Breaking news on authors, publishers, and book-related topics

J.K. Rowling interviewed in UK Newspaper

Jan 18 2006: In a recent interview in the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, J.K. Rowling talks about the pressures of fame, the most traumatizing event in her life (the death of her mother), the last Harry Potter book which she has now completed, and a new children's book she ...

Full Story

James Frey Backlash Continues

Jan 18 2006: The backlash over James Frey's books continues, but doesn't seem to be effecting sales (A Million Little Pieces was the Publishers Weekly #1 selling trade paperback last week, and My Friend Leonard was the #1 hardcover nonfiction title). In her foreword in last week's ...

Full Story

Perfect Storm of Movies based on Books

Jan 18 2006: There are a number of movies based on books coming out in the next few months, including:

• Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story , starring Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Keeley Hawes, based on The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence ...

Full Story

A Million Little Pieces: Fabricated?

Jan 04 2006: An article in The Smoking Gun claims that James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard) fabricated key parts of his books.  They cite police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement agents which belie a number of ...

Full Story

Gilead Wins Another Prize

Jan 04 2006: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, already the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has recently claimed another honor: the 2006 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. It is the only novel ever to win the award, which comes with ...

Full Story

NEA Trying To Reverse Decline In Book Reading

Jan 04 2006: The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) are taking steps to correct the decline in reading shown in their 2004 study "Reading at Risk", by announcing the allocation of $265,000 in funding to underwrite Big Read pilot programs in 10 communities.  They are ...

Full Story

Trial of Author Orhan Pamuk Postponed

Jan 04 2006: The trial of the author Orhan Pamuk, which was set to convene in late December in Istanbul, was postponed until February 7th. In an interview with a Swiss newspaper last fall, Pamuk remarked that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands ...

Full Story

Unpublished Author Gets Revenge

Jan 04 2006: Here's a news item that should bring a smile (albeit ironic) to the faces of unpublished authors everywhere - an enterprising journalist working for the London Times (UK) typed out a chapter each from two former 1970s Booker Prize winners (A Free State by V.S. Naipaul ...

Full Story