Perhaps this would have been a more critic-proof option for maligned literary novelist J.K. Rowling: Suzanne Collins, the author of the Hunger Games trilogy, is to follow up her widely read young adult books with an “autobiographical picture book.” Read More
Could this be the thing that boosts classical music sales? EMI Classics is set to release the album Fifty Shades of Grey, fifteen tracks of classical music selected by E L James to accompany her bestselling erotic novel. Tracks are to include Pachelbel’s Canon, a Bach aria, and more, with Vintage Books describing the music as Read More
Socialite Alexandra Lebenthal’s book The Recessionistas has been optioned by Sony for potential production: Ms. Lebenthal tells Page Six that she hopes Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore, Brooke Shields, and Bradley Cooper will star.
The Observer reported in 2009 that Ms. Lebenthal began writing on the urging of New York Social Diary editor Read More
So-called “American psycho” Patrick Bateman, who graduated from Harvard in 1984, would be 50 this year, if he were a person living in the real world; the novel commemorating his romp through New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s turns 20 this year. Anniversaries! So meaningful as a way to Read More
The Observer receives pitches for various concepts and products and events during its busy days. But rarely have we received a pitch for reviewing a book more compelling–if less convincing–than for this memoir. The pitch email began: “What do Gene Hackman, Steven Seagal, Ashley Judd and the Backstreet Boys have in common? Linnie Delmar’s Read More
A follow-up to our item on Newsweek‘s creepy alive-Diana cover: the “plot” of Ms. Brown’s article, in which an aging Diana gets Botox and moves to New York, is like-but-unlike the plot of Monica Ali’s new novel, Untold Story, in which an aging Diana dyes her hair and moves to the Midwest. Read More
Christopher Frizzelle, the books columnist for the Seattle Stranger (which famously mocked Jonathan Franzen’s appearance on the cover of Time with a profile of Tao Lin, written by Tao Lin) has now come to Mr. Lin’s defense in an alleged dispute between the writer and Dennis Johnson, his publisher at small indie Read More
The Observer ran into mayoral daughter Emma Bloomberg at the recent Prize4Life gala, and asked her for a review of her sister Georgina’s new novel, The A Circuit, said to be a roman à clef. “I’m very proud of her,” said the elder Ms. Bloomberg.
Asked whether she’d ever write a Read More
Last Tuesday, Sonny Mehta invited a murderers’ row of writers from his deep stable at Knopf to Cognac, a nondescript Midtown brasserie at Broadway and 55th. But for those aimlessly drifting from one staid BookExpo party to the next, this was the B.E.A. holy grail. Jennifer Egan! Jeffrey Eugenides! Harry Belafonte and foie gras canapés! Read More
Michel Houellebecq may once have been France’s controversy-prone outlaw novelist, but he now resides comfortably within the establishment.
After years of being denied the honor, the writer will receive this year’s Prix Goncourt, the AP reports. The distinction — France’s top lit award — counts Marcel Proust and Simone de Beauvoir among its recipients. Read More
