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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,"...

Beloved Romance Novelist Dies in Apparent Suicide

Taiwanese writer Chiung Yao, 86, was an advocate for assisted dying

(Newser) - One of the most beloved novelists in the Chinese-speaking world was found dead in her home in Taiwan Wednesday after an apparent suicide. Romance novelist Chiung Yao, 86, published more than 60 novels in a career that began when she was 18, the BBC reports. Many of her works became...

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...

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,...

The 'Most Meta of American Meta-Fictional Writers' Has Died

Paul Auster of the 'New York Trilogy' was 77

(Newser) - Paul Auster, a prolific, prize-winning author of more than 30 books—among them his "New York Trilogy"—has died at age 77. His Tuesday death was attributed to complications from lung cancer, friend Jacki Lyden tells the Guardian . A longtime fixture in the Brooklyn literary scene, he never...

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"...

Confessions of a Shopaholic Writer: I Have Brain Cancer

Sophie Kinsella says she was diagnosed with glioblastoma in late 2022

(Newser) - Sophie Kinsella, the author of Confessions of a Shopaholic, has been diagnosed with a deadly brain cancer, reports the Daily Beast . Kinsella's diagnosis of glioblastoma—the same cancer that killed Sens. Ted Kennedy and John McCain, as well as Beau Biden—came in late 2022, she said in a...

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...

Garcia Marquez's Last Book Published Against His Wishes

Colombian author's sons say he struggled with dementia in the final years of his life

(Newser) - The final book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was published Wednesday on what would have been the Colombian author's 97th birthday. Marquez died almost a decade ago and En Agosto Nos Vemos—Until August in English—is being published against his wishes. His sons say he ordered them to destroy...

Louisa May Alcott May Have Had Another Pen Name

Literary scholar Max Chapnick believes he's uncovered another Alcott pseudonym: EH Gould

(Newser) - Louisa May Alcott was a lot like her Little Women character Jo in that she, too, wrote stories to support her family. Before Little Women was published in two parts in 1868 and '69, the poor Alcott wrote melodramatic thrillers under the pen names AM Barnard, Tribulation Periwinkle, and...

'Review Bombing' Costs Author Her Book Deal

Cait Corrain used multiple pseudonyms on Goodreads

(Newser) - A debut author who used fake accounts to "review bomb" other writers on the influential online platform Goodreads has been dropped by her agent and had her book deal cancelled. Cait Corrain's novel Crown of Starlight had been scheduled to come out next year through Del Rey, a...

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...

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