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Lost Jack Kerouac Novel 'The Sea Is My Brother' Published

Nov 25, 2011 3:54 AM CST

Lost Kerouac Book Published

Author was just 20 when he penned The Sea Is My Brother in 1942

(Newser) - Jack Kerouac's first novel is hitting bookstores 42 years after the death of the Beat Generation icon and nearly 70 years after he wrote it. The On the Road author was just 20 years old when he wrote The Sea Is My Brother, which deals with his experiences as...

Brazenly Plagiarized
Spy Novel Pulled

Nov 9, 2011 3:00 AM CST

Brazenly Plagiarized Spy Novel Pulled

Author's debut was 'collage of others' work'

(Newser) - Bookseller Quentin Rowan appears to have forged a writing career entirely by raiding the contents of his shelves. Publisher Little, Brown & Co. recalled every single copy of his debut spy thriller, Assassin of Secrets—written under the pseudonym QR Markham—after discovering that passages had been lifted from more...

Maurice
Sendak:
'My Work Is
Not Great'

Jul 26, 2011 4:09 PM CDT

Maurice Sendak: 'My Work Is Not Great'

He's 'wrong, of course,' counters Dave Eggers in Vanity Fair

(Newser) - Maurice Sendak may be 83, but he’s not slowing down—in fact, he may be picking up speed. Sendak has a new book coming out, the first in 30 years that he’s both written and illustrated, writes Dave Eggers in Vanity Fair . Bumble-Ardy, about a pig whose family...

So, Just Who Wrote
That Celebrity Novel?

Jun 2, 2011 10:29 AM CDT

So, Just Who Wrote That Celebrity Novel?

Probably not the celebrity, says the 'New York Times'

(Newser) - Just because Nicole Richie is a reality TV star doesn't mean she can't also write. In fact, she claims to write every morning, before her family wakes up, and said last year that she writes "all my own stories." How else do you think she'd...

Maurice Sendak:
‘I Wonder Why People
Still Have Children’

Maurice Sendak: ‘I Wonder Why People Still Have Children’

Renowned kids’ author is not happy with humanity

(Newser) - Renowned children's author Maurice Sendak is 82 now, aware of his own mortality, and more concerned than ever that grown-ups are mucking things up for kids. "I think I'm getting out just in time," he tells the Philadelphia Inquirer . "Watching the news, everything seems to...

'The Help' Author Kathryn Stockett Being Sued by Nanny

Nanny Sues
The Help
Author

Feb 23, 2011 3:26 AM CST

Nanny Sues The Help Author

Kathryn Stockett turned her into character, says brother's nanny

(Newser) - Author Kathryn Stockett's best-seller The Help borrows a little too heavily from real life and from one life in particular, according to a nanny suing the author. Ablene Cooper says the book's character "Aibeleen"—who, like her, is a middle-aged black nanny with a gold tooth whose son...

Stieg Larsson's
Girlfriend Is Out
for Revenge

Stieg Larsson's Girlfriend Is Out for Revenge

Eva Gabrielsson's memoir goes after his brother, father

(Newser) - The lifelong girlfriend of late Swedish author Stieg Larsson—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, et al—is staking her claim to the books' legacy in a new memoir, writes Sasha Watson in Slate . "It was from our lives and our 32 years side by side that the books...

Babe Creator
Dick King-Smith Dead at 88

OBITUARY

Jan 6, 2011 2:53 AM CST

Babe Creator Dick King-Smith Dead at 88

British children's author wrote more than 100 books on rural life

(Newser) - Dick King-Smith, the British children's author who created one of filmdom's favorite pigs, has died at the age of 88. The writer passed away peacefully at his long-time home in rural England, the Guardian reports. King-Smith, a World War II vet, spent 20 years as a farmer before turning to...

Bad Sex Writing
Award Goes to...

Nov 30, 2010 7:55 AM CST

Bad Sex Writing Award Goes to...

Sorry, Rowan Somerville: Sex and lepidopterists just don't mix

(Newser) - “Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.” If this less-than-amorous passage makes you cringe, you're not alone: Irish author Rowan Somerville has won this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for the passage in The Shape of Her....

Stieg Larsson's Emails:
How He Flouted Convention

Nov 20, 2010 9:27 AM CST

Stieg Larsson's Emails: How He Flouted Convention

Late author purposely defied usual rules of the crime novel genre

(Newser) - Swedish author Stieg Larsson died at age 50 before witnessing the phenomenal success of his Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Today, the Wall Street Journal has emails from Larsson to his editor about his goal of writing books that flouted convention. (No spoilers here, but the full article has...

Fiddler On the Roof
Author Dead at 98

Oct 26, 2010 1:23 AM CDT

Fiddler On the Roof Author Dead at 98

Joseph Stein penned hit Broadway musicals over 60-year career

(Newser) - Joseph Stein, the playwright best known for turning Fiddler On the Roof from a Yiddish short story into a Broadway musical, has died at the age of 98. The Tony Award-winning writer supplied the story for almost a dozen more musicals, including Zorba and Take Me Along, in a career...

Jane Austen's
Style? Not
Actually Jane
Austen's

Oct 23, 2010 9:33 AM CDT

Jane Austen's Style? Not Actually Jane Austen's

An editor was likely the one to polish her prose, says professor

(Newser) - Jane Austen is known as a “perfect stylist,” but those perfectly crafted sentences may not actually be hers. After studying 1,100 pages of Austen’s handwritten, unpublished manuscripts, an Oxford professor concluded that “the polished punctuation and epigrammatic style … is simply not there,” she...

'Jewish Jane
Austen' Wins
Booker Prize

Oct 13, 2010 6:01 AM CDT

'Jewish Jane Austen' Wins Booker Prize

Howard Jacobson's comic novel is 'profound,' 'wise'

(Newser) - The writer who once called the Man Booker Prize an "absolute abomination" was last night awarded the prize for his 11th novel, The Finkler Question. Howard Jacobson, who calls himself "the Jewish Jane Austen," was “truly flabbergasted” by the honor, reports the Telegraph . “I was...

Thief Grabs
Franzen's
Glasses,
Demands
Ransom

Oct 5, 2010 6:15 AM CDT

Thief Grabs Franzen's Glasses, Demands Ransom

Author runs into latest Brit snafoodle at Hyde Park event

(Newser) - A London literary event featuring US author Jonathan Franzen was gatecrashed yesterday by a crazed thief who grabbed the glasses right off the writer's face, left behind a $150,000 ransom demand for them, then leaped in a lake as he fled British bobbies. Franzen was said to be "...

Oprah Mends Fences With
Novelist Who Dissed Her

book club pick

Sep 16, 2010 10:52 AM CDT

Oprah Mends Fences With Novelist Who Dissed Her

Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom' lands coveted book club slot

(Newser) - Nine years after Oprah Winfrey chose Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections for her book club, and the "uncomfortable" novelist talked his way out of appearing on her show, he's getting another chance, reports the New York Post . The media magnate's people won't confirm the Oprah's Book Club selection—likely the...

Obama Publishing
Children's Book

Sep 14, 2010 12:42 PM CDT

Obama Publishing Children's Book

It comes out two weeks after midterm elections

(Newser) - In addition to "president," Barack Obama can already call himself an author—but now you can add "children's author" to his many hats. His Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters was written before he took office and will be released Nov. 16, the Christian ...

Do You Have 'Me Goggles'?
Here's What It Means

opinion

Sep 13, 2010 11:19 AM CDT

Do You Have 'Me Goggles'? Here's What It Means

A new age needs new terms

(Newser) - Generation X author Douglas Coupland is busy coining more terms about the modern world. Read the full list in the New York Times . Some samples:

Bell's Law of Telephony: "No matter what technology is used, your monthly phone bill magically remains about the same size."
Blank-collar workers: "

...

Remembering Roald Dahl,
'Benevolent Sadist'

Sep 7, 2010 9:53 AM CDT

Remembering Roald Dahl, 'Benevolent Sadist'

Beloved author was both 'nasty' and 'charming'

(Newser) - As the 20th anniversary of Roald Dahl's death approaches, Sam Anderson takes a look at the complicated, yet beloved, children's author. Dahl's fiction is "simultaneously thrilling and absurd and puzzling and oddly disturbing"—much like the author himself, Anderson writes in New York , noting that as one reads...

Real-Life Rape, Guilt Drove Dragon Tattoo Author

Real-Life Rape, Guilt Drove Dragon Tattoo Author

Stieg Larsson witnessed assault as a teen, didn't help

(Newser) - A friend of the late Stieg Larsson writes that a long-ago trauma is behind the author's blockbuster trilogy that begins with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. When he was 15, Larsson watched as three friends raped a girl their own age. "Her screams were heartrending, but he didn't...

Vampire Novelist Anne Rice Quits Christianity

Jul 30, 2010 6:51 AM CDT

Vampire Novelist Anne Rice Quits Christianity

'Interview With a Vampire' author turned off by church

(Newser) - Novelist Anne Rice has quit Christianity for the second time. The Interview With a Vampire author—who had renewed her Catholic faith in recent years and penned a spiritually-themed memoir—says that while her faith in Christ is still strong, she's been turned off Christianity by the church's attitudes on...