon was not issued "defendant is likely to continue infringing plaintiffs' copyright in the future." In court in April, Rowling, estimated by the Sunday Times to be worth about $1 billion, said she was outraged her work was considered to be fair game because it was so popular. At the same hearing Vander Ark, wearing eye glasses similar to those worn by Harry Potter, said his book was intended to help readers and celebrate Rowling's work. He denied accusations of plagiarism. But Patterson's ruling in favor of Rowling's position said that "because the Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide, a permanent injunction must issue to prevent the possible proliferation of works that do the same and thus deplete the incentive for original authors to create new works." An attorney for Warner Bros and Rowling could not immediately be reached for comment on the ruling. The judge awarded Warner Bros and Rowling damages of $750 for each of the seven novels about the boy wizard and $750 each of the two companion books for a total of $6,750. "Since the Lexicon has not been published and thus plaintiffs have suffered no harm beyond the fact of the infringement, the court awards plaintiffs the minimum awards for each work to which plaintiffs have established infringement," the opinion said.
 
"THROUGH THE STORM: A REAL STORY OF FAME AND FAMILY IN A TABLOID WORLD" [AP, 9/6/08]
Much contrary to old claim, Britney Spears didn't lose her virginity to then boyfriend Justin Timberlake. In her new book, "Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World," her mother Lynne Spears set the record straight on that matter, claiming her celebrity daughter had sex for the first time with her eighteen-year-old high school sweetheart when she was just fourteen. Dispelling the false circulating judgment concerning Britney's virginity, the elder Spears revealed in the tell-all tome that the high school sweetheart was a Kentwood, La., high school football player. Not disclosing that to public, Lynne claimed she went on allowing Britney to sleep with Justin and just went along with the hoax that her famous daughter was still virgin. She even wrote that Justin was misled when he publicly told reporters back in 2003 that Britney "lost her virginity a while ago - and I should know." Continuing to tell all about Britney's younger years, Lynne also testified that her daughter experimented with alcohol for the first time after joining Disney TV show "The Mickey Mouse Club" in 1990s. She began experimenting with drugs when she was still 13 years old, sending shock to the whole family when they found her with cocaine and marijuana on a private jet. Despite the ups and downs in her family, Lynne honestly admitted that she regretted not managing Britney's career by herself. Losing control to her daughter's early career, according to Lynne, has led Britney to her public breakdown. "Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World" will be released on September 16, 2008.
 
FORMER U.S. POET LAUREATE RECEIVES PRIZE [AP, 9/3/08]
Former U.S. poet laureate Louise Glueck has been awarded the Wallace Stevens Award, a $100,000 prize for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry," the Academy of American Poets announced Tuesday (Sept. 2). Glueck, who served as poet laureate in 2003-04, is known for such books as "Averno," "The Seven Ages" and "Vita Nova." Previous winners of the Stevens award include Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery and Richard Wilbur. Brigit Pegeen Kelly, a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, received an academy fellowship, which includes a $25,000 stipend, for "distinguished poetic achievement." Kelly's works include "Song" and "The Orchard," a Pulitzer finalist.
 
'POTTER' PUBLISHER LOOKS TO PROMOTE NEXT BIG THING "THE 39 CLUES"  [AP, 9/2/08]
On Sept. 9, the U.S. publisher of "Harry Potter" will premiere a highly ambitious series with a mystery ending for readers and a couple of puzzlers for the industry: How big is the market for a multimedia story — and can a phenomenon be conceived by a publisher rather than created by the public? "The 39 Clues" is a planned 10-volume set about young Amy and Dan Cahill and their worldwide search for the secret to their family's power. The first book, "The Maze of Bones," is written by Rick Riordan of "The Lightning Thief" fame and has an announced first printing of 500,000. Steven Spielberg has already acquired film rights to the series. Designed for boys and girls ages 8 to 12, each book will have a different writer, including such best-sellers as Gordon Korman and Jude Watson. Backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, "The 39 Clues" also features game cards, a contest with a $10,000 first prize and a sophisticated Web site that includes games, blogs, videos and thousands of pages of background. "The word we always used was 'groundbreaking,'" says Scholastic executive editorial director David Levithan. "We wanted to be the first out there to introduce this kind of multidimensional thing." A Scholastic team, led by Levithan and including about a dozen editors, thought of the series about three years ago, working from the idea of a treasure hunt. The essential outline, including the ending, was set by the publisher. Authors were asked to fill in the details, taking a thread, as Levithan describes it, and turning it into a blanket. Scholastic quickly decided that "The 39 Clues," its title an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps," would make an ideal multiplatform event. Readers might check out the Web site, just as kids who love online games might then turn to the books. A recent study by the American Library Association revealed that many librarians already use games to attract young people and, ideally, get them interested in books. "Harry Potter" was born in the brain of Rowling and immortalized by millions worldwide. The staff at Scholastic, and the British publisher, Bloomsbury, were sure they had a hit, even a classic, but not a record breaker. Other children's franchises, including "Clifford" and "Junie B. Jones," began simply as books and expanded only in response to public demand. "I remember when 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' first came out; nobody knew it was going to be so big. That's how it works. You need the kids to grab onto a book and tell each other about it," says Beth Puffer, manager of the Bank Street Bookstore, based in New York. Other multimedia projects are being developed. HarperCollins is working with former Scholastic executive Lisa Holton on an eight-book series for girls. Dutton, a division of Penguin Group (USA), recently acquired a mystery trilogy by "C.S.I." creator Anthony Zuiker that will be complemented by an interactive Web site. Simon & Schuster will release "Spaceheadz," Internet sites and a series of chapter books co-authored by Jon Scieszka and Francesco Sedita.
 
STEPHENIE MEYER TO SHELVE LAST BOOK IN "TWILIGHT" VAMPIRE SAGA  [CBC, 9/1/08]
Stephenie Meyer, the author of a popular teen vampire series of books, says she has temporarily ditched the final episode of her series after an incomplete draft was leaked on the internet. The last book was to retell the story of the first instalment of her series, Twilight, from the point of view of Edward Cullen, the main love interest of the human teen Bella Swan. "I have a good idea of how the leak happened, as there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left my possession and each was unique. The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose," wrote the Arizona-based author on her website. "I did not want my readers to experience "Midnight Sun" before it was completed, edited and published. I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being." The announcement comes after the release of Meyer's highly anticipated fourth instalment, Breaking Dawn, which resulted in a massive backlash by fans who have been following the love story of Edward, the vegetarian vampire, and Bella. Readers were so upset with the book's plot that some returned their books. Fans expressed their distress over what they see as weak character traits in Bella who, in "Breaking Dawn", is desperate to hold on to her new husband, Edward. Critics are also disheartened by Bella's unexpected but post-marital teen pregnancy and feel Meyer has inserted an anti-abortion message into her book. Meyer's book series has been compared to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. The three earlier books in the series have sold seven million copies worldwide and have been translated into 20 languages. "Twilight", published in 2005, is coming out on the big screen in November. "Breaking Dawn" topped Amazon.ca's bestseller list as soon as it was released in early August. As for fans of the series, Meyer does offer a hint of hope in her posting: "If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on "Midnight Sun", and so it is on hold indefinitely."
 
MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE" by Orhan Pamuk  [Reuters, 8/29/08]
Nobel Prize-winning Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk published a new book in Turkey on Friday (Aug. 29), his first since obtaining the award. "Museum of Innocence" is a love story about a rich man and his poor, distant relative set in present day Istanbul, Pamuk's native city, his publisher Nihat Tuna told Reuters. Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in 2006, is a controversial writer in Turkey despite his popularity and big sales. He was tried for comments about the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One -- a highly sensitive issue for Turkey -- and decades-long fighting between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish army in southeastern Turkey. His case was dropped, but some anger over his remarks lingered. Pamuk's safety became an issue after the murder in January 2007 of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul. A key suspect in that murder, escorted by police into a court house, warned Pamuk to be careful. Some of Pamuk's previous novels have evoked the crumbled grandeur and melancholy of the Ottoman empire's old capital, Istanbul. He has also touched on Turkey's identity divided between the east and the west. Tuna said the new 592-page novel, Pamuk's second longest, is about love, marriage, family and happiness. The first foreign-language edition, in German, will be available within 10 days. Pamuk, whose best-known novels include "Snow," in which the main character is shot in Frankfurt, has a big following in Germany, home to about 2.5 million people of Turkish descent. An English translation is in the works, Tuna said. Pamuk's other books include "My Name is Red," "The Black Book," and "Istanbul: Memories and the City," which was translated into 58 languages and sold more than seven million copies worldwide.
 
"EVERYTHING UNDER THE SKY" by Matilde Aseni (HarperCollins Publisher, 387 pages, $25.95) [AP, 8/28/08]
It's a good thing that the gambling, opium-addicted, prostitute-loving husband of Elvira De Poulain died. She would otherwise be stripped of an adventure that is so engrossing it could compel the reader to skip meals and ignore chores in a mad dash to read the book's ending. Spanish writer Matilde Asensi delivers frantic action in "Everything Under the Sky," a historical thriller that is sometimes a bit overbearing and heavy-handed. But that's part of the fun. De Poulain is an uptight, middle-aged Spanish painter who travels to China in the early 1920s after learning that her husband has died there under mysterious circumstances. She arrives in Shanghai and is overwhelmed by loud noises, fetid smells and hordes of people. De Poulain is desperate to leave after arranging her husband's affairs, but finds herself unwillingly sucked into a quest for the remains and riches of China's first emperor. Asensi's descriptions are precise, colorful and extremely visual — the reader often feels like another explorer. The book is rich with historical details, including nods to feng shui, the Five Elements and the Wudang mountains, where monks are trained in martial arts. In real life, archaeologists have discovered the famous terra-cotta army of roughly 8,000 men and horses that protected Shi Huang Ti's tomb. But the tomb itself has not been excavated, which makes the book even more delicious to read. [Reviewed by Danica Coto]
 
"FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS" by Annie Proulx (Scribner, 221 pages, $25.00) [AP, 8/28/08]
It was Annie Proulx's award-winning "Brokeback Mountain" — a tale of love between two Wyoming cowboys — that became an Academy Award-winning film. Her brilliant new book of nine short stories still centers on the state where she has lived for more than a decade — it's subtitled "Wyoming Stories 3." She has a marked soft spot for ranch life and doesn't sentimentalize it. "For Archie," she writes about one of her least fortunate characters, "the work was the usual ranch hand's luck — hard, dirty, long and dull. There was no time for anything but saddle up, ride, rope, cut, herd, unsaddle, eat, sleep and do it again." Her adventure moves so rapidly and fatally that the reader does well to avoid going too fast and missing the beauty and vividness of a scene. General sadness about the West and a bitter final story about war in "Eye-rack" are tempered by two out of the nine. In those, the protagonist is no less than The Devil. An annoyingly fussy type, the Evil One becomes a vehicle for exposing some of the author's dislikes: the Tour de France, oddly enough, and air travel. "Fine just the way it is," snarls Charon, both silencing The Devil and furnishing the title for Proulx's book. On the dust cover the title surmounts a photo of a wretched shack in the desert. [Reviewed by Carl Hartman].
 
"KEEP THE FAITH": FAITH EVANS RECOUNTS MARRIAGE WITH BIGGIE AND HIS OTHER WOMEN IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY [Aceshowbiz, 8/25/08]
It's been 11 years since the death of her husband, the celebrated rapper Notorious B.I.G., that Faith Evans is coming out with a new autobiography. In her tome, titled "Keep the Faith", she recounts her marriage life with her late husband and more surprisingly she also talks about the many affairs he had plus all the women she caught sleeping with him. Opening up about her turbulent marriage to Biggie, the hit maker confesses in her book that she once caught Lil' Kim in bed with him. "I got to Big's bedroom door, turned the knob, and went inside. As soon as I saw a small lump next to Big's large frame, I flew into a rage, ran over to the side of the bed, and pulled back the covers. I grabbed some chick out of the bed and started beating her a--. At some point, the chick's wig came off in my hand: It was a short, cropped wig. I stopped throwing punches for a minute to get a good look at the chick I was beating up. It was Lil' Kim. She was completely butt-naked, yelling as I pushed her around the room," so read part of the excerpt from her book. At another time she even flew to Virginia, where Biggie was performing and caught him in bed with a groupie dressed as a schoolgirl. "I jumped on top of her and started beating her ass. I mashed her in the face and then kicked her," she said in the autobiography. In other dose of love affair, Evans also found a photograph and telephone number in Biggie's car, tracked the woman down and gave her "a brief but thorough beat down". "I thought maybe kicking some ass would get the word out that chicks better think twice before messing with my husband," Evans went on saying about her actions against the women who had affairs with her late husband. Also detailing on her encounter with late rapper Tupac Shakur, with whom she once was romantically linked, Evans stated in her book that she never had affair with him despite the fact that he tried to get close with her. "Keep the Faith", which as well will chronicle Evans' stint with Bad Boy Records, will be hitting shelves on Friday, August 29, 2008. Evans and Biggie married in August 1994. They have one son together, named Christopher. Biggie was murdered in Los Angeles in 1997 at the age of 24.
 
FORMER BOND SEAN CONNERY "BEING A SCOT"  AUTOBIOGRAPHY [AP, 8/25/08]
He's recognized around the world as the iconic face of James Bond. But in Britain, Sean Connery is also well known as a proud Scot, and on Monday he returns to his hometown to launch his autobiography. "Being a Scot" looks at Connery's early life as a milkman in Edinburgh's Fountainbridge neighborhood, then delves into a wide-ranging look at Scottish culture including the work of poet Robert Burns, novelist Sir Walter Scott and Mary, Queen of Scots. "It will illuminate what Fountainbridge's most famous former milkman thinks of many aspects of Scottish culture and life, including sport, architecture, and of course the gothic tendency in Scots literature," said Edinburgh International Book Festival director Catherine Lockerbie. Connery is a vocal supporter of the pro-independence Scottish National Party. He lives in the Bahamas and has said he will not reside in Scotland until it gains independence from the United Kingdom. He was the first — and, many say, the best — Bond. In a six-decade career, Connery also starred in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "The Hunt for Red October" and "The Untouchables," which earned him an Academy Award for best supporting actor. The unveiling of "Being a Scot" coincides with Connery's 78th birthday. The actor is appearing at the book festival alongside his co-author, the filmmaker and writer Murray Grigor. The Edinburgh event is one of Britain's leading literary gatherings, and runs alongside jazz, comedy and performing arts festivals in the Scottish capital each August. Among the 800 authors appearing at the Aug. 9-25, 2008 festival are Salman Rushdie, Louis de Bernieres and Margaret Atwood.
 
"THE FIRST BILLION IS THE HARDEST" by T. Boone Pickens
(Crown Business, 252 pages, $26.95) [AP, 8/20/08]
T. Boone Pickens deals in big figures. Very big. He quotes Forbes Magazine as pegging his worth at $3 billion in 2007, when he was 79. Now he wants to save the United States hundreds of billions every year by cutting its appetite for imported oil, which made billions for Pickens during his long career. At 28, he helped found Mesa Petroleum, which became one of the biggest independent oil companies. His two partners put in a total of $2,500. He got a half share for just a promissory note in the same amount. Eight years later, the firm took over Hugoton, a company that owned a large portion of the biggest U.S. natural gas field. "In a few weeks our activities upgraded the market value of Hugoton from $77 million to $137 million, an all time high," he writes. He was on the road to that first billion. His road map provides a lot of good old-fashioned advice such as working hard and keeping up with the news. There's less on producing actual fuel than on big bold trades in stocks and in pieces of paper that represent millions of gallons. For the small investor, his map doesn't trace the long and elusive trail to that first billion. But he does insist that executives who make the big deals ought to own substantial blocks of shares. He says that should motivate them to profit stockholders as well as themselves. Pickens was frozen out of management at Mesa's successor, Pioneer. He'd been with the firm 40 years. After he left, he still had five of its key employees, the Mesa name, two of its subsidiary businesses, $5 million in severance pay — which he seems to consider paltry — and the largest individual block of shares. He soon sold them at the top of the market. He estimates that from 1997 to 2007 Pioneer made a profit of $900 million. His new firm, BP Capital Management, made $8 billion between 2000 and 2007 and had no debt. "The week before I left Mesa, I had undergone a colonoscopy, moved out of my home, and filed for divorce," the book "The First Billion Is The Hardest" says. "Losing Mesa hurt the worst." Though he calls the divorce "nasty," the chief consequence he mentions is that he had to share custody of Winston, a toy spaniel. (The breed is called "papillon" — French for "butterfly" — because of its outsize ears.) Eventually, he decided the arrangement was bad for Winston, gave him up entirely and got a new papillon. He remarried in his late 70s. Pickens' account of his private life emphasizes his new wife — she leased a Boeing 737 to rescue dogs in the Katrina flood — and his extensive contributions toward financing sports at his alma mater, Oklahoma State. At 80, he's working now on the biggest deal of his life: a wind project. It calls for investors to put up $10 billion and lease 400,000 acres in five Texas counties, with an expected return of 15 percent a year. [Reviewed by Carl Hartman]
 
MEMOIR: "MY WORD IS MY BOND," by Roger Moore [AP, 8/20/08]
It's not easy being Bond. Roger Moore, who starred in seven Bond films in the 1970s and 1980s, recounts his days as the dashing super-spy in his upcoming memoir, "My Word Is My Bond," and says things weren't always as they seemed. "Jimmy Bond had a big jet boat chase in 'Live and Let Die,'" writes Moore, now 80. "I did quite a few run-throughs to practice and whilst banking on one such run, the engine cut out. I had no steering! I therefore continued in a straight line ... directly into a wooden boat house." He instantly catapulted from the boat into a wall, cracking his front teeth and twisting his knee. "There I was, as a fearless 007, hobbling on a cane to my boat and then pretending to be indestructible for the cameras. Who says I can't act?" Moore replaced Sean Connery in the 007 franchise in 1973. His films include "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Live and Let Die," "The Man With the Golden Gun" and "A View to a Kill." The book, due out Nov. 4, 2008, also recounts the time Moore bumped into a young Steven Spielberg at a Paris hotel. "He was a huge Bond fan and said that he would love to direct one of the films," Moore says. "He'd recently had great success with `Jaws' and `Close Encounters' and was considered a very hot property. I was rather excited at this news and went looking for (film producer Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli) to tell him." But Broccoli, who steered the Bond franchise over three decades, shook his head and asked, "Do you know how much of a percentage he'd want?" "It's always been policy that no Bond director ever got a slice of the box office profits," Moore says. "So, Spielberg went off and made `Indiana Jones' who I reckon to be a period James Bond!"
 
SOME NOTABLE BOOKS COMING OUT THIS FALL [AP, 8/18/08]
Fiction
"Divine Justice," David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing), the latest thriller from the author of "Absolute Power." 
"2666," Roberto Bolano (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a five-part epic from the late author of the acclaimed "Savage Detectives."
"Supreme Courtship," Christopher Buckley (Twelve), a political satire by the author of "Thank You for Smoking."
"Just After Sunset," Stephen King (Scribner), short stories from the horror master.
"The Hour I First Believed," Wally Lamb (HarperCollins), a 700-page novel by the author of "She's Come Undone."
"The Given Day," Dennis Lehane (William Morrow), a Boston-based epic from the author of "Mystic River."
"A Lion Among Men," Gregory Maguire (HarperCollins), more "Wicked"-ness from the author of "Wicked."
"A Mercy," Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf), a short novel by the Nobel laureate about a 17th-century plantation.
"Brisingr," Christopher Paolini (Alfred A. Knopf), more from the million-selling "Inheritance" fantasy series.
"The Hour I First Believed," E. Annie Proulx (Scribner), stories from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Shipping News."
"39 Clues: Maze of Bones," Rick Riordan (Scholastic), the first of a multi-volume, multimedia fantasy series.
"Home," Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a companion to Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winning "Gilead."
"Indignation," Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), life lessons on a Midwestern campus in the 1950s.
"American Wife," Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House), the author of "Prep" fictionalizes the life of Laura Bush.
"The Widows of Eastwick," John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf), a sequel to Updike's "The Witches of Eastwick."
 
Non-Fiction
"A Promise to Ourselves," Alec Baldwin (St. Martin's Press), the actor's thoughts on parenting and divorce.
"The World Is What It Is," Patrick French (Alfred A. Knopf), the authorized biography of Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul.
"Hot, Flat and Crowded," Thomas Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a call for environmental action from the million-selling author of "The World Is Flat."
"The Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown), the author of "Blink" ponders the meaning of success.
"The Longest Trip Home," John Grogan (William Morrow), a memoir by the author of "Marley & Me."
"Here's the Story," Maureen McCormick (HarperEntertainment), all the news from the "Brady Bunch" actress.
"Tried by War," James M. McPherson (Penguin Press), the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reviews the military leadership of Abraham Lincoln.
"Mike's Election Guide 2008," Michael Moore (Grand Central Publishing), an election handbook, with jokes, from the Academy Award-winning filmmaker.
"John Lennon: The Life," Philip Norman (Ecco), an 800-page biography by the author of "Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation."
"Change We Can Believe In," Obama for America (Three Rivers Press), policy statements and speeches from Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign staff.
"Called Out of Darkness," Anne Rice (Alfred A. Knopf), a memoir about faith by the author of "Interview With a Vampire."
"The Snowball," Alice Schroeder (Bantam), an authorized biography of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
"Call Me Ted," Ted Turner (Grand Central Publishing), the famed media mogul tell his story.
 
"THE WAR WITHIN: A SECRET WHITE HOUSE HISTORY 2006-2008" by Bob Woodward
[AP, 8/19/08]
The suspense didn't quite compare to the identity of "Deep Throat," but we now know the name of Bob Woodward's fourth investigative work on the Bush administration, just three weeks before the book's release.  "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" will be published Sept. 8, 2008 by Simon & Schuster with an announced first printing of 900,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is keeping the book under strict embargo — although such embargoes are often broken — and had even held back the title. "There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers," Woodward's longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday (Aug. 19) in a statement. "This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes." According to Simon & Schuster, Woodward's book "takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. "Based on extensive interviews with participants, contemporaneous notes and secret documents, the book traces the internal debates, tensions and critical turning points in the Iraq War during an extraordinary two-year period." The Washington Post, where Woodward currently serves as an associate editor, will run excerpts on Sept. 7. That night, Woodward will be interviewed on CBS television's "60 Minutes." (Both CBS and Simon & Schuster are owned by Viacom, Inc.) Woodward's three previous works on the Bush years have been No. 1 best sellers on The New York Times hardcover non-fiction list and their tone, like the president's approval ratings, has evolved from the essentially positive take of the first book, "Bush at War," to the far more critical "State of Denial," which came out in 2006. Woodward's literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, declined comment when asked whether President Bush, who spoke with Woodward for the first two volumes, had been interviewed for the current book. According to Barnett, Woodward only finished "The War Within" three weeks ago. Woodward is also known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting with fellow Washington Post writer Carl Bernstein. In the 1970s, they collaborated on the groundbreaking stories of the Watergate scandal that helped bring down President Nixon and on two best sellers about the Nixon administration, "All the President's Men" and "The Final Days."
 
BOOK REVIEW: "MY HUSBAND'S SWEETHEART" by Bridget Asher (Bantam Dell Publishing Group, 271 pages, $22) [AP, 8/16/08]
Lucy Shoreman is still coming to terms with her husband's cheating when she finds out he's dying. Unwilling to go through a second crisis alone, she gets drunk, takes his little black book and calls his sweethearts to invite them to take their turn at his deathbed.  She's stunned when the women start showing up. A 20-something drug addict turned art student and 50-something widow arrive first. Then there's her husband's high school algebra teacher, a lesbian, an actress and, finally, mother and daughter. Eager to avoid the drama in her home, Lucy turns matters over to her mother and some of the sweethearts while she focuses on reuniting the philandering Artie Shoreman with his long lost son. But when Artie's son turns out to be as charming as his father, Lucy's life gets even more complicated. "My Husband's Sweethearts" is best-selling author Julianna Baggott's first novel under the Bridget Asher pen name. She also writes children's books as N.E. Bode. "Sweethearts" is a laugh-and-cry novel whose plot includes equal portions of heartache and hope. The novel is thoroughly enjoyable, and, like Lucy, readers will probably fall in love with "My Husband's Sweethearts." [Reviewed by M.L. Johnson]
 

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