An author who fabricated a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust by living with wolves asked a judge Thursday to affirm a $32.4 million jury award in her favor.Misha Defonseca said her publisher is too late to try to overturn the 2001 verdict the author and her ghost writer won in a fight over the book's profits. more >>
Never, ever underestimate the power of a well-written memoir. “Keep the Faith” by Faith Evans with Aliya S. King is one of those unforgettable journeys in print where readers embark on the bumpy roller coaster ride we call life. Evans' emotional passage begins in Newark, New Jersey and ends in Atlanta, Georgia. With a name like Faith, a classy title and a hot book jacket, destiny intervenes and a captivating bestseller is in the making. more >>
Bookseller Borders Group Inc. said Tuesday that it narrowed its losses and slashed its debt during the second quarter, but continued to see sales slow as consumers limited their discretionary spending. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company said it lost $9.2 million, or 15 cents a share, for the quarter ending Aug. 2. That compares with a loss of $25.1 million, or 43 cents a share for the same quarter of last year. more >>
Dave Freeman, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home. He was 47. Freeman died Aug. 17 after the fall at his Venice home, his father, Roy Freeman, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. more >>
The publisher of Sen. Joe Biden's memoir, an instant best seller for the presumed vice presidential nominee, is being reissued in paperback with a first printing of 100,000. The Random House Publishing Group released "Promises to Keep" in hardcover a year ago. After a brief appearance on The New York Times' hardcover best-seller list, the book quickly faded, as did Biden's presidential candidacy, which ended in early January. more >>
It was a shock to Misha Defonseca's readers this year when she admitted that the best-selling story of her tortured childhood during the Holocaust was false, but her U.S. publisher saw it as an opportunity to undo a stinging, 7-year-old court judgment. Jane Daniel says she never would have been ordered to pay Defonseca and her ghost writer $32.4 million over her handling of profits from "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years" had the jury known the book was filled with lies. more >>
He's recognized around the world as the iconic face of James Bond. But in Britain, Sean Connery is also well known as a proud Scot, and on Monday he returns to his hometown to launch his autobiography. "Being a Scot" looks at Connery's early life as a milkman in Edinburgh's Fountainbridge neighborhood, then delves into a wide-ranging look at Scottish culture including the work of poet Robert Burns, novelist Sir Walter Scott and Mary, Queen of Scots. more >>
Salman Rushdie says his mother's gossip had a strong influence on his literary career. Rushdie says his mother was a "world class gossip" and that it was from her that he got a feel for talking about secrets. more >>
As the centennial of Lyndon Johnson's birth approaches, historian Robert A. Caro would like to think of his longtime subject at his happiest and most fulfilled: Not when Johnson was president, in anguish over Vietnam, but a few years before, as Senate majority leader, the one-man legislative machine. "I want to remember him in his days of just undiluted glory," says Caro, a Pulitzer Prize winner currently in the middle of his fourth and final Johnson volume, which will cover his vice presidency and presidency. more >>
It's billed as the oldest writers' conference in the nation, a gathering at a picturesque mountaintop retreat where literary giants, book editors and up-and-coming novelists have been coming together once a year since the 1920s. But somebody's gotta schlep the meals: At the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the job falls to two dozen young writers who serve as waiters for the two-week summer summit, donning aprons and name tags to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to the 225 participants. more >>
A memoir by Sen. Joe Biden, once as forgotten as his presidential run, is now a best seller. A day after Sen. Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate for the Democratic ticket, Biden's "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics" was in the top 10 on Barnes & Noble.com and in the top 40 on Amazon.com. more >>
Novelist Rosalind Belben and first-time biographer Rosemary Hill have won Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes. Belben won the fiction prize for "Our Horses in Egypt," which tells the story of a young war widow who travels to the Middle East to retrieve her mare in the aftermath of World War I - and follows the horse itself as it struggles to survive conflict and privation. more >>
Olympic superstar Michael Phelps will write a book telling the story behind his historic eight gold medal swims just in time for the holiday season, Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced Friday. In "Built to Succeed," Phelps will also cover his philosophy on training and competition, as well as his life being raised by a single mother and coping with an attention-deficit disorder, the publisher said. more >>
Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest bookseller, posted a 15 percent drop in second-quarter profit Thursday as it struggles with sluggish consumer spending. The New York-based retailer also projected that sales at established stores would be weaker than expected, but reiterated its earnings guidance for the year. more >>
When reporter David Carr began thinking about writing his life story, he found he couldn't trust his own memory. Was it his best friend who pulled the gun on Carr some 20 years ago when Carr - fired from a job and thrown out of a bar - tried to kick in his friend's front door and broke a window, as Carr remembered it, or was it Carr himself who held the gun? more >>
Barack Obama and John McCain are on the verge of accepting the nomination of the Democratic and Republican parties during the 2008 national conventions. Democrats take the stage in Denver, Colorado, from August 25-28; and the Republican party arrives in similar style at St. Paul, Minnesota, from September 1-4. Expectations from both parties are high. But there's a new political agenda set to cause almost as much ruckus as the candidiates' opposing platforms ... a little book. more >>
