A Cool Boy Genius
Called one of the best writers of his generation, thirty-something Hari Kunzru pulled in an unheard of $1.8 million advance for his first two books. The money was well placed. Both The Impressionist and Transmission are elegant, humorous satirical novels that have been awarded numerous prizes.
Half British and half Indian, the native Londoner worked as an editor at various magazines before the big advance that changed everything. "There was a general holding of breath as [my friends] waited to see if I was going to go all Puff Daddy. I had to be quite strict with my arseholery," Kunzru tells The Financial Times

Evanovich, Author and Industry
Every June for eleven years the eagerly awaited next book in the Stephanie Plum mystery series is released. Every year they debut at number 1 on the bestseller lists, and this is no accident, reports The New York Times. Author Janet Evanovich spends as much time marketing her humorous mysteries based in Trenton, as she does writing them.

Edinburgh Book Festival to Feature Variety of Asian Writers
Among the 500 authors appearing at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, the world's largest book fair, are a large contingent from south Asia, reports Asians in Media.org. Salman Rushdie will make his first appearance at the festival in 20 years.

Writer in China Sues Government for Right to Publish
China's economic openess has given way to tougher, draconian censorship rules (it is, after all, still a communist country), which have toughened under President Hu Jintao.
When Wang Yi, a self-published author and law professor had copies of his books confiscated by the government, Yi filed suit, demanding his books be returned and his right to publish be maintained, reports the International Herald Tribune.
"The chances of victory aren't high, but even if the courts let us present our case, let us play the game; that will be a victory, because then we can speak out against this censorship in the public arena," said Yi.

The Literature of a National Pastime
Why do so many writers write about baseball? That was the question under discussion at a panel sponsored by PEN/New England at Fenway Park's .406 club.
Writers Stephen King, John Updike, Roger Angell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Lewis, Leslie Epstein and Dennis Lehane talked about why the sport is such a compelling subject for writers and readers.
"The bottom line? Baseball in literature is the triumph of imagination over technology." The Lowell Sun reports.
Note: Don't miss Bookblog's interview with Cecil Harris, author of Call the Yankees My Daddy in which he reminisces about his transition from boyhood fan to covering the team as a reporter. coming in July.

Poets' Caped Crusader, Unmasked
Who's the most feared man in American letters? Not an editor or judge of any literary competition, not a writer or reviewer. It's Alan Cordle, a mild-mannered librarian at Portland Community College, reports the Los Angeles Times.
For a year, Cordle has been the anonymous force behind Foetry.com, a site devoted to exposing fraudulent poetry competitions across the country. By requesting documents through the freedom of information act, Cordle has proven what many insiders know but don't discuss. Awards, the only way for poets to advance their careers and stay afloat, often go to students, friends and lovers of judges.

It's cheating. It's criminal. If this was anything other than poetry, the Department of Justice would be all over it. --Alan Cordle

Major poets, some with Pulitzer Prizes and MacArthur Fellowships on their resumes, call him an "attack dog," an "assassin," a "hangman" and, worst, a "brat with a major rage disorder." His supporters regard him a whistle-blower, champion and crusader. All agree that, for good or bad, Cordle has shaken up the establishment," reports the Times.
" Foetry 'confirms what anyone involved in poetry over the past 30 years has known for a long, long time,' says Neal Bowers, poet and Distinguished Professor of English at Iowa State University. Poetry contests are "rigged"."

Deep Throat Makes Book and Film Deal
Mark Felt, the nonagenarian who last week admitted to being Deep Throat, the anonymous source of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during their reporting of the Watergate scandal, has been paid almost $1 million dollars for a book and film deal, reports The New York Times.
Universal Pictures and the publisher Public Affairs snapped up the rights.
The book, to be released next fall, will be based on Mr. Felt's recollections combined with writing by attorney John O'Connor, the family friend who wrote the Vanity Fair article "outing" Mr. Felt. The film will be based on the book. How sharp Mr. Felt's recollections will be at age 91 and said to be suffering from alzheimer's disease, is not clear.
Woodward and Bernstein will release their own book about their relationship with Mr. Felt, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throatto be released in July.

Sun, Surf, Music and Books?
Jamaica's Calabash Literary Festival is heavy on the reggae, reports The Globe and Mail.
"In the Caribbean, the most important form of storytelling is music," said Colin Channer, director of the Festival. "Music is the literary medium that dominates."
Not that anyone forgets the point of the event. Jamaicans, Americans, Brits and Canadians sang along and danced to the reggae but also bought books and packed readings by writers like Amiri Baraka, Russell Banks and Andrea Levy.
Baraka opened the three-day festival with a reading of Somebody Blew Up America, his poem about 9/11 that got him ousted from his position as New Jersey's Poet Laureate.

Two British Writers Snub the Queen
Winners of the UK Commonwealth Writers Prize are invited for an audience with Queen Elizabeth. Caryl Phillips, a native of Leeds, won the prize for best novel for A Distant Shore. When the invitation arrived from Buckingham Palace, he refused it. Repeatedly. Then the winner of the prize for best debut novel, Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) was invited and he also refused. Why?
"I'm trying to interrogate British history and mythologies [in my work] and duplicities, and one of the enduring myths is the royal family, which is white and Christian and 'pure-blooded', and on which the sun never sets," Phillips says. A Distant Shore examines the relationship between the British and its immigrants.
"A key theme of The Curious Incident, [in which an autistic boy unravels a murder mystery] says Mark Haddon, is the idea "that no human being is inherently inferior to any other. I felt it would have been hypocritical to meet with someone whose job involves being inherently superior to everyone else."
Read more of their comments in the Guardian

Hilarity Required: Scottoline on Tour
If a Tastykake hits you in the head the next time you're at your favorite bookstore, Lisa Scottoline is in the house. On tour touting her 12th suspense novel, Devil's Corner, the bestselling Philadelphia writer starts by tossing out her favorite snack food to fans and may or may not break into song, reports The Cleveland Plain Dealer. She gives away tote bags, refers fans with manuscripts to her agent, and talks about the real cases that have inspired her legal thrillers.
"I love what I do," she says. She's also come a long way from the days when no one showed up to her book signings, and loves to interact with fans to show her appreciation.

Japanese Novelist Claims Literary Roots in America
Despite healthy sales, Japan's literary establishment looks down it's nose at Haruki Murakami, citing his baldly direct prose, which contradicts the accepted writing style. "There was a notion in Japan that novelists write in a certain style. I totally ignored it and created a new style. Therefore, in Japan, there was resistance. I was much criticized," he tells the New York Times Book Review. Another wedge between Murakami and his literary compatriots are his cultural references, which are mostly American. His latest novel, Kafka on the Shore, boasts characters called Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders. Murakami spent his formative years studying English and reading American novelists exclusively, because he considered Japanese literature "boring." Murakami is heading to Cambridge to become writer-in-residence at Harvard for a year, and hopes to gain some recognition from the country that has inspired him. A film based on one of his short stories, "Tony Takitani" opens July 29.

Manhattan, by the Book
A Literary Map of Manhattan, a new interactive feature from the New York Times online, features a map of Manhattan with clickable sites mentioned in books. Clicking on the book icons gives you pictures of the street or building in the book, or of the author, with accompanying quote. The authors who made it on the map (there are some glaring exceptions) by popular vote, according to the article explaining the process. The more people recommended a particular book the higher it got on the list, because the map has a limited number of slots. Interesting browsing.

American Wins Orange Prize
Lionel (born Margaret Ann) Shriver won the Orange Prize for the stunning We Need to Talk About Kevin, which deals with a mother's search for the reason her son becomes a murderer. The novel deals with many taboos for women: ambivalence about motherhood, dislike of one's own child and whether killers are born or made. The story unfolds in a series of letters from the mother to Kevin's father, from whom she is separated, in the aftermath of the killings. There are also a couple of unexpected twists. Shriver talks about writing "Kevin" here.
The £30,000 Orange Prize is awarded annually to outstanding fiction by women.

Writers Choose Books They'd Like to See at the Multiplex
USA Today asked six of today's hottest authors which books they'd like to see on film. Among the contenders: The Confessions of Max Tivoli and the 17th-Century bodice-ripper Clarissa : Or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson.

First Man Booker International Prize Won by Albanian
Ismail Kadaré beat an international contingent of literary heavy-hitters that included Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing and Ian McEwan to win the first Man Booker International Prize for Literature.
Kadaré's work was censored for decades in his native Albania, and was published elsewhere in Europe by smuggling his work to France in the 1980's reports The Independent. His books are now sold in 40 countries. Kadaré has lived in France since 1990.
"I am a writer from the Balkan Fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness - armed conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and so on.
My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realise that this region, to which my country, Albania, belongs, can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement, in the field of the arts, literature and civilisation," said Kadaré.
This is the first annual Man Booker International Prize, which honors a writer's body of work. The writer may be from any country as long as his or her work is available in English. The £ 60,000 prize will be awarded at a ceremony in London in August.
For more information on Albanian writers translated into English, go here. Check out or buy Kadaré's especially relevant The Palace of Dreams; check out more of his books here.

Sherlock Holmes Lives
Four new books resurrect Sir Conan Doyle's pipe-smoking, cocaine addicted, brilliant detective, reports Reuters (via ABC News).
The Italian Secretary, by Caleb Carr, was commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate; A Slight Trick of the Mind, by Mitch Cullin, is set after the first atomic bomb attack, and Michael Chabon's The Final Solution is set in the UK during WWII. Laurie King's new book, Locked Rooms is the latest in her series of Mary Russell novels, in which Holmes is the husband and co-investigator.

How Literary Couples Survive
Four of the hottest writers of the moment are actually two married couples: American Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safron Foer, and Brits Nick Laird and Zadie Smith. How do reclusive, neurotic and intense people keep the romance alive? Well, they don't use the Franzen method. "Jonathan Franzen's gruelling writing regime - to which his ex-wife Valerie Cornell subjected herself for years - has assumed an almost apocryphal quality. Working in a tiny flat only 20ft apart from each other, they wrote for eight hours a day and then read for five hours in the evening, existing on a starvation diet of rice, beans and giant packs of chicken thighs. They ate out only once a year - on their wedding anniversary." They split up and Cornell stopped writing altogether, reports the Guardian.
Most other successful literary couples have hit upon somewhat of a formula. It helps if you write in different genres (novelist and biographer, say) and if you spend your working hours as far apart as possible. One husband works in such isolation that his wife was tied up by burglars and he didn't hear a thing.

Admired and Hated, French Novelist Michel Houellebecq isn't Talking
Regarded as Europe's "literary bad boy" whose work has been called both beautiful and repugnant, Michel Houllebecq takes on sex, greed, religion in all their incarnations and takes no prisoners.
In this profile, Reyhan Hamaranci of the San Francisco Chronicle talks to the laconic author of The Elementary Particles and Platform, and analyzes reaction to his work.

Get Shook Up for to Write
John Burdett, author of the acclaimed Bankok 8 and Bankok Tattoo, has just one piece of advice for young writers who hit a wall: "Shun security...Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort," says Burdett in The Washington Post's The Writing Life column.
Living in Thailand while he worked on Bankok 8, Burdett says he wrote three drafts of the book, all bad. It was at that point that a bar girl he had befriended invited him to her family home in central Thailand for Songkran, a religous water festival. Living in a hut in relentless heat and humidity, getting water from a well and witnessing a partygoer's injury, lit the fuse for what finally, became the finished book.

How Well Read is Your Man?
Britain's prestigous Orange Prize, which recognizes outstanding fiction by women, will be announced on June 7, but chances are few if any men will read the book, or any book by a woman.
Citing a study conducted by Queen Mary College in London, The Observer examines the result the men almost exclusively prefer books written by men while women will read both male and female authors.
"In the survey, men were asked to name the 'most important' book by a woman written in the last two years. Brick Lane by Monica Ali and Carol Shields's Unless were frequently among the replies, but many men admitted defeat and confessed they had no idea. At least one who suggested Brick Lane admitted he had not read it. "

Dickens Project a California Gem
The top center for study of the work of victorian writer Charles Dickens is at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Unique among university research and study projects, The Dickens Project includes graduate students, professors and members of the public in its multi-campus programs. Students and faculty from 16 other American and foreign universities also participate, reports UC Santa Cruz Currents online.
In addition to on-going research projects and conferences all over the world, the cornerstone of the project is Dickens Universe, a yearly weeklong event that brings Dickins' work to life. Scholars and fans to study one of Dickens' novels during the gathering. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the program and will be devoted to the novel Little Dorritt. Stanford University is publishing Hard Times in serial form with weekly chapters available for download or by mail. Sign up here.
The festival runs from July 31 to August 6.

Holy Quatrains, Batman!
Scottish poet Valerie Gillies yesterday became Edinburgh's new Poet Laureate and decided the first official poem she will write will be about...skateboarding?
"There are all sorts of things coming up that I'd like to write about," she said. "They are apparently going to open up a skateboard park, so it would be great fun if the Makar wrote a skateboard poem. I have to go and interview some skateboarders."
Poet Laureates are usually national appointments, such as Edinburgh's Poet Laureate position is more than honorary. The poet must produce at least three poems at 1000 pounds per, as well as work for literary organizations in the city and write verse for other special occasions as well, and on themes they deem important for the city.

Cuba Hosts Hot Literary Contest
The annual La llama doble (the double flame) contest is underway in Las Tunas, Cuba, reports Periodico26.com. The competition looks for the best erotic literature in the country, and has been won in the past by Cuban literary heavy hitters like Alberto Garrido and Senel Paz, who wrote the film Strawberry and Chocolate. The competition also sponsers conferences, readings and lauch parties of erotic literature.

Shakespeare celebrated by Yemeni Universities
The Yemen Observer reports on the National Seminar on Shakespeare, a colloquium at Sana'a University attended by professors and researchers from around the country.
Dr. Damonar Thakur, head of the University's English Department, said in a speech that students today can learn as much from Shakespeare's life as from his work. “Students of today should to take him as an example. He did not sit around dreaming but he put dreams into practice. Shakespeare went to seek work and became a set design assistant in a theater at the beginning of his literary life," because he could not afford to complete his education. Dr. Thakur encouraged students to perservere no matter what. "We should fight to make names for ourselves even through the most difficult of circumstances,”

Russo's Empire Falls to Premiere on HBO
Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls, had a rare experience for a writer whose work is being translated to film. Not only was he able to write the screenplay himself, the film will convey the mood, story and intent of the book in a quality production with a star-studded cast, thanks to HBO.
The Washington Times' Christian Toto talks to Russo about making the film and how HBO's standards for quality filmmaking have become one of the best places for literary works to come to life.

Edinburgh Draws Literary Map
Just in time for the Booker Prize ceremony next month, The city of Edinburgh has issued a map of the city's literary landmarks for visitors.
Named the World City of Literature by UNESCO last year, Edinburgh has been busy creating new ways to showcase it's literary past and present. Home base to writers such as J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) Ian Rankin (Inspector Rebus series), Val McDermid (A Place of Execution, Tony Hill series) and Alexander McCall Smith (Mma. Ramotswe series), Edinburgh has a lot to work with.
Sites on the literary map include The Oxford Bar where Inspector Rebus relaxes with a pint, Princes Street where Trainspotting's opening scenes take place, as well as the homes of Sir Walter Scott and poet Robert Burns' publishers, reports The Scotsman.

Politician's Reading Program
Frates Seeligson, Sr. is a fifth-generation Texan and a former Texas State Representative, who has been following a rigorous reading program for thirty years.
He is reading his way chronologically through American and world history, while also enjoying books on other topics and a big dose of fiction.
"I try to average four books a month," he tells the San Antonio Current. "So at the end of six months, I've read 24 books."

Japan's Nobel Laureate Concerned about War
During an appearance in Seoul, Korea, Japanese writer and Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oescolded the Japanese government for moving toward a military build-up by revising article nine of their constitution, reports the Korea Times.
Article nine in the Japanese constitution "stipulates Japan's renunciation of the use or threat of the use of military force as a means of settling international disputes," reports the Korea Times.
At a conference preceeding the Seoul International Forum for Literature, which starts tomorrow, the 70 year-old Oe , who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1994, said ``We actually run the Japanese Self-Defense Force and administer budgets for it. Indeed, we have already dispatched troops to Iraq. I am deeply worried about the situation, as I think you also would be.''
Oe is known as the chronicler of post-war Japanese society and psyche. His best known works are A Private Matter and The Silent Cry

Brit Hit in Moscow
Adam Thirlwell's 2003 hit Politics has finally been translated into Russian, and will be released in the country which inspired many of its themes. The 26 year-old author talks to the Moscow Times about fame, politics, Russians and his next book, which will be set in Cairo.

Allende Channels Zorro
Isabel Allende's latest book may seem like a bit of a stretch if not a detour for the author of The House of the Spirits and Eva luna. Zorro, yes that Zorro, was released this month.
Two years ago a group of men knocked on her door and told her they held the rights to the Zorro brand and asked her to write a novel about the mysterious masked latino's "back story," Allende told the Guardian.
After protesting that she was a "serious writer" she re-read the old stories and was hooked. "And so I fell in love again with Zorro," she says, "because I had been in love with him when I was a child. He's the father of Batman and Superman. He's the father of all the action heroes with the double personality. Most of those guys have magic tricks. Zorro has only his own skills."
Allende recounts her experience writing this unexpected novel, and of her life in California after living in Chile and Venezuela.
"Her account of Zorro's beginnings as a mestizo child in a California of missionaries and Indians is masterly, a page-turning, bodice-ripping tale of improbable duels, unlikely adventures and dastardly foes set against the grand currents of 18th-century," writes Dan Glaister.

Paretsky Uncensored
During an appearance at the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival in her native Kansas, Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski novels, spoke about many things, but her writing wasn't one of them, reports the Dowagiac News.
"I don't know how I do what I do," she said. "I've never had any technical training as a writer. I'm afraid that if I tinker with the mechanism too much by thinking about it or talking about it, it will go away and leave me as mysteriously as it came."
Paretsky talked about leaving Kasas for New York but failing to get her foot in the door at that literary holy grail, The New Yorker. She moved to Chicago and became a secretary and completed her first novel while she was in her 30s.
"I wrote from an early age, but I knew like all fields, literature belonged to men. History and biography we studied in school told us of the deeds of men. We learned to speak of the aspirations of mankind and of man's inhumanity to man. His inhumanity to woman not being worth recording," Paretsky said."
Paretsky also had strong words about what she sees going on in her home state today.
"In the minds of writers like Ann Coulter and the views of the dominant voices setting public policy today and the speech of talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh," Paretsky said, "we are seeing a strong push to return to the days of my youth. Indeed, when I see Congress ready to pass a bill allowing pharmacists to withhold contraceptives from women or read abstinence-only materials that tell girls 'never act too smart because nature and God intend girls to be subordinate to boys,' or when people like Tom DeLay lay social ills on women working outside the home. Tom DeLay said - you can read it in the Congressional Record, where I did - Columbine was due to two things, women working outside the home and the teaching of evolution. He said our young people could not tell the difference between apes and humans - although I have never yet seen an ape with a semi-automatic pistol," she said.

A Writer Who Breaks the Molds
As a young Maylasian immigrant to the U.S. Gennita Low picked up a doctorate in philosopy but from then on has made a career of doing the unexpected. After working as a teacher and debt collector Low became a roofer in Orlando, Florida.
After attending a romance writer's convention to learn the ropes she published her first romantic suspense novel, Into Danger, which garnered her a two-book deal from Avon Books and won "Best Romantic Suspense" from the Romance writers of America.
Her second book, Facing Fear, was the first romance novel featuring an Asian heroine. And since her books feature espionage, military operations and lots of action, she is one of the only romance writers known to have a loyal following within the U.S. military. Low's fourth book, The Hunter will be out next month and she talks to the Orlando Sentinel about her career thus far.

Enjoying an Evening of Bad Books
I love this town! Just when you thought there was nothing new to do -- here it is -- Lit Lite! The New York Times reports on this new literary reading series at Elmo Restaurant in Chelsea. The books have to be bad, and some of the readers wear foam, sequins and fake eyelashes.
"Since the series began in February, more than 40 books have been skewered. A $5 cover charge is imposed and, because of the subject matter, heavy drinking is encouraged. Each session tackles a different subject, from sex to self help," reports Lola Ogunnaike.
Authors featured during this celebration of bad prose include Ethan Hawke, Oliver North and Harriet Beecher Stowe. And before you scour the shelves looking for your last bad read, even Lit Lite has standards. While Naomi' Campbell's Swan was deemed bad, it was ruled out of the reading for not being "gripping."

The Salesman as Cultural Icon
What do Death of a Salesman, The Iceman Cometh, Glengarry Glen Ross and Double Indemnity have in common? Salesmen. In a consumer culture, salesmen are the key. In this insightful piece, Robert Trussell of the Kansas City Star examines great American plays and novels that revolve around salesman and what they say about our culture at their time.

Dentist Pens International Bestseller
The Yacoubian Building, about the residents of a building in Egypt, quickly became a bestseller because of the issues it dealt with in a soap-like form. In fact, many are surprised the book was not banned there. "A tale of life in a downtown Cairo apartment building that delves into a mix of power, corruption, sex, exploitation, poverty and extremism managed to become one of the best-selling Arabic-language works of fiction in recent decades, receiving accolades for lucidly capturing the varied aspects of Egyptian life: straight, gay, rich, poor, powerful, powerless, reports Egypt today.
"I see literature as an expanse of freedom. Literature should examine the areas that people don't talk about, to show us things we could be feeling but not seeing," says the author, ALAA El Aswany.
A dentist for over 20 years, Aswany writes for three hours a day and has published several collections of short stories. The Yacoubian Building is his first novel and bestseller, and his first book published in the U.S.

Ruskin Bond, Squinting in the Spotlight
The acclaimed Indian poet and novelist Ruskin Bond, 71, came of age before the media dominated culture and created gods and goddesses called celebrities.
Bond, who is called the Indian Wordsworth, tells webindia123.com that the PR-driven media-saturated book launch parties and tours leave him with an inferiority complex. Bond's latest book Roads to Mussoorie has just been released.
Journalists unnerve him in particular, he joked. "They ask me obscure questions," he complained. "Someone told me I am a minimalist writer. Minimalist, what's that, I was wondering when he said I write simple and I said yes, I do,"
Bond's best known work is The Flight of the Pigeons.

Writers Havens
Writers are reclusive by necessity, which makes their homes particular subjects of curiosity. To see where a writer works and lives is to see what influences them, what moves them, what they need to produce their particular brand of genius. It was an irresistible subject for a book says JD McClatchy, author of American Writers at Home. McClatchy traveled all over the U.S. to capture the homes of 21 of America's foremost writers. From Hemingway's legendary Key West spread to Walt Whitman's tiny home, McClatchy hopes seeing and feeling the writers' environments will give readers new insight to some of their favorite authors. Just released in the UK, the author talks to The Scotsman about her experiences visiting the famous homes.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None to Open on London's West End in October
The world's bestselling novelist (2 billion books sold), Agatha Christie is also the author of the longest running stage play in history, The Moustrap, which has been playing in London for 53 years. Next fall an updated stage production of her book, And Then There Were None, will debut. The play will be rewritten and based on the original novel, not later plays or screen versions The plot revolves around ten strangers who are lured to an island estate and are then killed off one by one.
Christie’s grandson (and chairman of Agatha Christie Ltd), Mathew Prichard, said: “If Agatha Christie is to be as popular in the 21st century as she was in the 20th, we have to be open-minded about interpreting stories in modern ways (much as Shakespeare is reinvented for successive generations).”

Steve Martin, the Author
He's come a long way since his wild and crazy appearances on Saturday Night Live, but he says he's always been a writer. He wrote the screenplays for his films The Jerk, Roxanne and L.A. Story. Later he has written pieces for the New Yorker and two novels, Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, both well received. In this wide ranging and interesting interview with AlterNet, Martin talks about writing, fame and criticism.

At 80, the Prolific Elmore Leonard is Still Way Cool
The author of books like Get Shorty, Be Cool, Rum Punch and Out of Sight is known for his clever plots, endearing bad guys and crackling dialogue (Tarantino learned from him). Now, Elmore Leonard's latest, The Hot Kid, set in the 1920's world of gangsters and bootleggers is being called his best novel ever. After 40 novels and winning of that holiest of holies, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, Leonard remains unaffected and unpretentious. "The first part moves along O.K., and then I have to think about the second part, because the second part keeps it going," he said. "And then you've got to get to some new things, say around page 250. There is always those surprises near the end," he tells The New York Times.

Georgia's 25 Must-Reads
Finally, a story out of Georgia that isn't about that psycho bride! The Georgia Center for the Book has released a list of 25 books that Georgians should read, reports the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
The list was compiled by public vote and an advisory committee, and includes books that are about Georgia or by authors who live there.
"We strongly believe that readers will find not only some familiar classics but works of fiction and nonfiction that stand out for the quality of their writing and the importance of their subject matter," says William Starr, executive director of the Georgia Center for the Book, the state affiliate of the Library of Congress.
The writer's on this year's list include Tina McElroy Ansa, Amy Blackmarr, Valerie Boyd, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Paul Hemphill, Kent Anderson Leslie, Judson Mitcham, Michael Thurmond and Philip Lee Williams, and some of the authors will appear at events around the state to promote the list. Get the list.

The Queen of the Moral Dilemma: Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult's novels are about issues with a capital I -- her latest, Vanishing Acts, is about a search and rescue worker who discovers that she herself was abducted 30 years ago; My Sister's Keeper deals with a young girl who was conceived to provide bone-marrow to her older sister. After 13 years of invasive procedures, the girl hires a lawyer to gain control over her own body.
As Picoult kicks off a tour in New Zealand (she has more readers there than in the U.S.) she talks about her need to write about complex and frightening issues, her children and her fans.

Kerouac Letter to Brando at Auction
Part of the Marlo Brando estate being auctioned by Christie's in New York on June 30 is a letter from beat poet Jack Kerouac asking Brando to co-star with him in the film version of his book On the Road, reports the Baltimore Sun.
"I'm praying that you'll buy ON THE ROAD and make a movie of it," Kerouac wrote, saying he wanted to "establish myself and my mother a trust fund for life, so I can really go roaming round the world" and "be free to write what comes out of my head & free to feed my buddies when they're hungry & not worry about my mother."
The film never happened. The letter is expected to bring in $5,000 to $7,000.

Anne Rice's Next is About Another Kind of Eternal Life
Anne Rice's upcoming book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, is no vampire chronicle. Christ the Lord will tell the story of Jesus' early life in his own words. AP reports that a letter from Rice, known mainly for Interview with a Vampire and its sequels, will accompany advance review copies of her latest, due out in November from Random House. Rice, who was raised as a devout Catholic writes, in part: "I have attempted something transformative which we writers dare to call a miracle in the imperfect human idiom we possess. It's to bring Him here in the form a story, and that story is Christ The Lord."

First Annual George Washington Prize
Ron Chernow, author of the biography Alexander Hamilton has been awarded the nation's newest and most lucrative book prize, the George Washington Book Prize. At $50,000 the award is bigger than the Pulitzer and the National Book Award combined.
The prize is awarded to the best non-fiction book about the revolutionary era.

In Search of Two Georges
A "literary pilgrim" travels to France and England to re-trace the footsteps of two of the most revolutionary female writers of the 19th century; George Sand (nee Amandine Aurore Lucile Dudevant) and George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans), for the Los Angeles Times.
Sand was a cigar-smoking cross-dresser whose lovers included Guy de Maupassant and Frederic Chopin. Eliot was the repressed child of a widowed father who left home to live with a married man.

An East Village Stroll with Nicole Krauss
Novelist Nicole Krauss made an impact with her acclaimed first novel Man Walks into a Room. On the eve of the release of her second novel, The History of Love, she talks to New York Magazine about the book, her childhood (Westbury, Long Island), reading writer's biographies (irrelevant). Krauss refuses to talk about her much lauded husband, the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), or to address similarities in both their latest novels, which early viewers have remarked upon, including a mix of old and young narrators and a blue vase that appears in both books. “These comparisons are laughable,” says Krauss, insisting the couple didn’t read each other’s proofs until the very end. “People find what they’re looking for,” she says.

Writing As Performance Art
The Queens art gallery Flux Factory has made the writing process a living art exhibition - NOVEL - by "imprisoning" three writers (who applied for the privilege) each in their own architectually designed living/work space for 30 days at the end of which they must have written a novel or 75,000 words. "We're exploring what it is to be a writer," exhibit curator Morgan Meis, told the New York Post.
The only contact with outside world the writers have is with the gallery visitors who arrive to watch them at work, and during the readings of their ongoing work every Saturday night until their June 4 release. "On the one hand it's an intense, solitary and personal experience," said Meis. "On the other, it's always a public expression in which the writers reveal more about themselves than they intend."
The writers will dine together every night and enjoy the cuisine of "a revolving cast of chefs," says the Flux Factory website. Each writer collaborated on the design of his or her space, but the exhibit "takes the isolation of the writer to a rather extreme conclusion in order to investigate what will be produced under those conditions."

Streep Makes Pact with the 'Devil'
Meryl Streep will star in the film version of Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada, reports The Book Standard. The thinly disguised tell-all of the horrors of working for uber-editor Anna Wintour at Vogue was on bestseller lists for weeks. No word yet on who wll play the beleaguered assistant.