Untitled Books

Saturday, 30 April, 2011

How I came, had coffee, and conquered: Starbucks boss publishes secrets of success

Saturday, 30 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Biography of Royal Newlyweds Due May 17

Andrew Morton, who has written biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales, Monica Lewinsky and Tom Cruise, has turned to a familiar subject for his next book: the newly wedded royal couple Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, formerly Kate... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Television: Facing Age With a Saucy Wink

At 89, Betty White is riding high. And she has a new memoir of sorts, “If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t).”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Author of Memoir About Harper Lee Insists She Had Lee’s Cooperation

Marja Mills and her publisher, the Penguin Press, insisted that she had the cooperation of Harper Lee in writing a memoir of the writer.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Book Review Podcast: 'The Tragedy of Arthur'

Featuring Arthur Phillips on Shakespeare, literary forgery and his new novel, "The Tragedy of Arthur."... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Francine Prose’s Immigrant Novel

Francine Prose’s wry novel of a young Albanian immigrant in New Jersey sets America in high relief, mordant and comic, light and dark.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

The King’s Men, After the American Revolution

A Harvard historian considers those — rich and poor, white, black and red — who fled the American Revolution.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Essay: How Writers Build the Brand

Today’s literary publicity stunts pale before the sandwich boards, hot-air balloons and beer ads of yore.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Why the North Fought the Civil War

A Civil War historian argues that a commitment to national survival, much more than abolition, motivated the North to fight.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Lost in the Meritocracy

Professor X, an adjunct instructor and self-described academic hit man, disputes the idea that college is for everyone.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

The Novel as Puzzle

Blake Butler’s new novel is a family drama presented as a puzzle in diverse forms, from Whitmanesque to minimalist.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

How Goldman Sachs Beat the Bubble

A definitive account of how Goldman Sachs became the most profitable and influential investment bank of the modern era.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Retreating From a Ruptured Marriage

While her husband pursues an affair, this sprightly novel’s heroine becomes immersed in an all-female world.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

A History of Protest Songs

A British music critic explores the tradition of protest music through chapters centered on particular songs.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Janet Malcolm’s Cross-Examinations

Janet Malcolm studies the case of a cultivated doctor convicted of hiring a hit man to kill her estranged husband in 2007.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Tales From the Global Sex Trade

Chika Unigwe tells the stories of four African sex workers sharing an apartment in a Belgian red-light district.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: PEN's Instant Literary Karma

The PEN World Voices Festival runs through Sunday. One highlight for those who wish to rub shoulders with fellow bookish types is the "karma chain" forming Saturday at 11 a.m. on the High Line.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Up Front: Stephen Greenblatt

A few years ago, the Harvard professor and noted Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt found himself struggling to cook up a fraudulent piece of Shakespeare.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Shakespeare and the Will to Deceive

Arthur Phillips’s splendidly devious novel consists of a Shakespearean play of his own virtuosic creation and an “introduction” that devastatingly reveals the psychological life of its author.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

TBR: Inside the List

It’s only a few weeks since Barack Obama declared his candidacy for re-election, and already the right is winning the best-seller list.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Superman Renounces U.S. Citizenship

Tired of having his heroics misinterpreted as an extension of United States government policy, the Man of Steel renounces his U.S. citizenship in the latest issue of the Action Comics series.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Greek court rules that adoptive son is Kazantzakis heir

Feud over the rights to the work of Zorba the Greek's author Nikos Kazantzakis intensifies despite rulingA row over the rights to the works of Greece's most celebrated writer Nikos Kazantzakis is intensifying after the supreme court ruled that the... More...

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel gets first ever authorised release in China

Publisher paid $1m for right to publish Chinese edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, reports sayA Chinese publisher is set to bring out the first ever authorised edition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude in Chinese,... More...

Friday, 29 April, 2011

A Whim, A Book, And, Wow!

A book by Adam Mansbach, “Go the — to Sleep,” was not to be published until October, but pre-orders have already sent it into the Top 10 of Amazon’s best-seller list.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 29 April, 2011

Superman threatens to renounce US citizenship

Conservative commentators and bloggers react with disgust to the DC Comics superhero's decisionAfter years of declaring he stood for "truth, justice and the American way," Superman has provoked the ire of rightwingers by threatening to renouce his US citizenship.... More...

Friday, 29 April, 2011

It's all your fault, cult author tells his fans as latest book arrives five years late

Friday, 29 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Keynes vs. Hayek: The Fight of the Century

In the impressively produced rap video "Fight of the Century," Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes square off to argue over government spending.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Editor Vows George R. R. Martin Has Finished 'A Dance With Dragons'

Bantam Spectra has released a video showing the editor Anne Groell reading pages from George R. R. Martin's manuscript for "A Dance With Dragons," and she even alludes to how it might end.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

Mario Vargas Llosa under fire for Peru election endorsement

Revered author says he will vote for leftwing Ollanta Humala 'unhappily and with fear' as the lesser of two evilsMario Vargas Llosa compared Peru's presidential candidates to cancer and Aids, but in choosing one over the other the nobel laureate... More...

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Sing It Loud: Changing the World With a Stirring Cri de Coeur

“33 Revolutions Per Minute” by Dorian Lynskey is a history of protest songs as vehicles for propaganda or broad social change.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

Harper Lee denies any involvement in forthcoming memoir

Statement suggests a new book will shed little light on why Harper Lee has not published a novel since her Pulitzer prize-winning debut, To Kill a MockingbirdThe answer, as ever, appears to be "hell, no". The hopes raised that a... More...

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

South African author wins Arthur C Clarke award

Lauren Beukes honoured with top science fiction prize for her novel Zoo City, set in an alternate JohannesburgSouth African author Lauren Beukes has won the UK's top science fiction prize, the Arthur C Clarke award, seeing off the favourite, Ian... More...

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

National Briefing | MEDIA: Harper Lee Denies Link to Memoir

Harper Lee, the tight-lipped author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” issued a statement saying that she had nothing to do with a forthcoming book written about her.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Author Repudiates Journalist's Memoir About Her

Harper Lee, the tight-lipped author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," issued a short statement through her sister's law firm on Wednesday saying that she had nothing to do with a coming book written about her by... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 28 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Is the Protest Song Dead?

Can pop music change the world? A new book by Diran Lynskey, “33 Revolutions Per Minute,” to be reviewed by The New York Times, examines the history of protest songs. What are your favorite protest songs or lyrics?... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Argentina considers paying writers a pension

Authors who have published five books or invested 20 years in 'literary creation' would get £565 a month under the planArgentina is to consider granting a special pension to writers on the grounds that they generate "social richness" but often... More...

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Despite Author's Death, Crime Series to Continue

The Spenser and Jesse Stone series created by Robert B. Parker will live on.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Fake Memoir With Bogus Shakespeare

Arthur Phillips’s “Tragedy of Arthur,” about the discovery of what is reputed to be a lost Shakespeare play, turns the author into a central player in his own novel, a puzzle box that is as entertaining as it is brainy.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Talking About Her Love of McCullers

The singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega branches out, writing and performing a play with music, “Carson McCullers Talks About Love,” that has gestated for 30 or so years.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Children’s Books: Picture Books About Fearless Women

“Queen of the Falls” follows Annie Edson Taylor over Niagara Falls in a barrel; and “Nurse, Soldier, Spy” tells the story of the cross-dressing Civil War hero Sarah Emma Edmonds.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray published

Over 120 years after it was condemned as 'vulgar' and 'unclean', an uncensored version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is published by Harvard University PressRevised after it was condemned in the British press over 130 years ago... More...

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Ryan O'Neal to Write of Life With Farrah Fawcett

Ryan O'Neal's memoir, tentatively titled "Past Imperfect" and planned for a spring 2012 release, will chronicle his 30-year relationship with Farrah Fawcett, who died in 2009.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Schlesinger Letters Will Be Collected

The correspondence of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. with the likes of John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Katharine Graham and Reinhold Niebuhr will be published in a book that Random House plans to release in 2013.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Journalists, authors and bloggers on the Orwell Prize shortlist

The shortlists for the 2011 Orwell Prize - which is dedicated to rewarding those who come closest to achieving George Orwell's ambition "to make political writing into an art" - have been announced.They are divided into three categories - books,... More...

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Food Stuff: A Book of Recipes Gathered From Holocaust Survivors

In “Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival,” Holocaust survivors and their relatives share stories and recipes.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 27 April, 2011

Technology Advances; Humans Supersize

A Nobel-winning economist and his colleagues track the startlingly fast changes in human height and longevity since 1700.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Helen Dunmore novel shortlisted for Orwell prize

Booker-nominated recreation of Stalinist Russia, The Betrayal, is finalist for political writing award Winner of the Orange prize and a contender for last year's Booker, today the novelist and poet Helen Dunmore took a step into rather different award territory... More...

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Lost archive shows Wittgenstein in a new light

Material gives fresh insight into philosopher's mind and relationship with young male lover and amanuensisIn the rarefied world of Wittgenstein scholarship it is little short of astonishing: an untapped, lost archive of original material which provides fresh insights into the... More...

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Gimlet Eye Observes Murder Case

Janet Malcolm observes a murder trial involving the Bukharan-Jewish community in Queens while attacking the way journalists covered it.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Post-Mortem on Madoff’s Fraud While Scandal Is Still Quivering

The Times’s Diana B. Henriques dissects Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in her new book.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: How Do You Say 'Jughead' in Spanish?

Archie Comics announced Monday that the company would start offering some of its titles available for digital download in Spanish. "... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Aspiring Authors Get Help Online

Penguin Group USA has established Book Country, a Web site aimed at assisting authors by allowing them to post work, receive critiques and, eventually, to self-publish for a fee.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Michael Moorcock imagines tales of unseen Mervyn Peake pictures

The Sunday Books, using pictures drawn by the Gormenghast author for his children, will be published to coincide with Peake's centenaryIt is a match made in fantasy heaven: legendary genre author Michael Moorcock has written a series of verses to... More...

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

Women dominate Hugo awards shortlist

Four out of five novels in line for prize are by female authorsFrom Isaac Asimov to Frank Herbert, science fiction has historically been viewed as a male-dominated genre. But the shortlist for this year's prestigious Hugo best novel award, voted... More...

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Books by and for Autistic Children

April is "Autism Awareness Month," and several new books are available on the subject that look noticeably different, shedding the institutional feel of earlier takes. The mission remains, but the books look like the kind children may actually want to... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 25 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Baseball According to Beckett: A Game That Wouldn’t End

Dan Barry, in “Bottom of the 33rd,” describes one of the strangest baseball games in history: 32 unbroken innings.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Sunday, 24 April, 2011

Alexander Mamut 'close to' buying Waterstone's for £35m

• Move would raise profile of Russian oligarch Mamut • Tim Waterstone refuses to comment on joint bid rumoursA Russian oligarch who counts Roman Abramovich among his friends is reportedly close to buying the Waterstone's book chain in a £35m... More...

Sunday, 24 April, 2011

Robert Louis Stevenson gets his revenge on sneaky literary agent – 120 years later

The Treasure Island author's fairytales are finally to be published in one set, as he intendedThe literary betrayal of one of the most popular writers in the English language, Robert Louis Stevenson, is to be avenged in the first collected... More...

Sunday, 24 April, 2011

Two Schools in Afghanistan, One Complicated Situation

The “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson’s charitable work, seen up close, suggests the complexity of development work in Afghanistan.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

Scenes From the Madoff Masquerade

Bernard L. Madoff remained calm and seemingly in control as the financial crisis closed in around him, a new book says.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

Why the King James Bible Endures

The King James Bible turns 400 next month. But it still speaks to current debates over how best to translate sacred texts.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

Judge Approves Bonus Plan for Executives of the Borders Group

The bankruptcy judge said a revised plan was “in the best interests of the debtors, their estates and creditors.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

In Elite Library Archives, a Dispute Over a Trove

Paul Brodeur, a former investigative reporter for The New Yorker, claims the New York Public Library has mishandled the collection of documents he donated to its archives.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

Shaun Tan’s Wild Imagination

Already celebrated in his native Australia, the artist has emerged on the global stage at 37 as a major visual storyteller.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

TBR: Inside the List

Greg Mortenson, whose “Three Cups of Tea” clocks its 220th week on the paperback nonfiction list, tests the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 23 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Graphic Books Best Sellers: Dates, Heroes and Fairies

The new titles on the lists this week point to the diversity of graphic novels.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Greg Mortenson's dizzying fall from grace

People in Pakistan featured in Three Cups of Tea dispute writer's recollection of events in memoirThe troubled world of book publishing has become almost wearily accustomed to receiving yet more bad news of a critically acclaimed memoir that turns out... More...

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Simon Schama: The Essayist as Star Writer

In these essays, the historian Simon Schama roams among various pursuits, both broad and intimate.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

At the Perilous Intersection of Books and Booze

In Tom Shone’s first novel, a literary agent joins Alcoholics Anonymous to pursue an esteemed author.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Bullies in the Burbs

A mother’s action during a school emergency causes an uproar in her idyllic suburban community.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Book Review Podcast: The Civil War

Featuring Adam Goodheart on his book "1861: The Civil War Awakening"; and excerpts from a panel discussion about the role of poetry in the modern world.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Paula Fox’s Miscellany

This literary assortment from Paula Fox includes stories, essays and memoir fragments, written over the course of half a century.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Ice-T, Living Out Loud

Ice-T — rapper, actor, author — holds forth on urban culture and the price of fame.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Up Front: Baz Dreisinger

Baz Dreisinger started writing about hip-hop in the late 1990s, as both an academic and a journalist.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Questioning America’s Faith in Air Power

Martin van Creveld questions Americans’ faith in air power as a way to win a war without a heavy price.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

An Ecologist’s Surprising Assessment of the BP Spill

A report from a marine ecologist who scrutinized the Deepwater Horizons oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Crime: Covert Operations

Mystery novels by Anne Perry, Philip Kerr, David Downing and Julia Spencer-Fleming.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Essay: An Evangelical Pastor Opens the Gates of Heaven

In his controversial new best seller, “Love Wins,” the evangelical minister Rob Bell challenges traditional views of heaven and hell.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

A Novel of Britain’s 60s Generation Growing Up

Linda Grant’s novel follows a generation through a British couple who met in college in the late 1960s.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

On Poetry: How Poets Achieve Their Styles

A look at new books by Matthew Zapruder, 43, and Rachel Wetzsteon, who killed herself at 42 in 2009.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

A Daughter Remembers William Styron

William Styron’s daughter tells what it was like to live with her famous father’s depression and paranoia.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

A Nation Stirs, the Civil War Begins

In this exhilarating account of the Civil War’s first stage, Adam Goodheart turns his lens upon some fascinating figures who loomed large at the time but have now been mostly forgotten.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: 'Dark Knight Returns' Page Up for Auction

The original artwork for a splash page from issue No. 3, which features Batman leaping through the skyline along with his new Robin, Carrie Kelley, the first female to hold that role, is up for bid at Heritage Auctions.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Three Quarrelsome Sisters Under One Roof Again

This first novel is narrated by a trinity of sisters who return home to care for their ailing mother.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Morrissey's autobiography finally finished

Memoir, said to be 200,000 words long, is ready for 're-drafting and trimming', says the former Smiths frontmanMorrissey's autobiography is done, he just isn't sure if anyone's going to read it. The former Smiths frontman confirmed that he has completed... More...

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Smiths bidding war hinges on 'classic' status

Friday, 22 April, 2011

Books of The Times: She’s Making Friends in a New Place

In Francine Prose’s new novel, an Albanian immigrant seeks the good life by inventing stories of her old one.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Jennifer Egan Talks TV Plans for 'A Visit From the Goon Squad'

Ms. Egan said a planned HBO television series would "try to capture the polyphonic quality" of her novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

BBC denies 'sneering' at genre fiction

Corporation responds to writers' letter claiming science fiction, fantasy and horror had been overlooked by World Book Night programmingThe BBC has asserted its commitment to genre fiction in all forms following an attack by a group of authors which accused... More...

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

Kindle readers can now borrow ebooks from libraries

Amazon has sanctioned the use of its e-reader – complete with note-taking facility – for ebook library loans in the USScribbling in the margins of library books will soon be permitted, after Amazon.com announced yesterday that it would allow Kindle... More...

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

Will the last reporter please turn out the lights...

Bob McChesney, the US media academic and author of many books about journalism - most especially the excellent Rich Media, Poor Democracy - has co-edited an anthology of essays entitled Will the last reporter please turn out the lights: the... More...

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

Skin Deep: This Is What ‘Parisienne’ Looks Like

Inès de la Fressange, businesswoman and former model, wrote a best-selling book of tips on how to look Parisian.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

Newly Released Books

This month turns out to be a cruel one for women, with new releases — from Jo Ann Beard, Siri Hustvedt, Mary Gordon, Linda Grant, David Hewson and Michael Wallner — exploring themes of adolescence, adultery, aging and murder.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 21 April, 2011

Greg Mortenson to be sued by tribesmen he said kidnapped him

Three Cups of Tea author to have lawsuit filed against him by Mansur Khan Mahsud, who says his story is 'lies from A to Z'Greg Mortenson, the author and philanthropist accused of fabricating large parts of his autobiographical writings, is... More...

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Children's Books: Old-School Interactive Books

Two new picture books, “Ice” and “Press Here,” invite reader engagement without bells or whistles.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Books of The Times: He’s Handsome — You Noticed? — but Not Just

Often in his memoir, “Stories I Only Tell My Friends,” Rob Lowe, who shows himself to be smart and self-deprecating, marvels at the sheer absurdity of his circumstances.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Debut novel by unemployed civil servant longlisted for £10,000 award

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman among 10 first books contending for Desmond Elliott awardLast year, Stephen Kelman had been made redundant from his job in local government administration and was trying to sell his first novel to a publisher. A... More...

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Publisher snaps up debut novel with £600,000 advance

So This Is How It Ends by Kathleen MacMahon bought by Little, Brown in one of this year's biggest publishing dealsBookshops are beleaguered and publishers are struggling, but it appears that the money is still there for the right books:... More...

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

The Dark Knight Rises roles for Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Warner confounds fans by announcing Christopher Nolan favourites will play new characters Miranda Tate and John Blake in third Batman filmMarion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have been officially confirmed for Christopher Nolan's forthcoming third and final Batman film, The Dark... More...

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Wendy Cope's archive sold to British Library

Personal effects including manuscripts, notebooks, school reports and 40,000 emails bought for £32,000Wendy Cope is famous for her parodies of poetical greats, from Wordsworth to TS Eliot. But the poet wasn't always so precise in her reading: a 1962 report... More...

Wednesday, 20 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Recalling Childhood as a Styron

Alexandra Styron writes of growing up with a novelist who had a charmed social circle and difficult personality.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

Books on Science: Eighty Years Along, a Longevity Study Still Has Ground to Cover

Researchers find conscientiousness might be the key to a long life.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

West End hit Clybourne Park wins Pulitzer prize for drama

Author Bruce Norris joins Edward Albee, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as winner of prestigious prizeClybourne Park, which won the Olivier award for best new play for its examination of race relations and the effects of modern gentrification,... More...

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Ann Coulter Follows Up 'Guilty' With 'Demonic'

The conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter has vowed to "take on the liberal mob" in her new book, "Demonic."... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

‘Three Cups of Tea’ Author Defends Book

A CBS News report questioned several facts in Greg Mortenson’s memoir, which has fed a charity he runs.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: HBO Orders a Second Season of 'Game of Thrones'

HBO said 2.2 million viewers had watched the debut broadcast of "Game of Thrones," adapted from George R. R. Martin's best-selling "Song of Ice and Fire" novels.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Pull Up a Throne and Let’s Talk

Most readers who responded to my review of “Game of Thrones” were horrified or furious or both.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

Salman Rushdie services New York hotel rooms with books

In honour of PEN World Voices festival in New York, which he is chairing, novelist selects books for the city's high-end Standard HotelGuests staying at New York's luxury Standard hotel next week will not have to resort to copies of... More...

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

Jennifer Egan takes Pulitzer prize

A Visit From the Goon Squad adds prestigious fiction award to haul of honoursAn experimental novel inspired by Proust and The Sopranos and featuring a chapter written entirely as a PowerPoint presentation has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction. Jennifer... More...

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

Books of The Times: The Reclusive Other Half of Microsoft’s Odd Couple Breaks His Silence

The headline-making aspect of Mr. Allen’s memoir is his depiction of the stormy relationship with Bill Gates as two business partners’ equivalent of a first bad marriage.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Winners of Lukas Prizes For Nonfiction

A book about the conflict between Muslims and Christians and one about the migration of black Americans from south to north won the 2011 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards for exceptional nonfiction.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 19 April, 2011

2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

The New York Times won two Pulitzer Prizes for commentary and foreign reporting in 2010, while The Los Angeles Times received the coveted public service Pulitzer.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson in schools fraud row

Mortenson denies CBS claims he spent more on book promotion than on schools and used his charity as a 'private ATM'Greg Mortenson, best-selling author, philanthropist, mountaineer and favourite of President Barack Obama is fighting off another title: fraudster. The influential... More...

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Rick Santorum disowns Langston Hughes line used in presidential campaign

Anti-gay Republican has distanced himself from his website's slogan, which seems to derive from poet widely believed to be gayEight years after Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum compared homosexuality to incest, a phrase from a poem by Langston Hughes, an... More...

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Jack Kerouac's Big Sur heads to the big screen

Jean-Marc Barr cast as lead role in Michael Polish's forthcoming adaptation of 1962 beat generation novelTypical: you wait a lifetime for a big-screen beat generation movie and then three roll off the rank at once. Hard on the heels of... More...

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Genre authors protest at 'shabby treatment' by BBC

Letter from 85 leading authors including Iain M Banks and Michael Moorcock hits out at 'sneering tone' of World Book Night programmes towards commercial fictionElder statesmen science fiction authors Iain M Banks and Michael Moorcock are among the 85 authors... More...

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Martin Amis bemoans England's 'moral decrepitude'

Novelist despairs of country with 'philistine' royal family where 'celebrity is the new religion' and 'all is rotten inside'Martin Amis has told a French magazine that he "would prefer not to be English", saying that his native country is in... More...

Monday, 18 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Tax Day Special: David Foster Wallace and the Terrors of the Tingle Table

David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, "The Pale King," is about I.R.S. agents at a regional examination center in Peoria, Ill.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Some Stuff She Knows About Hawaii

Sarah Vowell’s “Unfamiliar Fishes” is a relentlessly casual, personal take on the Americanization of Hawaii.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 18 April, 2011

Cider with Rosie writer Laurie Lee's possessions to be auctioned

A collection of the novelist's belongings, including a Corona travelling typewriter, are to go under the hammerFans of Laurie Lee, the author of Cider with Rosie, will be able to take home a piece of literary history if they travel to... More...

Sunday, 17 April, 2011

Philip Hensher's campus comedy angers university colleagues

King of the Badgers, Philip Hensher's latest novel, is said to contain 'a very unflattering portrait' of Exeter UniversityAuthors are told: "Just write about what you know." But it can lead to trouble, as Man Booker-shortlisted novelist Philip Hensher has... More...

Sunday, 17 April, 2011

'Three Cups of Tea'. One big lie? Author accused of fudging facts

Sunday, 17 April, 2011

Sweet Valley Twins Are Back, and, Like Readers, Fully Adult

St. Martin’s Press is navigating the trickiness of reviving a beloved series and directing it at the people who were devoted to it the first time around.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Off the Shelf: Workplace Fiction That’s True to Life

Why are there so few good stories about working men and women? A collection edited by Richard Ford, “Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar,” fills the void.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Paul Violi, a Poet Both Wry and Sly, Dies at 66

Mr. Violi created his own verse forms, many of them based on the most mundane of models.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Beliefs: A ‘Good Book,’ Absent God

“The Good Book: A Humanist Bible,” by the English philosopher A. C. Grayling, is modeled on the Christian Bible.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

GroVont Redux

Fifteen years after the last installment, Tim Sandlin brings back Lydia Elkrunner and other characters from his series about GroVont, Wyo.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

What Grief Is Really Like

In this memoir, the poet Meghan O’Rourke chronicles her mother’s death and its desolate aftermath.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

How Language Heals

A writer helps her husband recover the ability to use words through declarations of affection.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Shakespeare Subpoenaed

The findings of a law professor who teaches a course on Shakespeare’s relevance.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Kate Atkinson’s Unorthodox Mystery Series

In the fourth novel of an unorthodox mystery series, the ex-P.I. Jackson Brodie searches for a missing woman.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Francis Fukuyama’s Theory of the State

Francis Fukuyama argues that a combination of three political concepts changed the world.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

What Makes Literature Literature?

As once disparaged genres attain the status of classics, a Harvard professor asks what makes something “literary.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

At Home With Susan Sontag

Sigrid Nunez recalls sharing an apartment with Susan Sontag while dating her son in the late 1970s.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Geoff Dyer’s Wide-Ranging Curiosity

This collection of writings on what Geoff Dyer calls “the unruly range” of his concerns centers on photography, music and socio-historical subjects.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

The Pun’s Story

A champion punster makes a case for his odd diction.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

Up Front: Tom McCarthy

Tom McCarthy was among the corps of early readers who seized on “Infinite Jest,” David Foster Wallace’s postmodern masterpiece.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 16 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: David Ferry Wins the World's Biggest Poetry Prize

The Poetry Foundation has awarded the translator and poet David Ferry the largest prize in the business, the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Book Review Podcast: Death and Taxes

Featuring Meghan O'Rourke on her memoir, "The Long Goodbye"; and Jennifer Schuessler on David Foster Wallace and the I.R.S.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

TBR: Inside the List

“Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” hits No. 3 on the hardcover nonfiction list this week, trailing admiring reviews and eulogies for Manning Marable, its author, who died a few days before the book’s publication.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Graphic Books Best Sellers: Super-Hero Central

There is a lot of turnover on the manga list this week, and all of the new titles are from VIZ Media.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

David Foster Wallace: The Last Audit

David Foster Wallace’s coherent, if uncompleted, posthumous novel is a portrayal of our age unfolding on an epic scale: a grand parable of postindustrial culture or “late capitalism,” set in the innards of the Internal Revenue Service.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Essay: David Foster Wallace and the Literary Tax Accountant

David Foster Wallace’s lively correspondence with accountants suggests taxes may not be as boring as you think.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Ebook sales pass another milestone

Electronic books have become the largest single format in the US for the first time, new data revealsEbooks have become the single bestselling category in American publishing for the first time, according to new data released yesterday.... More...

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Chinese 3D porn film may get sequel

Producers of groundbreaking adult movie Sex and Zen 3D: Extreme Ecstasy planning follow-up with new castThey say sex sells, and it now seems that sex in stereoscope is at least twice as marketable. A Chinese film billed as the world's... More...

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Biography dominates Samuel Johson prize longlist

A wide range of life stories loom large among the 18 finalists for the £20,000 prizeWith Barack Obama sitting alongside Roald Dahl, Tolstoy, Bismarck and Caravaggio, biographies dominate the longlist for this year's Samuel Johnson prize, the UK's top literary... More...

Friday, 15 April, 2011

The Bay Citizen: Trepidations Aside, ‘On the Road’ Becomes a Movie at Last

After years of failures, Jack Kerouac’s classic novel, has finally been made into a movie and those involved are just as anxious as fans about getting it right.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Terry Pratchett documentary to show assisted suicide

BBC2 programme by Discworld author and Alzheimer's sufferer to show a terminally ill man's last moments in a Dignitas clinicThe last moments of a terminally ill British man who travelled to a Swiss suicide clinic will be shown in a... More...

Friday, 15 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Paradise Is Only Half the Story in a Complex Caribbean Nation

In this bleak and prickly survey, Ian Thomson works his way through Jamaica’s blighted history only to describe a present that seems almost equally grim.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Currents | Q&A: Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby on Seeking the Void and Then Filling It

An East London design team, the winners of numerous awards, have just published their first book, “The Design Work of Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Walt Whitman's working life illuminated

Nearly 3,000 documents in Whitman's handwriting cast light on his experience as a government clerkA "huge trove" of documents written by Walt Whitman while the American poet worked for the government as a clerk has been unearthed by a scholar.... More...

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Very early David Foster Wallace poem discovered

One of the earliest pieces written by the future Infinite Jest author found among writer's papersA childhood poem by David Foster Wallace has been found among the late author's papers in Texas.... More...

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Catholic teaching on contraception gets lost in translation

The Italian edition of a youth catechism mistakenly gives the impression that contraception is permitted for Catholic couplesA translation error suggesting Catholic couples are allowed to use contraception has forced an Italian publisher to temporarily withdraw a new book aimed... More...

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

The foreign correspondent's dilemma...

"Well, now, let's see, there's a riot in Bihar. Worth a quick trip?""Perhaps. But floods in Bangladesh could be more dramatic."... More...

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Abraham Rothberg, Who Wrote of Golem and Stalin, Dies at 89

Mr. Rothberg’s works roamed from the ghettos of medieval Prague through the counterculture upheavals of America in the 1960s to the machinations of Soviet Communism.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 14 April, 2011

Books of The Times: The Obituary Writer Has the Upper Hand

Timothy Schaffert’s new small town novel features a lot of plot, lightly served.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Producer, Writer, Star and One Funny Mama

Tina Fey is pregnant with her second child and wrote a memoir. Her secret: “No pigtails, no tube tops. Cry sparingly.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Noticed: Would You Sign My Kindle?

New software allows writers to sign their fans’ electronic reading devices as well as actual books on paper.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Q. and A. With Tina Fey

Tina Fey has had a good run of things recently: she's got an Emmy Award-winning TV show; wrote a hot new book, "Bossypants," which received mostly rapturous reviews; and she's expecting her second child. What's her secret?... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Inside Obama's Half-Sister's Children's Book

"Ladder to the Moon" by President Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, introduces readers to the siblings' late mother, Ann Dunham.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Children's Books: The Dark Side of the Moon

“The Great Moon Hoax” tells the amusing true tale of an elaborate newspaper prank; “Ten Moonstruck Piglets” is a bedtime story about a drove of pigs who sneak outside to frolic by moonlight.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Steve Jobs life and science blockbuster cause stir at London Book Fair

A revealing look at the Apple boss and a 'cutting-edge' work of popular science have been causing most excitement at busy trade eventAn inside look into the life story of Apple boss Steve Jobs, a revolutionary book from a rising... More...

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Mark Twain's work should not be censored, says US poll

A new edition of Huckleberry Finn with 200 offensive race references removed is only supported by 13% of Americans, survey showsThe majority of Americans are opposed to the changes made to a new edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of... More...

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Bradley Cooper considers swoop into Crow remake

Star of The Hangover and The A-Team said to be in talks for lead role in reimagining of 1994 cult horror film The CrowHe is best known as Hollywood's blue-eyed boy of comedy, the star of The Hangover and The... More...

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Video: Bisexual Christ book sparks controversy

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Tales of Lives Extinguished All Too Soon

The novelist Francisco Goldman remembers his wife in “Say Her Name,” and the poet Meghan O’Rourke grieves for her mother in “The Long Goodbye.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Sam Leith and India Knight in running for Wodehouse book prize

Winner gets a collection of PG Wodehouse novels, a jeroboam of champagne and the honour of naming a pigA first novel by the journalist and critic Sam Leith is on the shortlist for the most unusual of the annual caravan... More...

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

First Family of Writers Grows by One

Maya Soetoro-Ng, President Obama’s half-sister, is the latest family member to become an author, with her children’s book, “Ladder to the Moon.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Three debuts make the Orange Prize shortlist

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: The Secret History of Ads in Books

Amazon's announcement that it will start selling an advertising-supported Kindle at a discounted price has provoked some grumbling about the commercialization of the reading experience. But books haven't always been a commercial-free zone.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Memories From Big Pink: Robbie Robertson to Write His Life Story

Mr. Robertson will write a memoir for Crown Publishers about his years performing with Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan and the Band, as well as the creation of classic rock albums like "Music From Big Pink" and the Martin Scorsese documentary... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Orange prize shortlist favours debut novelists

New writers dominate this year's list but a more seasoned author, Emma Donoghue, could well take the prizeIt's a tic of literary prizes that each year embodies a reaction against the previous one. So, after two gold-standard winners in a... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Zadie Smith loses battle to save London library

Brent council votes in favour of closing Kensal Rise – along with five others – to improve services at its remaining librariesThe author Zadie Smith's campaign to save a north-west London library opened by Mark Twain in 1900 has ended... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Frankly, My Dear, the ‘Windies’ Do Live for This

The network of ardent “Gone With the Wind” book and film fans plans to descend on Atlanta for the novel’s 75th anniversary.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Batman takes on the world with £12m stage extravaganza

Comic-book hero tours with Gotham City sets and a Batmobile. But not, director insists after Spiderman's musical tangle, songsThere will be bats. And flying. And huge sets. And spectacular special effects. But not, the crew of the gigantic comics-based show... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Ex-Sesame Street writer makes Orange prize shortlist with first novel

Kathleen Winter and Emma Donoghue among novelists who will compete for £30,000 prize in strong year for female writersA former Sesame Street writer's first novel, which tells the story of a child born as a hermaphrodite in the far north-east... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

John Major's next act to be music hall

Former PM will explore elements of his own family's past in forthcoming history The Rise and Fall of Music HallHe's explored the history of cricket in More Than a Game, and he's written about his own life in a bestselling... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Brave New World among top 10 books Americans most want banned

Huxley's vision of a totalitarian future comes third on American Library Association's list of 2010's 'most challenged' booksBanned in Ireland when it first appeared in 1932, and removed from shelves and objected to ever since, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Impac prize shortlist dominated by three-strong Irish contingent

Colm Tóibín, Colum McCann and William Trevor are all in the frame for the world's most lucrative literary awardSome of the biggest names in Irish literature are set to go head to head for the richest literary prize in the... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Islamophobia and the media - a timely book

France's ban on women wearing the burqa and niqab in public was reported in today's Daily Express with the headline, Call for UK burka ban grows after arrests in France.The "call" amounted to a quote from a UKIP MEP, merely... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Three debut novelists on Orange Prize shortlist

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Orange prize shortlist shows women's writing in 'rude health'

Debut novelists predominate among six finalists tackling notably traumatic materialFirst-time novelists make up half the shortlist for the 2011 Orange prize for fiction, indicating "the rude health of women's writing", according to this year's chair of judges Bettany Hughes.... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Amazon to Sell the Kindle Reader at a Lower Price, but With Advertising Added

Amazon will sell its newest Kindle for $114, but it will have ads as screen savers and at the bottom of the home screen.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

New Sherlock Holmes novel by Anthony Horowitz out in November

The House of Silk, written as tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle 81 years after his death, is narrated in first-person by WatsonThe answer, Watson, is elementary. The reason Sherlock Holmes' latest adventure, The House of Silk, is only being published... More...

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Apple boss agrees to biog

Tuesday, 12 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Diving in Search of the ‘Great Vampire Squid’

In “Money and Power,” William D. Cohan provides a minutiae-filled tome about Goldman Sachs’s broad reach.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 11 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: David Foster Wallace, Self-Help Reader

David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, "The Pale King," may be unfinished, but it is still 548 pages long. Fortunately for busy Wallace fans, some shorter bits of Wallaceana have been popping up recently.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Stephen King joins William Golding centenary celebrations

Horror master jumped at request to write introduction for new, anniversary edition of Lord of the Flies, says publisherBoth are famous for chronicling the darker side of adolescence, but where William Golding won a Nobel prize for his work, so... More...

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Orhan Pamuk leads shortlist for Independent foreign fiction prize

Santiago Roncagliolo, Alberto Barrera Tyszka, Per Petterson, Jenny Erpenbeck and Marcelo Figueras also in contentionNobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk's story of forbidden love in Istanbul heads a star-studded list of global authors shortlisted for the Independent foreign fiction prize today.... More...

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Undaunted Author of ‘War Horse’ Reflects on Unlikely Hit

Michael Morpurgo discusses his seemingly forgotten 1982 book, “War Horse,” that is about to open as a play at Lincoln Center Theater and is to be a Steven Spielberg film.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 11 April, 2011

John Lennon letters to be published

Yoko Ono gives permission for first collection of late Beatle's correspondence to be printedJohn Lennon's previously unpublished letters will finally appear in print. Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has agreed to help compile a collection of the singer's correspondence, including postcards... More...

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Libraries cater for the middle classes, not the deprived, says John Redwood

Tory MP defends library closures on the basis that they pander to the affluent and no longer serve to educateZadie Smith spoke recently of the world of literature that her local library opened up for her as a teenager, but... More...

Monday, 11 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Moving Between Two Worlds, Outsiders in Both

David Bezmozgis’s “The Free World” is a portrait of a Latvian Jewish family that comes to the West in 1978.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie lead list of UK's top-earning crimewriters

Dead authors are still making a fortune, while John Grisham and Dan Brown lead the US rankingsIan Fleming, creator of James Bond, has beaten Agatha Christie to the title of most successful – and highest earning – British crime writer... More...

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Ashes of psychoanalysis co-founder Alfred Adler found after 74 years

Remains of Alfred Adler, a member of Freud's inner circle credited with defining the inferiority complex, found in Edinburgh crematoriumThe long-lost remains of Alfred Adler, one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, have been rediscovered in a crematorium in Edinburgh... More...

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Belle de Jour, aka Brooke Magnanti, stands up to her feminist critics

Brooke Magnanti's third book, Sexonomics, an examination of third-wave feminism, will reignite the debate over sex for saleAs Belle de Jour, she was the best-kept secret of the literary world. The anonymous blog and diaries of a £300-an-hour prostitute working... More...

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Cushioned by the Speaker's chair, but ever the outsider

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Doomed! The new teen book genre

Sunday, 10 April, 2011

Bookshelf: Real Estate Debacle as Window Into Past

Books about an adventure in urban anthropology through the prism of a collapsing building, and Joe DiMaggio.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Off the Shelf: Demystifying the Fund Universe

In “The Fund Industry,” two authors explain the inner workings of mutual fund investing.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

American Heiresses on the World Stage

A biographer traces the social adventures of a set of American heiresses who charmed Britain in the early 19th century.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Up Front: Beverly Cleary

In the early ’80s, when the children’s book authors Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume were with the same publisher, their boxes of fan mail were accidentally switched.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Children’s Books: Children’s Bookshelf: The Environment

More children’s books, on green themes.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Children's Books: A Teenager’s View of the Gulag

This young adult novel explores a Lithuanian family’s trials under Stalin.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Children’s Books: Introducing Joe Louis to a New Generation

A picture book and a middle-grade novel introduce the boxer Joe Louis to a new generation.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

How Evolution Explains Altruism

Most of the great evolutionary innovations of life on earth are due to cooperation, a Harvard scientist argues.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Old Flames, Eternal City

In Mary Gordon’s emotionally engaging, smoothly flowing novel, former lovers, both now nearing 60, are reunited in Rome.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

A Marriage’s Tragic Early End

Francisco Goldman’s passionate, moving novel takes as its subject his tragically short marriage to the fiction writer Aura Estrada, who died in a bodysurfing accident in 2007, when she was 30.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

How to Read Poetry Today

David Orr provides a tour of contemporary poetry and suggests how readers might feel better equipped to appreciate it.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

A Sex Strike in New Jersey

This novel’s women swear off sex after a school decides to stage Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Crime: Courtroom Drama

Mystery novels by Michael Connelly, Donna Leon, Jason Goodwin and Lori Roy.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Profile: The Ageless Appeal of Beverly Cleary

A conversation with the children’s author, who turns 95 on April 12.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley: Team of Rivals

Jonathan W. Jordan explores the complex relationship of the World War II generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Omar Bradley.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 9 April, 2011

Why the Eichmann Trial Really Mattered

Deborah E. Lipstadt examines the trial of Adolf Eichmann as a crucial factor in the world’s perception of the Holocaust.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

The Prehistory of Baseball

A baseball historian untangles the game’s lineage, and rediscovers America’s pastime.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

The ‘Walden’ of the Wildfire

Philip Connors’s first book chronicles a season spotting wildfires in a spectacularly combustible patch of New Mexico.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Children’s Books: A New Narnia for the Tween Set

Three siblings discover a mysterious book that unlocks a powerful prophecy.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

The Man Who Fell in Love With His G.P.S.

A novel whose myopic hero can’t help messing up his own life.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Children’s Bookshelf: The Environment

Reviews of new children’s books with green themes.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Television: A Heroic Fantasy for Skeptics

“Game of Thrones,” based on a series of novels by George R. R. Martin, is finally coming to HBO after having been reshot at the pilot stage, and recast.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Piecing Together Wallace’s Posthumous Novel

The editor Michael Pietsch needed an Excel spreadsheet to piece together the notebooks that made up “The Pale King,” a posthumous novel from David Foster Wallace.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Book Review Podcast: Francisco Goldman

Featuring Francisco Goldman on his novel "Say Her Name"; Deborah Lipstadt on the Eichmann trial; and Pamela Paul on Beverly Cleary.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Lennon's Letters to Be Collected in New Book

A new book containing the correspondence that John Lennon sent "to his friends, family, strangers, newspapers, organizations, lawyers and the laundry," will be released by Little, Brown in October 2012.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Graphic Books Best Sellers: The Return of 'The Witching Hour'

The initial twenty-one issues of the horror anthology are collected for the first time in "Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour" and the 544 page, black and white tome appears at No. 2 on our trade paperback list this week.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

TBR: Inside the List

Starbucks may be struggling to regain its glory days, but the company’s chief executive, Howard Schultz, is on top of the hardcover nonfiction list.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Suzanne Collins’s War Stories for Kids

The strange fictions of the young adult novelist.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Novelist proposes to girlfriend in print

Christopher Currie includes personal cliffhanger in his new thriller by popping question in the acknowledgementsIt's one way to ensure your debut novel starts life with a bang: 28-year-old author Christopher Currie included a marriage proposal in the acknowledgements of his... More...

Friday, 8 April, 2011

The Crow flies again with 28 Weeks Later director

Juan Fresnadillo to remake cult 90s action-horror film about a rock star who rises from the dead to avenge his own murderThe 1994 gothic action shoot-em-up The Crow is the latest film to be considered worthy of a reboot, as... More...

Friday, 8 April, 2011

The Bay Citizen: Literary Journals Thrive, on Paper and Otherwise

Literary journals seem to be avoiding the pitfalls of the digital age that have sparked a panic within the wider book publishing industry.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 8 April, 2011

'Wild Things' writer makes a comeback

Friday, 8 April, 2011

Computer gamers less likely to go to university, research shows

Report by Oxford University also reveals that reading enhances the likelihood that teenagers will go on to study for a degreeFrequently playing computer games appears to reduce a teenager's chances of going to university, while reading enhances the likelihood that... More...

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: One Million Downloads and Counting

In what is believed to be a first for an e-book, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," by the Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson, has sold more than a million copies in its digital format.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Peeling Away Multiple Masks

“Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” by Manning Marable, is a revealing and prodigiously researched biography that vividly chronicles the many incarnations of a complex man and his contradiction-filled evolution.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Scandale as French minister confuses clothing chain with classic novel

Frédéric Lefebvre ridiculed after muddling title of Voltaire's Zadig with high-street storeThe literary credentials of the French government are looking increasingly shaky: first president Nicolas Sarkozy derided classic French novel The Princess of Cleves; now trade minister Frédéric Lefebvre has... More...

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Lost Dr Seuss stories to be published

Tales from the 50s discovered by avid fan in old magazines due out in new bookSeven rarely-seen Dr Seuss stories from the 50s, which were tracked down by a Massachusetts dentist, will finally be published in book form this autumn.... More...

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Maurice Sendak returns to being author-illustrator after 30 years

Where the Wild Things Are creator to publish Bumble-Ardy, the tale of a young pig's birthday party, in SeptemberLet the wild rumpus begin! It's been 30 years since his last one, but the 82-year-old Maurice Sendak has finally written and... More...

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Borders Plan for Recovery Is Described as Doubtful

Publishers said they were more convinced than ever that Borders would be forced to sell itself or liquidate.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

In the Garden: Hot on the Trail of Chili Peppers

A new book chronicles a journey across northern Mexico tracking hot peppers, and the effects of climate change.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Currents | Q&A: Susan Roy on Cold War Housekeeping

The author of “Bomboozled: How the U.S. Government Misled Itself and Its People Into Believing They Could Survive a Nuclear Attack” has amassed a collection of cultural artifacts like biscuits, how-to pamphlets and canned water.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Thursday, 7 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Back-to-the-Land Life Recalled in Dark and Light

In “This Life Is in Your Hands,” Melissa Coleman recalls a back-to-the-land childhood in Maine.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: J. J. Abrams Collaborating on Novel for Little, Brown

The publisher of a new novel created by J.J. Abrams, the "Star Trek" director and "Lost" co-creator, offered few details on the project except to say that it will be written by Doug Dorst, the author of "Alive in Necropolis."... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

Children’s Books: Dog’s Best Friend?

“Say Hello to Zorro!” observes the relationship between old dog and new, while “Scritch-Scratch a Perfect Match” considers the relationship between dog and flea.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

Alain de Botton launches series of 'philosophical' self-help books

Dealing with subjects from sex to to self-esteem, author promises new titles will draw on classical tradition but offer tips for 21st-century livingHe's told us how Proust can change our lives, debated the pleasures and sorrows of work, and explored... More...

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

Stieg Larsson's publisher hits record profits

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

Stieg Larsson's publisher hits record profits

Wednesday, 6 April, 2011

Riff: David Foster Wallace’s Unfinished Novel — and Life

‘The Pale King” is an incomplete, complex, confounding, brilliant novel. In other words, the perfect coda to an author’s troubled life.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

Books of The Times: An Academic Hit Man Brings More Bad News

A poorly paid adjunct professor has unhappy news to deliver: Not every American kid is cut out for college.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Kate Bush Has Permission to Use Words of James Joyce

Molly Bloom's wandering soliloquy in Joyce's "Ulysses" was the inspiration for "The Sensual World," the title song from Kate Bush's 1989 album. But Ms. Bush had been denied by the Joyce estate from using the text -- until now.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

Censored gay sex in From Here to Eternity restored for new edition

James Jones's novel, bowdlerised for many years, set to appear for the first time as author intendedThe novel prompted one of the most famous heterosexual sex scenes in film history, with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr clasping each other passionately... More...

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

James Joyce estate strikes again with writ to DNA pioneer Craig Venter

Joyce quote inserted into a watermark in synthetic DNA by Venter earned him cease and desist order, he tells SXSW 2011Given that he is working to create the world's first synthetic life forms, pioneering US geneticist Craig Venter is used... More...

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

Kate Bush reveals guest lyricist on new album – James Joyce

Singer given permission to use Ulysses passage on forthcoming album, Director's Cut – more than 20 years after askingKate Bush's forthcoming album will include old songs, new vocals, and lyrics borrowed from James Joyce's Ulysses. The singer has revealed new... More...

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

Harry Potter ebooks not due for a spell yet

Book trade impatient for electronic publication, but JK Rowling still considering her optionsA date for the release of the most eagerly awaited ebooks of them all, JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, remains tantalisingly unconfirmed despite excitable reports in the Scottish... More...

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

NYC: Years After Last Call, Keeping a Bar’s History Alive

The Lion’s Head, which closed in 1996, was a haven for writers and others of ill repute, and Dermot McEvoy is working on its oral history.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Tuesday, 5 April, 2011

Author’s Heirs Uncensor a Classic War Novel

The heirs of James Jones have restored four-letter words and a reference to gay sex for a digital edition of “From Here to Eternity.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 4 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Directly Confronting the Appalling

A collection of articles about the dark side of Vladimir V. Putin’s reign that the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya wrote in the years before her assassination.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 4 April, 2011

Whiff of suffering: medical volume reveals brutality of early nose jobs

19th century book for sale at auction makes no mention of pain relief but describes how patients should be held downThe nose job may seem to have become an almost routine procedure for budding pop stars, actors and models, but... More...

Monday, 4 April, 2011

Franz Kafka letters jointly purchased by Oxford and German Literary Archive

Bodleian Library hopes its collaboration with rival institution to raise money needed becomes a model for futureMore than 100 letters and postcards sent by Franz Kafka to his favourite sister Ottla have been jointly purchased by Oxford's Bodleian library and... More...

Monday, 4 April, 2011

Withdrawal of Poetry Book Society funding sparks outcry

Many of the UK's most prominent poets have spoken out against the end of Arts Council England subsidy for 'a widely respected and internationally unique organisation'More than 100 poets have signed a letter protesting about Arts Council England's decision to... More...

Monday, 4 April, 2011

Ruling Spurs Effort to Form Digital Public Library

A judge’s derailment of Google’s plan to build a digital library and bookstore was seen by some scholars and librarians as a chance to pursue a better universal public library.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Monday, 4 April, 2011

A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley

Bill Steigerwald retraces the trip John Steinbeck described a half-century ago in “Travels With Charley” and ends up skeptical about many of the episodes in the book.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Sunday, 3 April, 2011

Books of The Times: Tina Fey Is Greek and Also Teutonic, but She Isn’t a Troll

“Bossypants,” by Tina Fey, isn’t a memoir; it’s a spiky blend of humor, introspection, critical thinking and Nora Ephronisms for a new generation.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Sunday, 3 April, 2011

Lost letters bought for £22 reveal Terence Rattigan's professionalism

British Library will display unpublished letters, which show that the dramatist worked on his last play while nearing deathThe British Library has acquired four unpublished letters written by Sir Terence Rattigan towards the end of his life, when, despite the... More...

Sunday, 3 April, 2011

Israeli authors join campaign to keep Arab bookseller in the country

For years Munther Fahmi has been living in the city of his birth on a series of tourist visas after his permanent residency lapsed. Now the authorities have warned they may not issue any moreOn the edge of the busy... More...

Sunday, 3 April, 2011

Off the Shelf: Why Red Flags Can Go Unnoticed

“What are the forces at work that make us deny the big threats that stare us in the face?” Margaret Heffernan asks in her book, a look at how we may filter information for better or worse.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Simon Hoggart's week: Why do we worry when writers go stateside?

Martin Amis won't get better reviews in the US but at least his cellulite won't be on show in the tabloids✒ I see Martin Amis is leaving Britain, again. I thought he'd left ages ago, but like Frank Sinatra's many... More...

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Richard Feynman, the Thinker

A new biography of the Nobel Prize winner Richard P. Feynman, by a fellow physicist, concentrates less on Feynman the odd character and more on the thinker.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Explaining Congo’s Endless Civil War

A journalist explores why Congo has been left to its cycle of war and massacre.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Jim Shepard, Master of the Historical Short Story

Jim Shepard’s research helps bring catastrophic fiction to life, though the characters may not survive.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Fiction Chronicle

Novels by Bathsheba Monk, Meg Howrey, Camilla Gibb, Leila Aboulela and Maeve Binchy.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

On Eve of Redefining Malcolm X, Biographer Dies

Manning Marable worked for two decades on a re-evaluation of Malcolm X’s life that is said to contain many revelations.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Saturday, 2 April, 2011

Les Murray and the Poetry of Depression

The Australian poet Les Murray offers a memoir of his depression, and a new book of verse.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Jewish Refugees in the Eternal City

David Bezmozgis’s first novel, set in Rome in 1978, follows three generations of Soviet Jews as they wait for visas to North America.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Manning Marable, Scholar, Dies at 60

Mr. Marable was the author of a long-awaited new biography of Malcolm X to be published Monday and director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Books Podcast and Video: Henry Kissinger

Featuring a special conversation with Henry Kissinger on Otto von Bismarck; and the linguist Ben Zimmer on a new dictionary of slang.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

E. L. Doctorow’s Stories

A collection of stories from E. L. Doctorow, whose fictionalizations of American history influenced a generation.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: The Dulpickles and Nigmenogs of 1699

Oxford University's Bodleian Library recently republished the earliest known dictionary of English-language slang.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Stewart O’Nan Tells a Widow’s Tale

A widow’s quiet life is altered when she buys a car and finds herself open to the world anew.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

A Woman Goes Missing in Seoul

In Kyung-sook Shin’s novel, family members suffer guilt and regret when their matriarch goes missing in a Seoul subway station.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Otto von Bismarck, Master Statesman

This incisive biography takes a psychological approach to describing the highly complex man who unified Germany and dominated European diplomacy during the late 19th century.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Helping Refugees After World War II

A history of the logistical, political and moral challenges faced by post-World War II relief workers caring for “displaced persons.”... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Essay: The Definitive Slang Dictionary

Can a new slang dictionary possibly hope to uncover any “lost words”? Are there any unmentionables left to mention?... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

TBR: Inside the List

Sarah Vowell hits No. 5 on the hardcover nonfiction list with “Unfamiliar Fishes,” her wry account of the annexation and Americanization of Hawaii.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Up Front: Meghan O’Rourke

In the early days after her mother died, Meghan O’Rourke found herself turning away from verse.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Julia Child’s Life as a Spy

A group portrait of idealists, including Julia and Paul Child, who served in the O.S.S. during World War II.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Our False Beliefs About Language

Robert Lane Greene surveys the ways received ideas about language can lead us astray.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Casualties of China’s One Child Policy

A shocking account of family-planning attitudes and practices in China.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Russian 'saviour of Waterstone's' in line for £1bn from Euroset flotation

Alexander Mamut may sell stake in Russian phone group, as he works up bid to buy Waterstone's book chain from HMVThe Russian tycoon working on a bid for Waterstone's bookshops could collect $1.65bn (£1bn) when Russia's largest phone retailer Euroset... More...

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Sarah Vowell Does Hawaii

Sarah Vowell explores Hawaii’s strange, tumultuous history, livening it up with her satirical, smart-alecky voice.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Michael Gove should become 'champion for libraries', says Patrick Ness

Author who was today shortlisted for the Carnegie medal presents education secretary with a set of the shortlisted titles and open letter urging him to support librariesAuthor Patrick Ness has called on education secretary Michael Gove to champion libraries, in... More...

Friday, 1 April, 2011

ArtsBeat: Q. & A. With ‘Game of Thrones’ Author

Mr. Martin discusses how his career in Hollywood led to his "Song of Ice and Fire" novels, and why he believed "Game of Thrones" could never be filmed.... More...

From: NYT > Books

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Spain's publishing sector thrives – but only 57% of the population reads books

A handful of young and independent editors have reinvigorated the huge sector, which contributes 1% of Spain's GDPExperts say that next year one in four Spanish publishing houses will offer digital versions of over half their catalogue.... More...

Friday, 1 April, 2011

Young people bear brunt as councils reveal cuts to services

Dramatic reductions for libraries and children's services will take effect at start of new financial yearCuts to council-run services will bring dramatic reductions in children's services, libraries and youth clubs and a new wave of privatisation for frontline services, the... More...