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600 Booksellers Just Got a Bonus From James Patterson

Author says he wanted to acknowledge 'all their hard work this holiday season'

(Newser) - Staffers at Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama, San Francisco's City Lights Books, and the Nook in Cedar Falls, Iowa, are among 600 booksellers receiving $500 holiday bonuses from James Patterson, the bestselling novelist who has been awarding independent store employees since 2015. "Booksellers save lives. Period,"...

He Brought You the Line 'And Don't Call Me Shirley'

Writer-director Jim Abrahams, a parody specialist, is dead at 80

(Newser) - "And don't call me Shirley!" That iconic line from 1980's Airplane! is one of many that can be attributed to writer-director Jim Abrahams, who leaves behind a legacy of laughs following his death Tuesday at age 80, per The Hollywood Reporter . Abrahams, who died of natural...

National Book Award Finalists Are Out
Here Are Your
National
Book Award
Winners
UPDATED
Nov 21, 2024 12:00 AM CST

Here Are Your National Book Award Winners

Percival Everett wins for James

(Newser) - Percival Everett's James, a daring reworking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has won the National Book Award for fiction. Jason De León's Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling won for nonfiction, the AP reports. The prize for young people's...

X Has Become Too 'Toxic' for Stephen King

Horror author leaves Elon Musk's social media site for Meta's Threads

(Newser) - The prolific Stephen King is known for his extra-long novels, but the exit message he posted Thursday on X was short and sweet. "I'm leaving Twitter. Tried to stay, but the atmosphere has just become too toxic," the horror author wrote, using the platform's former name,...

'Intense Poetic Prose' Just Won Her the Literature Nobel

South Korean author Han Kang takes home top writing prize

(Newser) - The Nobel Prize in literature was awarded Thursday to South Korean author Han Kang for what the Nobel Committee called "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Han, 53, won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for The Vegetarian, an...

85 Years Later, a Brontë Typo Is Fixed

Westminster Abbey adds dots or diaereses to the surname following historian's complaint

(Newser) - For 85 years, a stone tablet honoring literary greats Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë has hung in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner with a blatant omission. The sisters, three of the UK's greatest writers, spelled their last name Brontë, with diaereses over the last vowel, indicating a separate syllable....

Trans Paralympian Responds to JK Rowling's 'Cheat' Claim

Author 'doesn't know anything about me,' says Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo

(Newser) - Valentina Petrillo's run at the Paralympic Games is over, but she hopes "a transformation for transgender people" has only just begun. The 51-year-old sprinter, who transitioned from male to female in 2019, spoke out about the "transphobia" she's encountered, including from JK Rowling, in a Monday...

Daughter Delivers Shocker Over Late Writer Alice Munro

Andrea Skinner says stepfather abused her when she was a child, and that Munro stayed with him

(Newser) - The literary world mourned when Canadian Nobel laureate Alice Munro died earlier this year at the age of 92. Now, a shocking addendum on what the New York Times calls "a dark family secret," delivered via Munro's own daughter, Andrea Skinner.
  • The allegations: "My stepfather sexually
...

A New Hunger Games Book (and Movie) Is Coming

Suzanne Collins' 5th book based in fictional Panem will be out next March

(Newser) - Inspired by an 18th-century Scottish philosopher and the modern scourge of misinformation, Suzanne Collins is returning to the ravaged, postapocalyptic land of Panem for a new Hunger Games novel. Scholastic announced Thursday that Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth volume of Collins' blockbuster dystopian series, will be published March 18,...

Rushdie on Being Attacked: 'I'm Not Good With Fear'

But in AP interview nearly 2 years after stabbing, author says he feels he has 'a little iron in the soul'

(Newser) - Nearly two years after the knife attack that nearly killed him, Salman Rushdie appears both changed and very much the same. Interviewed this week at the Manhattan offices of his longtime publisher, Random House, Rushdie is thinner, paler, scarred, and blind in his right eye. He speaks of "iron"...

James Patterson Drops a New True-Crime Series

Author is launching 'very special' 3-part series on Fox Nation streaming service

(Newser) - James Patterson is launching a true-crime series on the streaming service Fox Nation. Unsolved With James Patterson, hosted by the bestselling author, premieres Monday and will air in three segments. According to Fox Nation, Patterson's series will include a trio of unsolved homicide cases: the death of a Louisiana...

He Wasn't Known for Poems, but He Left Behind a Rare One

Novelist Raymond Chandler's 'Requiem' was penned after the loss of his wife from lung disease

(Newser) - Near the end of 1954, the wife of Raymond Chandler died after a long battle with lung disease. The famed crime novelist fell into near-suicidal depression from which he never recovered. He drank heavily and died just five years later, at age 70. Chandler completed no major books after the...

Booker Prize-Winning Author AS Byatt Dies
Booker Prize-Winning
Author AS Byatt Dies
OBITUARY
Nov 17, 2023 12:09 PM CST

Booker Prize-Winning Author AS Byatt Dies

UK writer, 87, wrote 'Possession,' which was made into a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow

(Newser) - Author AS Byatt, whose books include the Booker Prize-winning novel Possession, has died at the age of 87. Byatt's publisher, Chatto & Windus, said Friday that the author died "peacefully at home surrounded by close family." Byatt wrote two dozen books, starting with her first novel, The ...

Rushdie Makes Surprise Appearance to Collect Award

Honor was kept under wraps until minutes before the author accepted it

(Newser) - The latest honor for Salman Rushdie was a prize kept secret until minutes before he rose from his seat to accept it. On Tuesday night, the author received the first-ever Lifetime Disturbing the Peace Award, presented by the Vaclav Havel Center on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Only a handful...

Winner of Nobel Lit Prize: I've 'Cautiously' Prepped for This

Norwegian author Jon Fosse's works 'give voice to the unsayable'

(Newser) - Jon Fosse, a master of spare Nordic writing in a sprawling body of work ranging from plays to novels and children's books, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works that "give voice to the unsayable." Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Literature,...

Hemingway Letter: 'I Am More Valuable to Them Alive Than Dead'

Author's note to his lawyer after 2 plane crashes talks about injuries, beef with Abercrombie & Fitch

(Newser) - A letter that author Ernest Hemingway wrote to his attorney soon after he'd endured back-to-back plane crashes just sold for big bucks on the auction block. NPR reports the that four-page note, scrawled on stationery from a hotel in Venice, Italy, went for $237,055 via Nate D. Sanders...

Before He Wrote Unbearable Lightness, He Fled Homeland

Czech dissident and author Milan Kundera, who became a thorn in Communists' side, dies at 94

(Newser) - Milan Kundera, the Czech author who was cast out of the Communist Party and became best known for penning The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died. The 94-year-old passed away Tuesday in Paris "after a long illness," a spokeswoman for the Czech library that kept Kundera's personal...

From Garcia Marquez, a 'Final Effort to Continue Creating'

New novel from late author, based on unfinished manuscript, is coming our way in 2024

(Newser) - Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Jose de la Concordia Garcia Marquez, better known as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, died in 2014. A 150-page, unfinished novel he left behind will be published next year, a decade after his death following a bout with pneumonia at 87, reports NPR . Per the Guardian , the novel...

Here's What Just Made Judy Blume Curse on Twitter

After remarks on JK Rowling, author says it's 'total bull----' she doesn't stand with the trans community

(Newser) - Judy Blume may be 85 years old, but she's not shy about throwing down on Twitter if she needs to. The Independent reports that the popular children's author—who has penned such classics as Deenie, Forever, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret—is responding to...

Crichton's Books Written as 'John Lange' See New Life

Blackstone acquires rights to 8 early novels in 7-figure deal, will publish new editions

(Newser) - The early writings of Michael Crichton look destined for the big screen following a seven-figure deal announced Tuesday. The late Jurassic Park author's estate sold the worldwide print, e-book, and audiobook rights to Crichton's first eight novels—unconnected pieces of fiction across various genres, written under the pseudonym...

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