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Prize,
one of the world's most prestigious literary awards, on Tuesday
for his critically acclaimed gay novel "The Line of Beauty."
"This was an incredibly difficult and close decision,"
said the chairman of the judges, former Culture Minister Chris
Smith, after the 50-year-old Hollinghurst landed the Booker at
his second attempt. Organizers confirmed it was the first time
in the 36-year history of the Booker that a gay novel had won
the prize. The novel tells the tale of young Nick Guest, an Oxford
University graduate living in the London house of a high-flying
Conservative parliamentarian at the height of Margaret Thatcher's
power. In the boom years of the 1980s, Guest has a passionate
affair with a black council worker before falling in love with
a cocaine-addicted millionaire. In the book's most memorable
scene, the hero dances with Thatcher at a party while he is drugged
up the eyeballs. Chris Smith, Britain's first openly gay cabinet
minister, said of the panel's decision: "It resulted in
a winning novel that is exciting, brilliantly written and gets
under the skin of the Thatcherite Eighties." "The search
for love, sex and beauty is rarely this exquisitely done,"
Smith said of Hollinghurst, who was first short-listed for the
prize 10 years ago. The 50,000-pound ($90,000) prize bestows
instant literary fame on the winner, who can look forward to
hitting bestseller lists around the world. Fellow British writer
David Mitchell had been the hottest favorite in the history of
the Booker to land the coveted prize for his complex time machine
novel "Cloud Atlas." But the judges decided after more
than two hours of heated debate to go instead for Hollinghurst,
who had been consistently quoted by bookmakers as second favorite.
The Booker rewards the best novel of the last 12 months by a
British, Irish or Commonwealth writer. Won over the years by
such renowned authors as Salman Rushdie and Nobel literature
prizewinner J.M. Coetzee, it can lead to lucrative film and television
contracts as well as instant literary stardom. Critics have in
the past attacked the Booker judges for picking obscure winners
who may dazzle academics but fail to attract general readers.
welcome an old friend: A new
Hannibal Lecter novel, "Behind
the Mask," is coming next fall. "Thomas Harris is the
premier novelist of psychological suspense of our time,"
said Irwyn Applebaum, president and publisher of the Bantam Dell
Publishing Group, which announced the book's release Thursday.
"Millions of readers in 25 languages have wondered how Dr.
Lecter developed his particular appetite for evil. This novel
will satisfy their curiosity." Film rights for "Behind
the Mask" have been acquired by the Dino DeLaurentiis Company,
which produced the Hannibal movies, "Red Dragon" and
"Hannibal." Harris has written three previous Lecter
books: "Red Dragon," "Hannibal" and "The
Silence of the Lambs," which was adapted into an Academy
Award winning movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Harris is also author of the best-selling thriller "Black
Sunday."
the prestigious National
Book Awards, a rare appearance for a government report. The finalists,
announced Wednesday, were posted on the National Book Awards
Web site. The "Final Report of the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," as it is formally
known, was published by W.W. Norton in an authorized edition.
The book, which has sold in excess of 1 million copies, is one
of the five nonfiction finalists. The bipartisan panel, established
in November 2002, reviewed the "facts and circumstances
surrounding the [September 11, 2001] attacks," according
to the blurb on the back of the book. Its report came out in
July.The winners in each of four categories -- young people's
literature, nonfiction, poetry and fiction -- will be named next
month. Other nonfiction nominees are: Kevin Boyle, "Arc
of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz
Age"; David Hackett Fischer, "Washington's Crossing";
Jennifer Gonnerman, "Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey
of Elaine Bartlett"; and Stephen Greenblatt, "Will
in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare." Fiction
nominees: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, "Madeleine is Sleeping";
Christine Schutt, "Florida"; Joan Silber, "Ideas
of Heaven: A Ring of Stories"; Lily Tuck, "The News
from Paraguay"; and Kate Walbert, "Our Kind: A Novel
in Stories."
government for blocking publication
of her memoirs. She argues in her suit that restrictions on the
publication of books by authors in countries subject to US sanctions
are unconstitutional. American companies are banned from publishing
books by authors in Iran, Cuba and Sudan. Ms Ebadi was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize last year - the first Iranian and first
Muslim woman to win the award. Ms Ebadi and the Strothman Agency,
a literary agent that wants to represent her, filed the suit
in New York last week. On Monday, a federal judge agreed to add
the lawsuit to comparable suits brought by other publishers and
authors. No hearing date has been set. According to US Treasury
Department regulations, American companies are not allowed to
publish works by authors in Iran, Cuba and Sudan unless the works
have already been completed without any American involvement.
American publishers are also forbidden from promoting or marketing
works from the three countries unless they obtain a licence from
the Treasury Department. Ms Ebadi said in her suit that blocking
the publication of her memoirs in the US would be a "critical
missed opportunity both for Americans to learn more about my
country and its people from a variety of Iranian voices and for
a better understanding to be achieved between our two countries".
Brothers"
and multivolume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard
Nixon -- died early Sunday. He was 66. The author succumbed after
a battle with lung cancer, said Doug Brinkley, a close family
friend and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies
at the University of New Orleans in Louisiana. Brinkley, who
recently collaborated with Ambrose on the National Geographic
book "The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation,"
said the writer was diagnosed with lung cancer in May and was
unable to accompany him on a tour to promote the book because
of his illness. "Cancer was 'the battle of my life,' he
used to say," Brinkley said Sunday. Ambrose was born in
Whitewater, Wisconsin, in 1936. Initially a pre-med student at
the University of Wisconsin, he switched his major after an American
history course with William B. Hesseltine, a professor he described
as "a great teacher of writing." Ambrose was a star
football player at the University of Wisconsin and played in
the Rose Bowl, Brinkley said. The historian earned a master's
degree at Louisiana State University and returned to Wisconsin
for his doctorate. Other notable books by Ambrose include "Crazy
Horse and Custer," "D-Day" and "Undaunted
Courage," a history of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Ambrose
founded the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, was the historical
consultant for the 1998 Steven Spielberg film "Saving Private
Ryan" and retired as a professor of history at the University
of New Orleans in 1995. "He cared that people understood
American history in their homes," Brinkley said. "His
love for America came through in everything that he wrote."
Recently, Ambrose was accused of plagiarism after reporters found
that some phrases and sentences in his books were identical to
other works. Ambrose defended his use of the copied material,
saying in a letter on his Web site that he had "sometimes
... failed to use quotation marks" on material fully sourced
in his footnotes. "The copied words they discovered amounted
to about 10 pages out of a total work of some 15,000 pages in
print," Ambrose explained in a letter on his writing methods.
"The investigative reporters found them by using my footnotes."
Brinkley, a fellow historian who succeeded Ambrose as director
of the Eisenhower Center, said the accusations "stung, but
he brushed it off like just a lot of noise." "Out of
writing all those books, people were looking for Waldo in his
prose," Brinkley said. "His books are ones that will
be in print for a long time. He'll be sadly missed as a teacher
and a friend by so many." Ambrose is survived by his wife,
Moira Buckley Ambrose, and five children -- Andy, Barry, Hugh,
Grace and Stephenie.
arbitrariness
of history." Mr. Kertesz, 72, whose work has been shaped
by the time he spent as a teenage prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald,
was largely unknown even in Hungary until the collapse of Communism
there. Since the early 1990's he has been acclaimed in Germany
and has won a loyal following in Sweden and France. Only two
of his novels, "Fateless" and "Kaddish for a Child
Not Born" (Northwestern University Press), have been translated
into English.In its citation, the Swedish Academy said Mr. Kertesz
explored how an individual resists the enormous pressures of
social and political conformity."For him Auschwitz is not
an exceptional occurrence that like an alien body subsists outside
the normal history of Western Europe," the academy noted.
"It is the ultimate truth about human degradation in modern
existence."Mr. Kertesz, who lives in Budapest, was working
in Berlin when he learned of the prize. He said he considered
the prize a tribute to Hungarian literature. "It is a great
honor for me and perhaps it now means I can have a quieter life,
at least financially," he told reporters. "We're going
to have a big party with my closest friends."The first Nobel
literature laureate from Hungary, Mr. Kertesz received congratulatory
messages from that country's president, Ferenc Madl, and prime
minister, Peter Medgyessy. The prize, worth about $1 million,
is to be presented to him at the Nobel awards ceremony in Stockholm
on Dec. 10.
ransacked
their home. Crichton and his daughter were unharmed by the two
masked men who broke into their home in suburban Santa Monica
at about 5 a.m. local time (1 p.m. British time) on Monday and
stole undisclosed personal items, a spokesman for the 59-year-old
writer said. "An incident did occur at the house and Michael
and his family are fine," publicist Joe Marich said on Thursday.
He declined to elaborate on the incident. A police spokesman
said two suspects entered the home wearing ski masks and bound
Crichton and the girl at gunpoint before ransacking their belongings.
After the gunmen left, he said, Crichton and his daughter were
able to untie themselves and call police. Crichton's wife Anne
Marie has filed for divorce. The couple has lived apart since
August 2001, according to court papers filed earlier this month.
The Crichtons have separate homes in Santa Monica and share custody
of their daughter. A 1969 graduate of Harvard Medical School,
Crichton first achieved fame as an author when his novel "Andromeda
Strain" was made into a film in 1971. More than a dozen
of his other novels and screenplays -- many centering on medicine
and science -- were made into movies. He also created the hit
TV hospital drama "ER." His works include "Coma,"
"Westworld," "Twister," "The Great Train
Robbery," and "Disclosure." The movie studio 20th
Century Fox recently purchased the motion picture rights to his
upcoming novel, "Prey," whose plot is a closely guarded
secret.
new
series of rapper-penned books for 4- to 10-year-olds, the New
York Times reports. Called ''Hip Kid Hop,'' the series' kicks
off with two titles, by LL Cool J and Doug E. Fresh. Of course,
the books come with CDs so kids can rhyme along with the authors
and their backing tracks.LL Cool J's edition, a basketball story
called ''And the Winner Is...'', is a parable about winning and
losing with grace. ''Hip-hop's always reached out to kids,''
he told the Times, noting that there's more to rap than gangsta
rap. ''If you look at the last 10 big albums it might seem ironic.
But when I look at the history of this music it's always had
a lot of positivity.''''Hip-hop has gone through a lot of changes,''
said Doug E. Fresh, whose story, ''Think Again,'' is about two
kids who overcome racial antagonism to become friends. ''It's
a powerful force in a lot of kid's lives, and it can definitely
help kids learn to read.''How effective a reading tool these
books will be is uncertain, since they use slang and metaphor
in ways perhaps better suited to song lyrics than textbooks.
But Scholastic senior editor Liza Baker told the Times, ''Hip-hop
has the best way of turning language on its head. We think kids
will respond. This is the music kids are listening to.''Well,
sort of. Doug E. Fresh hasn't released an album since before
most of ''Hip Kid Hop'''s prospective readers were born. No word
yet on other authors -- bet the preschool set can't wait to read
Eminem's book.
not compared to what abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass
endured. "You think you've got obstacles to overcome,"
Cheney said. "Look at what this man did." 
"greatly
contributed to the wider public's interest in literature"
through his works and his TV appearances. He hosted a literary
programme on the ZDF public TV network for 13 years, watched
at times by millions of viewers. His autobiography, My Life,
has sold more than 500,000 copies. He was in the headlines again
this year as the inspiration for a controversial book by Martin
Walser called Death Of A Critic, which was widely criticised
for anti-Semitism. The main character in the book is a Jew based
on Mr Reich-Ranicki, who is a survivor of the Holocaust. Critics
say author Martin Walser used the novel to ridicule Mr Reich-Rainicki,
a charge the author has vigorously denied. The Goethe prize is
given every two or three years on the birthday of Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, who was born on 28 August 1749. Since its creation
in 1927 the prize has been awarded to the German writers Herman
Hesse (1946) and Thomas Mann (1949), as well as the father of
psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1930).
author
who sold "The Honored Society" under the auspices that
he was Michael Gambino, grandson of mobster Carlo Gambino. The
suit, filed in Manhattan federal court last week against Artists
Management Group of Los Angeles, seeks a return of the $500,000
the company paid author Michael Pellegrino plus damages. "AMG
failed to disclose facts unavailable to S&S concerning Pellegrino,"
the court papers read. "Were such facts disclosed to S&S,
S&S would not have agreed to contract with Pellegrino for
the Work." Simon & Schuster, which released "The
Honored Society" last November, has stopped shipping the
novel and has informed stores that they can return it. A Simon
& Schuster spokesman, Adam Rothberg, said Wednesday no decision
had been made about whether readers could be refunded. The publisher
had billed the author as "the highest ranking mob member
ever to record the innermost workings of the Honored Society."
At the time of the sale, Artists Management Group was run by
Michael Ovitz, who has since sold the firm. The literary agent
who worked on the deal was Joel Gotler. Neither Gotler, who no
longer works for the firm, or the talent agency's lawyers immediately
returned calls for comment. The lawsuit was first reported Wednesday
in the New York Post. Pellegrino, who lives in Las Vegas, claimed
he was Michael Gambino, the name that appears on the book jacket.
Inside, the author claimed to have spent 12 years in prison for
murder, kidnapping, extortion, gambling and pimping. In the fictionalized
account, supposedly based on his real-life experiences, the author
tells of how he vowed to turn his back on the family while in
jail. The late Carlo Gambino does have a grandson named Michael.
He is 16 and attends high school in New York.
August.
It is really sad and rather ironic that it is Dickens' book of
goodwill to all men. They were taken from a locked cabinet using
glasscutters, police said. But an attempt to cut the glass of
a cabinet containing copies of The Pickwick Papers was unsuccessful.
Nobody appeared to have witnessed the theft, despite it taking
place while the museum was open to the public, curator Andrew
Xavier said. "It is really sad and rather ironic that it
is Dickens' book of goodwill to all men," he said. "What
is even sadder is we have now had to take certain items off display."
Those items would be put back after security was stepped up,
Mr Xavier said. "This sort of thing happens and makes the
experience for our 25,000 visitors a year a little less enjoyable."
The books, taken between 1545 and 1615 BST, were probably stolen
to order, he said. It is estimated that they are each worth between
£20,000 and £30,000. Artefacts The museum is at 48
Doughty Street, Bloomsbury, where Dickens lived from 1837 to
1839. During his time there he worked on The Pickwick Papers,
his first full-length novel, and Oliver Twist. The museum houses
various other exhibits including the hall clock from Dickens's
last home, Gad's Hill Place and family portraits. Now owned by
the Dickens Fellowship, it also contains many of his letters
and his velvet-topped desk.
disdained
fictionalized crime writing, preferring instead to stick to the
facts as he uncovered them through research and interviews. "He
took true-crime writing to new levels," said Steve Weinberg,
a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors,
a nonprofit organization for investigative reporting. Olsen,
who also had written for magazines including Time, Vanity Fair,
Life and Sports Illustrated, was known for getting subjects to
talk and for plumbing the psychological and sociopathological
depths of killers, rapists and other criminals. "Jack could
charm the birds out of the trees," said crime writer Ann
Rule. "He could get anybody to tell him anything."
Olsen's account of a serial rapist in Wyoming, "Doc: The
Rape of the Town of Lovell," won a 1990 Edgar Allan Poe
Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He also wrote "The
Bridge at Chappaquiddick," about a deadly 1969 car accident
linked to Sen. Edward Kennedy. His last crime book, "I:
The Creation of a Serial Killer," written from the perspective
of "Happy Face Killer" Keith Hunter Jesperson, is scheduled
for release next month by St. Martin's Press. Olsen, a native
of Philadelphia, once said he became fascinated with crooks when
his criminology class at the University of Pennsylvania visited
a prison. "I thought criminals were gap-toothed, slimy mustaches,
crew cuts and muscles," Olsen said in a 1993 interview with
The Philadelphia Inquirer. "These guys, they looked like
me, except I was pretty young — and I since have found that
out at penitentiary after penitentiary: They are me but just
another version. They took another fork in the road." "He
wasn't afraid of conflict, but that's what made him such a wonderful
writer," said Charles Spicer, Olsen's editor at St. Martin's
Press. "He was one of the most innovative writers I ever
worked with." Olsen is survived by his wife and seven children.
syndicated
daytime show, Martha Stewart Living. Ms. Stewart joins Today
and Live with Regis and Kelly as programs that have pounced on
the book beat after Ms. Winfrey’s surprise decision this
spring to euthanize her hyper-popular "Oprah’s Book
Club."Though Ms. Stewart has featured many authors on her
program in the past, "Martha’s Favorite Books"
represents the first time books have been a structured part of
Martha Stewart Living, a spokesperson for the show said. And
whereas Ms. Stewart once focused on children’s, gardening
and cooking books, her picks this fall will branch out into literary
fiction and beyond."Martha has always been a supporter of
authors throughout the nine seasons of Martha Stewart Living,"
the spokesperson said. "For the 10th season, we will incorporate
a regular weekly segment, which will feature authors of a wide
variety of books." Ms. Stewart’s first guest is none
other than Jonathan Safran Foer, the quirky author of the acclaimed
outré yarn Everything is Illuminated. The bespectacled
literary love-child taped a segment last week, confirmed Lori
Glazer, a vice president at Mr. Foer’s publisher, Houghton
Mifflin. Ms. Glazer said she was told the segment will run sometime
in mid-September."It went great," Ms. Glazer said.
"Martha did a great interview about the book."
"Wonderful
World of Disney" banner, will be shot back-to-back as a
miniseries. Discussions are under way to film some scenes at
the Plaza. The network hopes to build a strong "Eloise"
franchise, ABC senior vp TV movies and miniseries Quinn Taylor
said. Immediately after giving the green light to "Eloise
at the Plaza" and "Eloise at Christmastime," ABC
is expected to start developing a third film, likely based on
"Eloise in Paris." Taylor said he and then-head of
ABC's longform division Susan Lyne were sold on the "Eloise"
pitch the first time they were approached with the idea a couple
of years ago. "Eloise is one of the most beloved characters
in children's literature," Taylor said. "For us, it's
everything that we need. It has a tremendous amount of appeal
to a broad range of audience, parents are still reading these
books to their children, it's promotable, and obviously the marketing
value alone is priceless. Say 'Eloise,' and everybody gets it."
The best-selling books follow a mischievous 6-year-old who lives
with her nanny and an assortment of pets in the venerable Plaza,
where a portrait by illustrator Hilary Knight of the young heroine
has hung in the lobby since 1957. Because Thompson was dead set
against adapting her books, the rights did not become available
until after her death. In 1999, the Itsy Bitsy Entertainment
Co. won a heated bidding war to acquire film, television and
allied rights to the children's series for an estimated $3 million-$4
million. Di Novi pacted with Itsy Bitsy to develop an "Eloise"
feature and later approached ABC with the idea for TV movies.
home.
Late in the afternoon, she was taken by rescue squad to Toledo
Hospital, where she died about 8:20 p.m., hospital spokeswoman
Colleen Grubb said. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, she wrote
23 of the first 30 'Nancy Drew' novels in the 1930s, '40s and
'50s, launching a series that is still in print and has sold
more than 200 million books in 17 languages. The character Nancy
Drew was an adventurous, outspoken and curious sleuth. "At
that time ... girls weren't like that. Girls were dependent,"
Benson told CNN earlier this year. She admitted she was very
much like the character she created. "I didn't follow the
pattern that normally girls followed. I just was myself always,
and what I wanted to be or do or think, I did and nobody opposed
me on it," she said. When the Nancy Drew series was launched,
Benson was required to sign a contract, giving her a flat fee
of $125 per book, with no royalties. She also signed away use
of the name Carolyn Keene. Before writing each book, she was
given a brief outline of each story, along with some of the main
characters. Benson was born and raised in Ladora, Iowa, and began
writing as a child. She graduated from high school in three years,
and received a master's degree in journalism from the University
of Iowa. Late in life, she earned her pilot's license, and flew
alone in the United States and Central America. She was still
golfing in her 90s. Benson worked at The Blade and the former
Toledo Times for 58 years. She continued to work despite failing
eyesight, hearing and an earlier bout with cancer. Benson "reported
to work every day, and retained a zest for life and her profession
long after most of her contemporaries had passed on," said
John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Blade.
"She was gutsy and daring, a living embodiment of her Nancy
Drew heroine. She influenced generations of Blade reporters.
I will never forget her," Block said.
and a group
of his colleagues realized that stressed out White House staff
needed a way to get together and talk about issues unrelated
to public policy. Supported by his boss and others, Motley helped
create the 1600 PENN Book Club, which is open to all White House
staff, from the most senior, including the President, and down
to the lowliest intern. The group meets once a month, over the
lunch hour, to listen to the author speak and ask questions.Motley
told PW Daily, "Book Clubs are springing up all over the
country and reading is such a solitary pleasure. Yet there's
a desire to share that pleasure and form a community to celebrate
these pleasures. Here at the White House, that's our work--exchanging
ideas. It's really less of a book club and more of a book review
series. We don't sit around and discuss a book for hours, we
just don't have time for that. So this is an opportunity to select
a book and invite the author in to talk about the book, what
inspired the work and the art of writing"Typically, an author
will take a half-hour to talk about the book, and the last half
hour is open for questions.A small book committee selects the
titles, which are limited to nonpolitical topics.The first author
invited was Joseph Persico, who came to discuss Roosevelt's Secret
War. Other authors appearing at the White House have included
John Feinstein, on his book about college basketball, The Last
Amateurs; Sandra Day O'Connor on The Lazy B; Ken Burns on Mark
Twain; Kirk Douglas discussed his autobiography, My Stroke of
Luck; General Hal Moore spoke on We Were Soldiers Once and Young;
and Richard Russo on his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Empire
Falls. Sounding every bit like seasoned politico, Motley told
PW Daily, "Every writer has opened a window for us to see
their point of view and their world of literature, fiction, drama
and history," adding, "and most of the events have
been standing room only." 
officials
disagree about the appropriateness of the punishment, suggested
by Johnson’s classmates when English teacher Frank Fleming
asked them to submit alternatives to detention or suspension
for avoiding the reading program. Although Fleming told Johnson
he didn’t really have to go through with it, the student’s
mother signed a consent form, and he went to school April 23
prepared with goggles and a shower cap, the Associated Press
reported June 28. School Principal Daphne Thacker said she took
pictures for the yearbook as laughing students threw jelly at
Johnson, who was also amused. “It was real creative, not
punishment of any sort. As a principal, I trust my teachers to
do what’s best for the kids,” she said. Some school
board members and officials expressed concern about the incident,
including board member Blanche Williams, who called it a violation
of Johnson’s civil rights. Psychologist Sue Thompson said
the student’s family should have stepped in, adding, “Anytime
a child is put in a situation that is humiliating, whether they
go along with it or not, the adult should step in and stop it.”
New
York Times that he had discovered the first-ever novel written
by a female African-American slave, ''The Bondwoman's Narrative,''
by Hannah Crafts. He sold the book to Warner Books, which touted
the ''magnificent discovery.'' Gates later declared that the
book ''could be our first pristine encounter with the unadulterated
`voice' of a fugitive slave'' - even though the writer's actual
identity has yet to be established. Before publication, Gates
sold an excerpt to The New Yorker, to which he is a frequent
contributor. Almost immediately after picking up the magazine,
a Princeton graduate student in British and American literature,
Hollis Robbins, recognized passages copied from Charles Dickens's
''Bleak House.'' (One wonders, idly, how the 24 scholars who
Gates says reviewed the manuscript missed this and other borrowings.)
Halfway into a letter to the editor - and cognizant of Gates'
superstar status in academe (and also aware that Princeton was
trying to woo him away from Harvard) - Robbins instead phoned
a friend at the magazine. By evening Robbins was on the phone
with Gates. Skip's remarkable spin campaign was underway. Instead
of being abashed, Gates decided to celebrate Crafts's copying
from Dickens. Using faddish jargon - not a retraction, not an
apology - in a letter to The New Yorker, Gates explained that
Crafts ''was seeking a relation to a canonical tradition, finding
in Dickens a language and rhetoric that she sometimes assimilated
and sometimes simply appropriated.'' A source at the magazine
professed bemusement at the ''Ambrose-like latitude'' that Crafts
had with sources, and said that the copying would have been taken
more seriously if committed by a staff writer. Gates credited
Robbins's discovery, and said he had known all along that the
book contained ''echoes'' of other writers. His author, Gates
explains, hadn't plagiarized, but rather had ''emptied out a
rhetorical template and filled it with particulars of her own
... I've got to imagine that plenty more instances from other
authors will emerge as more readers comb through the novel.''
Robbins, whom Gates commissioned to write an essay for an academic
study of the ''Narrative,'' was already finding other ''borrowings''
as well. In an essay published in last Sunday's New York Times
Book Review, Gates wrote that ''Crafts echoes or lifts passages
from a remarkably impressive range on English and American literature,''
citing 15 texts by 13 writers, including Horace Walpole; Charlotte
Bronte; Walter Scott, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Robbins also discovered
that a portion of the manuscript was ''creatively plundered,''
to borrow Gates's own phrase, from mid-19th-century copies of
Scientific American.
of 13 books, has returned with
a Rawlins novel after a six-year hiatus (1996’s A Little
Yellow Dog). The new novel is set in L.A. in 1964 and follows
Rawlins as he tries to track down a young man who has become
involved with a black revolutionary group. In a review of the
book, USA Today Book Editor Carol Memmott wrote, "Mosley
fans have waited years for Bad Boy Brawly Brown…. They won’t
be disappointed." The choice of Mosley’s latest follows
the selection of Richard Russo’s Empire Falls and Laura
Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit. The USA Today’s book club
chooses a new title every six weeks. During that period, the
paper posts questions on its book club message board, inviting
readers to discuss the book online. At the end of the six-week
period, the newspaper announces its new book club pick and invites
the author to do an online chat with readers. Bob Minzesheimer,
a book critic for USA Today, told BTW that a key factor in choosing
Bad Boy Brawly Brown was that "it’s entertaining and
accessible, but it also raises interesting moral questions. It’s
a novel that lends itself to discussions." In an interview
with Minzesheimer, Mosley said that his books were not written
to deliver political messages. "I want to open a dialogue.
I don’t want readers to think, ‘This is what Walter
thinks.’ I want them to identify with the problem, even
if they don’t agree with how it’s solved," Mosley
said.
future," Ambrose said Tuesday
in a prepared statement. "Now I find myself facing a great
challenge, and I am focusing on a course of action based on a
balance of good sense and cautious optimism."Ambrose has
written more than 25 books, including best sellers "Citizen
Soldiers," "Band of Brothers," and "Undaunted
Courage," a history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.He
has come under scrutiny recently after at least six of his books
have been questioned for failing to properly credit source material.
Ambrose has apologized for lifting passages from other authors.Ambrose
recently started writing an autobiography with the working title,
"A Love Song to America."Ambrose will have to pull
back from some work commitments but hasn't decided which ones,
his family said Tuesday."It's still too early to tell,"
said Hugh Ambrose, who works with his father as a researcher,
editor and agent at their office in Helena, Mont. "This
is a serious condition, and he's going to have to focus on getting
good treatment."Ambrose recently finished a book on the
Mississippi River with Douglas Brinkley, who in 1993 succeeded
him as director of the University of New Orleans Eisenhower Center.
"Mississippi and the Making of a Nation" is due out
in October.
Spanish
artist Joan Miro. After seeing off competition from Portuguese
writer Antonio Lobo Antunes and Argentina's Ernesto Sabato, Miller
joins previous winners such as Britain's Doris Lessing, Germany's
Gunter Grass and Mexico's Carlos Fuentes. "I am especially
pleased to receive this award from Spain where my works have
always been appreciated," Miller said in a letter in Spanish
sent to Spain's consul-general in New York. The award is one
of eight prizes given annually by Spain's Crown Prince Felipe
de Borbon to recognize outstanding achievement in the arts, literature,
science, communications, peace, international relations, sport
and social sciences. Miller, who had a turbulent five-year marriage
with film icon Marilyn Monroe, had already won the Pulitzer Prize
for his 1949 play "Death of a Salesman." Among his
most famous works, most of which center on painful individual
moral dilemmas, are "All My Sons" (1947) and "A
View From The Bridge" (1955). His 1953 play "The Crucible,"
set among the 17th century Salem witch trials, is a bitter allegory
of the U.S. Senate investigation into Communist sympathizers
led by Senator Joseph McCarthy which ravaged the arts world during
the 1950s. Miller, who has continued to write in recent years,
is due to receive the prize this autumn in the northern Spanish
city of Oviedo, in Asturias.
novel you should read before you
die, it is Don Quixote," the Nigerian author Ben Okri said
at the Norwegian Nobel Institute as he announced the results
of history's most expansive authors' poll. "Don Quixote
has the most wonderful and elaborated story, yet it is simple."
Around 100 well-known authors from 54 countries voted for the
"most meaningful book of all time" in a poll organised
by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo. Voters included
Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka,
Seamus Heaney, Carlos Fuentes and Norman Mailer. Isabel Allende
boycotted the exercise on the grounds that she objected to "book
surveys". The Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren
managed to vote just before her death in January, and her book
Pippi Longstocking made the list. Lessing said the authors aimed
to spark a thirst for reading in a young generation that preferred
TV and Playstations. "They should be called educated barbarians,"
she said. Miguel de Cervantes' tale of misguided heroism gained
50% more votes than any other book, eclipsing works by Shakespeare,
Homer and Tolstoy. Ten authors got more than one book on to the
list, which was not ranked. After Cervantes, Fyodor Dostoevsky
emerged as the most worthwhile read with four books listed: Crime
and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov.
The only Shakespeare plays the authors agreed on were Hamlet,
King Lear and Othello.
Farewell to Arms" and
"For Whom the Bell Tolls," will be available
in the electronic book format beginning in August. Each e-title
can be downloaded for $9.99, below the list price for most paperback
versions. "This is an important first step in creating a
complete, scholarly electronic library for Hemingway, as well
as bringing our classic backlist into the new era of digital
publishing," said Susan Moldow, executive vice president
of Scribner, the Simon & Schuster unit that has been the
exclusive American publisher of Hemingway's books for 75 years.
However, one industry analyst said the move was unlikely do much
for the sector, which has seen several publishers scale back
their e-book ventures in the last year. E-books have been slow
to gain favor with the masses, often because they are hard to
read and hard to find. "The (industry) is pretty stagnant.
The best advantage of this market is not for consumer fiction
books, better for journals and trade books, travel guides and
textbooks," said Jupiter Media Metrix analyst David Card.
works."It
has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis
that I feel absolutely compelled to share," Winfrey said
in a statement Friday. "I will continue featuring books
on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show' when I feel they merit my heartfelt
recommendation." Winfrey also broke the news Friday on her
talk show, when she announced that her final pick for now would
be Toni Morrison's "Sula," an acclaimed 1973 novel
about the friendship of two women. Winfrey is close friends with
the Nobel laureate and previously recommended such Morrison novels
as "Song of Solomon" and "Paradise." Winfrey
has made 46 picks since starting the club, although selections
have been more sporadic over the past couple of years. "Sula"
was her first title since January; only six books were cited
in 2001. A spokeswoman would not specify when she would make
her next pick or how often books would be selected. Winfrey,
48, has talked of retiring, but she recently extended the contract
for her TV show through the 2005-2006 season. Publishers were
understandably grateful, but some critics complained that Winfrey
favored sentimental stories over quality literature. Winfrey
herself seemed aware of these concerns and in recent months had
picked such weighty books as Mistry's "A Fine Balance"
and Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections."
in
Los Angeles since he was a teen-ager. He sold newspapers on the
street corners while developing his writing career."I received
so much inspiration from the city that it is a wonderful feeling
to be a permanent part of my hometown," Bradbury said at
the ceremony on Monday, where he received the 2,193rd star on
the Walk of Fame.The event marked the beginning of the "One
Book, One City L.A." program.To boost readership and city
pride, residents will be encouraged to read the same book: Bradbury's
"Fahrenheit 451," an anti-censorship saga about a futuristic
firefighter whose job is to burn books."By reading great
literary works like Ray Bradbury's we can foster dialogue among
our city's diverse groups," Mayor James Hahn said.
U.S.
literary prize, the writers' organization announced on Monday.
Patchett's "Bel Canto" beat out National Book Award
winner Jonathan Franzen's novel "The Corrections,"
Karen Joy Fowler's "Sister Noon," Claire Messud's "The
Hunters," and Manil Suri's "The Death of Vishnu."
"I'm thrilled. There were so many great books on that list,"
Patchett said from her home in Nashville. "It feels much
more like luck than achievement, like finding money on the sidewalk
rather than coming up with a really clever patent." Patchett
said the her inspiration for "Bel Canto" (HarperCollins)
was the December 1996 siege of the Japanese Embassy in Lima,
Peru, by members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. "It
was more ambitious in terms of its narrative structure. I always
wanted to write a really sweeping omniscient third-person narrative,"
she said. "The characters were more heroic, they were people
who tried so hard to be their best selves." The PEN/Faulkner
Foundation, named for author William Faulkner and affiliated
with the international writers' organization PEN, was established
in 1980 by writers to honor their peers. Its annual $15,000 peer-juried
prize for fiction is the largest in the United States. In making
the selections, judges David Guterson, Jane Hamilton and Sylvia
Watanabe reviewed 325 novels and short story collections from
85 publishing houses. Past winners have included John Edgar Wideman,
E.L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, E. Annie Proulx and Ha Jin. 
award beating out the most discussed novel of the year, Jonathan
Franzen's best seller The Corrections. The judges' citation
for Austerlitz said it was "suffused with an uncanny
and unforgettable light." Franzen's novel, one of five finalists
in fiction for the book critics' award, won the National Book
Award in November (an award open only to U.S. citizens). Other
awards announced at a ceremony at New York University: General
non-fiction. Nicholson Baker's Double Fold: Libraries and
the Assault on Paper, an impassioned attack on the careless
disposal of rare books and newspapers. Criticism. Martin Amis'
The War Against Cliché, a collection of essays
and reviews from the past 30 years by the acerbic British novelist
and critic. Biography. Adam Sisman's Boswell's Presumptuous
Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson, a biography
about the making of a biography. Poetry. Albert Goldbarth's Saving
Lives collection. The National Book Critics Circle includes
300 book reviewers, "the working stiffs of the literary
world," as Elizabeth Taylor of the Chicago Tribune, the
group's president, put it. The group maintains a Web site at
were written with
children in mind, so they have a directness and a freshness that
has withstood the years," said Sally Floyer, managing director
of Frederick Warne, the same publishing company that first published
the book in 1902. Floyer said Potter is often credited with producing
the first picture book for children. "She was the first
one to link pictures with the text," Floyer said. Many of
Potter's other characters, such as Miss Moppet, Jemima Puddle-duck
and the Flopsy Bunnies, have become beloved characters, but none
has matched the popularity of Peter, Floyer said. The Smithsonian's
National Museum of Natural History is recognizing the popular
bunny with a multimedia exhibition called Peter Rabbit's Garden.
The exhibit, which runs through May 26, includes storytelling,
photos of Potter and her family and a panorama of Potter's famous
Hill Top garden in England's Lake District. But Atlantans can
get a taste of Peter's tale a bit closer to home. The Atlanta
Botanical Garden has a Peter Rabbit Garden as part of its children's
garden. Education Director Tracy McClendon said it's one of their
most popular areas. Floyer said Potter's books have been reprinted
more than 250 times and translated into more than 35 languages.
Today, Potter's characters generate more than $500 million in
merchandise and book sales each year. Although Peter is a fictional
character, Floyer said Potter, an animal lover, had a bunny named
Peter from 1892 to 1901. "She always loved and studied animals,
and I think that's why her drawings have endured and been so
popular," Floyer said. "They're just so lovely."
killed in a car crash in
December, are among 25 books in five categories nominated for
this year's National Book Critics Circle prizes, the organization
announced here yesterday.The other nominees in fiction are Hateship,
Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro (Knopf),
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins), and John Henry Days
by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday).The nonfiction nominees include
two titles also nominated for this year's National Book Award:
Nina Bernstein's The Lost Children of Wilder (Pantheon) and Jan
T. Gross' Neighbors (Princeton University Press). Rounding out
the nonfiction list are three books from Random House: Nicholson
Baker's Double Fold, Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit, and Sam
Roberts' The Brother.The nominees in poetry are: Louise Glück,
The Seven Ages (Ecco); Czeslaw Milosz, A Treatise on Poetry (Ecco);
Albert Goldbarth, Saving Lives (Ohio State); Bob Hicok, Animal
Soul (Invisible Cities); and Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given
Salt (HarperCollins).The nominees in biography are David Hajdu,
Positively 4th Street, and Adam Sisman, Boswell's Presumptuous
Task, (both from Farrar, Straus & Giroux); Paula Fox, Borrowed
Finery (Henry Holt); Katherine Clark, Milking the Moon (Crown);
and Barry Werth, The Scarlet Professor (Doubleday).The nominees
in criticism are: Martin Amis, The War Against Cliche (Talk/Miramax);
H.J. Jackson, Marginalia (Yale University Press); W.D. Snodgrass,
De/Compositions (Graywolf); Rebecca Solnit, As Eve Said to the
Serpent (University of Georgia); and Joy Williams, Ill Nature
(Lyons).Winners will be announced at the organization's annual
awards ceremony on March 11 at New York University. At that ceremony,
the NBCC, an organization of 600 book reviewers, critics and
literary scholars, will also present its two awards not tied
to specific books.The Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement
will go to Jason Epstein, for many years editorial director of
Random House. Epstein founded Anchor Press, the first quality
paperback imprint, in 1952. He later started the Library of America
and the Reader's Catalog, and cofounded the New York Review of
Books.
died Monday
at the nursing home in Stockholm after several days off illness,
her friend Margareta Stroemstedt told the newspaper Expressen.
``Astrid maintained her personality until the end,'' Stroemstedt
was quoted as saying, adding that Lindgren had spent her final
days surrounded by family members. Lindgren's works were translated
into dozens of languages, ranging from Azerbaijani to Zulu, and
sold more than 130 million copies worldwide. About 40 films and
television series were based on her stories. She was awarded
dozens of Swedish and international prizes for her books, among
them the Hans Christian Andersen medal in 1958, which is considered
the ultimate accolade for an author of children's books.
Failure,'' is scheduled
for the fall. ``We hope this will resonate with people who liked
'Barbarian at the Gates,''' Doubleday spokesman David Drake said
Thursday. He promised ``a lively narrative'' about the Houston-based
energy corporation that collapsed amid allegations of shady accounting
and executive greed. Meanwhile, former Austin Chronicle writer
Robert Bryce is working on ``Pipe Dreams,'' to be published by
PublicAffairs in the fall. Bryce's editor, Lisa Kaufman, said
the deal was worth as much ``as we have paid for any book'' and
also cited ``Barbarians at the Gate'' as a model. ``We all want
to come out with 'Barbarians at the Gate,''' she said with a
laugh. A third book, Loren Fox's ``Power Shock,'' is scheduled
for a fall release by John Wiley & Sons. On its Internet
site, Wiley is pitching ``The Financial Numbers Game,'' a new
advice book the publisher says will help readers ``avoid an Enron
scenario.'' At least one best-selling business writer, James
B. Stewart, has no immediate plans for an Enron book. Stewart,
who chronicled 1980s corruption on Wall Street in ``Den of Thieves,''
is busy with other projects, according to a spokeswoman at The
New Yorker, where Stewart is staff writer.