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J.K. Rowling has written a series of wizard fairy tales set in the world of Harry Potter. There are only seven copies of the handwritten book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. One will be auctioned for charity, the rest she will give as presents.

There will be just seven volumes of The Tales of Beedle the Bard and they will not be published. One copy will be auctioned to raise money for her charity, The Children's Voice, and the author will give away the rest of them. She said the books were a "wonderful way" to say goodbye to Potter. "People kept saying to me 'you'll be glad to have a break from writing', when of course I wasn't taking a break at all," added the writer.

"I was literally writing out - as these are handwritten books - these new stories which has been a wonderful way to say goodbye. It's like coming up from a deep dive." The fairytales, which were illustrated by Rowling herself, are the first works she has written since the Potter novel was published in July. The Tales of Beedle the Bard was left to Potter character Hermione by Hogwarts school headmaster Dumbledore.

Surely she will relent and make the stories available to readers? Because Potter fans aren't going to ignore the fact that there are new stories set in the Potterverse. They'll do whatever it takes to get a copy.

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Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that the Eldest series by Christopher Paolini will not consist of four books, instead of three. The first two books in the series, Eragon and Eldest were major bestsellers.

"I plotted out the `Inheritance' series as a trilogy nine years ago, when I was 15. At that time, I never imagined I'd write all three books, much less that they would be published," Paolini said in a statement.

"When I finally delved into Book Three, it soon became obvious that the remainder of the story was far too big to fit in one volume. ... In order to be true to my characters and to address all of the plot points and unanswered questions Eragon and Eldest raised, I needed to split the end of the series into two books."

The third book, which is as yet untitled, will be released in the fall of 2008.

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Conan the Barbarian is making a comeback. We have a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in our heads as Conan -- he really seemed to embody the character created by Robert E. Howard. Now there is a new video game, a coffee table book, comics reissues and a live feature film planned.

A new Conan video game (THQ, $60, for Xbox 360 and PS3) arrives next week; an online role-playing game, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Eidos, for PCs), is scheduled to be released in March. "I think Conan has on and off been a success since (Howard's) inception in the '30s, and (in recent years) the license was mismanaged," says Jorgen Tharaldsen of game developer Funcom. "He is the original American fantasy hero."

Conan the Phenomenon ($29.95), a new 200-page coffee-table book from Dark Horse Comics, has scores of classic images from illustrators such as Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo, as well as a detailed history of Conan and of Howard, who died in 1936. "It covers Conan as a pop-culture figure in all these different media over the years," says Dark Horse's Scott Allie.

Also from Dark Horse: The Savage Sword of Conan, a 542-page collection of the original Marvel Comics magazines, due Dec. 19 ($17.95), as well as continuing reprints of Marvel's original Conan the Barbarian comics and a new monthly series started in 2004. "The (Marvel) comics created the foundation for the movies," Allie says. "We felt it was important to reprint them."

A movie, in development by Millennium Films (16 Blocks, The Black Dahlia), is planned for 2009. Malmberg, who is producing, wants to restore Conan to Howard's original noble savage, "a barbarian who is confronted with civilization as his life progresses and (who) has a much stronger moral code than the so-called civilized people."

Somehow the resurgence of Conan just seems appropriate in today's world. A Barbarian fits right in with today's pop culture. Although the current crop of misbehaving starlets might give him a run for his money in the category of breaching society's rules. Hopefully, the new Conan will continue to keep his loincloth on.

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Britney Spears' mother, Lynne Spears, is writing a book on parenting. Yes, that's right. Parenting.

Although Britney Spears' formative years still seem to be in full swing, fans are about to be brought up to speed on what it was like growing up as a pop princess, as seen through the eyes of her mom. Lynne Spears has inked a deal to pen a memoir focusing on her role as showbiz family matriarch, Curt Harding, a spokesman for the Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson Inc., told E! News Friday.

Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World has been marked for a May 11, 2008?Mother's Day?release. Harding said that he has not yet seen a manuscript so he can't say how deeply the book will delve into the Spears' private lives or, more important, whether Lynne's viewpoint will encompass the current state of her daughter's career and high-profile lifestyle, both of which are obviously attracting a different caliber of headlines than they were a few years ago. Spears and her mother visited for the first time in months on Oct. 6, when Lynne and younger daughter Jamie Lynn flew out to California from Louisiana to spend some time at the "Gimme More" singer's Malibu home.

The family had been on the outs since June, when Spears reportedly took offense at Lynne's public displays of concern for the 25-year-old's worrisome ways and moved to limit her mom's interactions with sons Sean Preston and Jayden James. TMZ reported at the time that Spears presented Lynn with a letter from an out-of-state lawyer that asked her to stay away from the kids if she was on any medications that might impair her judgment. Two days after letting her mother back into the inner circle, Spears had her first monitored visit with her children after losing custody to Kevin Federline the week before.

We hope the publisher knows to hold the presses until the last possible moment, because the Britney saga seems to change from minute to minute. Why, only today Britney replied to a reporter from Extra TV when he asked how she thought the custody proceedings were going: "Eat it, lick it, snort it, f--- it!"

Words to live by, as any good parent will tell you.

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Steve Martin has written a children's book called The Alphabet From A to Y, With Bonus Letter Z. Many celebrities have written children's books after they have children, but Martin doesn't have any kids.

"I'm not sure why I did this. I don't know why an alphabet book popped into my head," Martin says of "The Alphabet From A to Y, With Bonus Letter Z," a collaboration with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. "My idea was to write these rhyming couplets with the craziest images I could possibly think up, and then have Roz illustrate them."

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"From A to Y" is a nonsense ride across time and rhyme, with highlights including "H" ("Henrietta the hare wore a habit in heaven/Her hairdo hid hunchbacks: one hundred and seven") and "N" ("Needle-nosed Nigel won nine kinds of knockwurst/By winning a contest to see who could knock wurst"). Martin is a bookish man, but he wasn't thinking of any authors when writing "From A to Y." Not Thurber, White or Edward Lear. Not Dr. Seuss, whom he didn't read until his 20s. Maybe Ogden Nash. "I did grow up on Ogden Nash," he says in a recent telephone interview, "but I'm not sure if that fits here." Martin began working on "From A to Y" a couple of years ago. Like a good boy eating his vegetables first, he took on the hard letters, like "X" (if "Ambidextrous Alex was actually axed" counts as "X"), before digging in to such treats as "A" and "E."

Asked to name his favourite letter (an improvement over being asked his favourite colour), Martin pauses. "Gee." "Gee," as in "giraffe"? No, "Gee," as in "Gee, whiz." "I always liked 'Q.' ... It has that funny little do-dad at the bottom," he says, before remembering, a theme developing here, that his play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" includes a soliloquy by Albert Einstein on the alphabet, as it relates to pie. "Einstein compared the letter "O" to a pie, and said that the letter "Q" was like an "O" with a comma and that comma-shaped pie looks like a croissant," Martin explains.

The buzz on the book is good and Random House has already done a print run of 150,000. We'd moan and groan about yet another celebrity thinking he or she can write children's literature, but Martin really can write. We think the book will do very well and intend to check it out.

Posted in Children's Books

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is leading the BAFTA Nominations.

The fifth film based on J.K. Rowling's novels is in the running for three prizes: best film, video game and the Bafta Kids' Vote, the only award chosen by the public. In the film category, the boy wizard is up against the animated rodents of "Flushed Away"; "Happy Feet," about a tap-dancing penguin called Mumble and "Bridge to Terabithia," a fantasy adventure featuring a baddie called the Dark Master.

The BBC's long-running series "Byker Grove" was nominated for best drama prize at the British Academy Children's Awards. The show, set in a Newcastle youth club, ran between 1989 and 2006 and helped launched the careers of Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. The best children's TV channel nominees are CBeebies, Nickelodeon UK, Nick Jr UK and Scamp. The winners will be announced at a central London ceremony hosted by Keith Chegwin on November 25.

You can see the full list of nominees here.

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Nora Roberts' Angels Fall won the Book of the Year Award at the 2007 Quill Book Awards.

Nora Roberts' Angels Fall (Putnam) was named Book of the Year by readers (as well as winner in the Romance category) at the 2007 Quill Book Awards, held October 22 in New York City at the spectacular Jazz at Lincoln Center theater. Quills were awarded in 19 categories, plus Book of the Year and Variety's Blockbuster Book to Film Award, which went to the Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum. The Quills also honored David Halberstam posthumously with a Platinum Quill.

Kicking off the awards ceremony, The Colbert Report's Stephen Colbert lamented the loss of the oral tradition, took a swing at the National Book Awards, and wondered why the Quills were "being televised instead of novelized." Presenters included Joan Allen, a star of the Bourne films and a supporter of First Book, which gives books to children from low-income families, footballer Tiki Barber, actress Brooke Shields, and novelist Mary Higgins Clark. Also on hand was Bourne Ultimatum screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who directed the recently acclaimed film Michael Clayton. With winners named in advance, many more authors were on hand, including Amy Sedaris, who took the Humor category for I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (Warner), and Laura Lippman, whose What the Dead Know (Morrow) received the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller prize.

Congratulations, Nora! The Quills will be broadcast on NBC on October 27, 2007, at 7 p.m. Eastern time.

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J.K. Rowling stunned an audience by announcing that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members. She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love." "Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause. She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy." "Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction." Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction. Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

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Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

She is currently on tour in America and made the announcement in a question and answer period at Carnegie Hall.

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Bestselling The Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini supports the studio's decision to delay the release of the film version of the book to safeguard the film's child stars. The children are in danger because of a gay rape scene in the movie. The families of the children are all moving abroad at the studio's expense, in the face of death threats.

Hosseini said he "applauded" the decision. "Afghanistan has become a pretty violent place," he added. "If the boys and their families think there is a reasonable risk of threat to them, then you have to take all of the steps that you can to make sure they are okay," he told the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. "I applaud the studio for delaying the release of the film even though it goes against whatever commercial wisdom there is."

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The harrowing scene - in which the novel's protagonist witnesses his best friend being sexually attacked but does nothing to help - is a pivotal moment in the story. Ahmad Jaan Mahmidzada, whose son Ahmad Khan plays Hassan, the victim of the attack, told the BBC he feared reprisals over the scene. "I'm worried people from my tribe will turn against me, even cut my throat and kill me," he said.

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Hosseini said there was no question that the scene would be cut. "Without that moment, the tower of cards really falls apart," he said. "The overall message of the film is tolerance, love, friendship and forgiveness," he added. "It denounces bigotry, it denounces violence, and hatred and discrimination. I don't think anyone who walks out of that film does not understand that."

The Kite Runner will be released in the U.S. on December 14th. The film already has good buzz.

Posted in General Fiction

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Marvel's Captain America superhero was gunned down by a sniper earlier this year but he has managed to make a comeback. Fox News reports that Captain America's comeback includes a patriotic new look created by artist Alex Ross.

The company unveiled the patriotic superhero's new look Thursday with artwork by Alex Ross and Steve Epting for the new issue, No. 34, to hit comic book shops in January 2008.

Captain America will return with his trademark shield, but he also will have some new firepower. The artists are bringing the hero back with a gun.

"I always try and look back in the character's history to something that maybe was a forgotten costume element from a bygone age, maybe one of the earlier costume elements, to see if you could bring that part back," Ross told Marvel.com. "Well, funny enough, there's this awful movie serial made in the '40s with Cap where he had no shield, no wings on his mask, no white sleeves, little tiny gloves, and he carried a gun."

Technically, it was Steve Rogers (Captain America) who was killed so there may be someone new wearing the Captain America costume. Marvel confirms that Steve Rogers is still dead. The comic blogs Newsarama, Comicon, Again With the Comics, Mania Comics, Comic Box, CBR, meltblog and The Beat have more thoughts about Captain America's return and his new threads.

Posted in Comics

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A young man in Britain was arrested for possessing a text file of the book, The Anarchist Cookbook. He is being charged under the Terrorism Act of 2000.

The 17-year-old, who was arrested in the Dewsbury area of West Yorkshire on Monday, was given bail after a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court. It is alleged he had a copy of the "Anarchists' Cookbook", containing instructions on how to make home-made explosives. His next court hearing has been set for 25 October.

The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000. The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year. The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.

The 17 year-old was released on bail, pending another hearing. At first glance, this case looks pretty shocking -- how can someone be arrested for just owning a book? We know several thriller authors that read all kinds of horrible books as research. Subjects such as bomb-making, serial killings and the like are the norm for them and they have them lying all over their houses and offices. A desk reference for poisons is essential reading for any mystery author, for example.

But after some more research, it appears that the police found bomb-making materials in the teen's room, who had just returned from a visit to Pakistan.

[Prosecutor Piers] Arnold said: "During the search approximately 500g of potassium nitrate were found under the defendant's bed in the room he shares with his younger brother. "Potassium nitrate is a critical oxidising component of gunpowder. Also recovered was a file on a computer in the defendant's bedroom entitled the Anarchist's Cookbook.

"There are 17 references to potassium nitrate in the 'Improvised Explosives' section of the document which contains clear instructions on how to make explosives." The prosecutor alleged 250g of calcium chloride was also found which features in the chapter "How to Make a Plastic Explosive". Videos including the devil's face made in smoke following the 9/11 attacks, beheadings and references to jihad were also allegedly found at the address.

It appears that the teen (who can't be named because he is underage) really was planning some act of terrorism. He wasn't just reading about it, he was actually building an explosive and had dangerous chemicals in the same room where his little brother slept. Nice.

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Readers were up in arms yelling 'censorhip' over this article in The Daily Mail about the Happy Endings Foundation's campaign to ban all books for children which don't have happy endings.

The Happy Ending Foundation is planning a series of Bad Book Bonfires for later this month, when parents will be encouraged to burn novels with negative endings. The foundation has also written to school librarians across the country to coincide with Children's Book Week, which began on Monday, urging them to take ' controversial' books off shelves. Last night critics of the group said children needed a healthy balance in their reading. Others said the book burnings were a sinister reminder of similar events in Nazi Germany.

Among the stories on the foundation's blacklist are best-sellers such as A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and Marcus Pfister's Milo and the Magical Stones. Works that make the approved list include Raymond Brigg's The Snowman and Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. The Snowman appears to have a sad ending because he melts, leaving the boy he has befriended alone. But the foundation claims it ends positively because the boy is contented, having the snowman's scarf to remember him by. Adrienne Small founded the organisation when her ten-year-old daughter became depressed and withdrawn after reading the first book in the Lemony Snicket series.

She said: "I talked to other mothers and friends and we decided to do something positive with books that were more upbeat. "I'm not trying to say the world should be viewed with rose-tinted glasses but you have got to do your best to protect your children." Mrs Small, 47, who is married with two teenage children, founded the organisation in 2000 and there are now 11 groups across the country, including London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow.

But a careful examination of The Happy Ending Foundation's website reveals some oddities. After reading a page of passionate ranting about children's books that should be banned, one comes to The Disclaimer at the end of the page. Clicking on that link reveals the following text:

Disclaimer: Most characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or half dead, is purely coincidental. None of the non-fictitious people, places or things named in this website were harmed during the creation of the site. We're not sure if the Loch Ness monster is fictitious or non-fictitious, you decide. We would like to state that some of the books recommended on this site are very good reads, particularly Winnie-the-Pooh. However, we would NOT recommend monster hunting at Loch Ness as a happy day out because a) it rains a lot in north Scotland and b) as previously stated, we don't know if there is actually a monster to hunt. However, if you like logs then Loch Ness is a fine place to go log hunting.

That's right -- the whole thing is a hoax. It's a clever viral marketing campaign to get people to buy more Lemony Snicket books -- which all have notoriously bad endings. Or no ending at all, in on particular case we can think of. We were certainly ready to leap on our soapbox and expound at length about the dangers of censorship, when we realized we were being had by a clever marketing firm which owns the domain name of the website. Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice, well, you get the idea.

Posted in Childen's Books

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Oprah has chosen her next book pick: it's Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Set in a Caribbean port town during a terrible epidemic, the book tells the story of a love triangle between the young lovers -- a young telegraph operator named Florentino Ariza and the beautiful student Fermina Daza -- and the older, more successful doctor whom Fermina's father forces her to marry.

The novel explores the themes of love in all its guises, including unrequited love and its similarities to diseases, such as deadly cholera. You can read an excerpt, get a reading guide and find out more about the author here. You can see a list of all of Oprah's past book selections here.

Posted in General Fiction

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Producer of the film version of The Kite Runner have delayed the release of the film by six weeks, in order to protect the young stars of the film from harm. Because of the nature of the film -- which portrays Afghanistan over three decades of strife -- and the restrictive culture, producers are worried that the boys might face a violent backlash when the film is released.

The U.S. release of the film, based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, has been delayed by six weeks to December 14 to ensure the 12-year-old Afghan boys are out of harm's way by then, an executive for Paramount Vantage said on Thursday.

The extraordinary precautions follow months of shuttle diplomacy and other preparations by the film studio to address concerns about the film's depiction of one boy's rape and other scenes of conflict between rival Pashtun and Hazara tribes. Worries about the well-being of the young actors have escalated as the level of security in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the months since the film was cast and shot, said Megan Colligan, a marketing chief for Paramount Vantage.

Although opinions as to the film's potential for inciting ethnic violence vary widely, "we feel an obligation to put the safety and security of those kids first," she told Reuters. The studio, a division of Viacom Inc.-owned Paramount Pictures, hired a former CIA officer to assess the risks facing the child stars while enlisting a human rights worker to serve as their "minder" and liaison between the studio and their families. "The consensus was we should take them out of the country until this blows over," said John Kiriakou, the ex-CIA counterterrorism operative, who interviewed about two dozen Afghan politicians and others on behalf of the studio.

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Arrangements have been made for the boys to then go to the United Arab Emirates, where they probably will remain at least until March, when the new school year begins, she said. By then, the film will have been released in theaters around the world. Although no commercial exhibition is planned for Afghanistan, the studio assumes that bootlegged DVD copies will make their way into the country. If a perceived threat to the youngsters persists beyond March, they will be permitted to remain in the UAE indefinitely, Colligan said, adding, "They're not going back to Kabul unless they want to go back."

What an extraordinary story. We wish the boys well. We sincerely hope that Paramount is making arrangements for the boys' families, as well. It's pretty disturbing that just appearing in a Western film could get the boys and their families killed.

Posted in General Fiction

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It's official: Howard K. Stern is suing Rita Cosby for $60 million for libel.

Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer and companion, Howard K. Stern, filed a $60 million libel lawsuit Tuesday against Rita Cosby and her publisher over a book she wrote that claims Stern and Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, had a sexual encounter. The suit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages from Cosby, the former MSNBC host who wrote "Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death" - and Hachette Book Group USA Inc.

The book, which hit stores in September, claims that besides the alleged sexual encounter, Birkhead and Stern both worked together after Smith's death to manipulate the media and maximize profits. Smith died of an accidental drug overdose in Florida in February at age 39. Stern initially claimed to have fathered Smith's young daughter, Dannielynn, but Birkhead eventually showed he was the father. The baby could inherit millions from the estate of Smith's late husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II.

Stern's lawsuit says that the book falsely accuses Stern of, among other things, criminal lewd acts, homosexual acts, illegal possession and use of cocaine, conspiring to commit murder and kidnapping for ransom. "Defendants have exploited Ms. Smith's life and death by publishing false and defamatory factual accusations against" Stern, according to the 65-page lawsuit filed by Atlanta lawyer Lin Wood.

"Blonde Ambition purports to be a 'tell-all' book, but it can only be accurately described as a 'tell-all-lies' book," Wood said in statement Tuesday.

This should be an interesting case, should it ever get to trial. Cosby based her claims of a gay affair on an alleged sex tape between Stern and Larry Birhead, which no one has seen yet, including Rita Cosby. Stern and Birkhead say there is no such tape.

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Sony has unveiled version 2.0 of its ebook reader. The new Reader (model PRS-505) comes in two colors: silver and dark blue. The new version has revamped controls and the page turning feature is faster. Advances in electronic paper have been incorporated into the design, so that the contrast ratio is higher. That makes the text easier to read.

"For people on the go, this device is compelling because it allows them to carry a wide variety of reading materials whether they are on a cross-country flight, in a doctor's office waiting room, or at a beach resort," said Steve Haber, senior vice president of Sony's Digital Imaging and Audio Division. "The Reader can handle a stack of books and other documents that people would rather not carry, yet offers a 'book-like' reading experience unavailable with other electronic devices."

The new version has a lot more capacity than the old one: this one holds up to 160 typical eBooks. Expansion slots for Memory Stick Duo media or SD memory cards is another nice touch. Another nice feature is the USB-based mass storage capability, so you can use the readers as a portable drive.

The reader retails $299 and is available at Borders stores, SonyStyle stores nationwide and at sonystyle.com. When the price on this reader goes below $100 -- and it will in a few of years -- ebook sales are going to take off. On the other hand, if Steve Jobs gets into the game and releases an ebook Reader that looks really cool and sychs up with iTunes -- Sony is in big trouble. We're just saying.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that cellphone fiction is really selling in Japan. One cell phone book has sold over 1.3 million copies. The article says most of these mobile novels are written by young people and they tend to be stories about love, relationships and friendship.

In Japan, the cellphone is stirring the nation's staid fiction market. Young amateur writers in their teens and 20s who long ago mastered the art of zapping off emails and blogs on their cellphones, find it a convenient medium in which to loose their creative energies and get their stuff onto the Internet. For readers, mostly teenage girls who use their phones for an increasingly wide range of activities, from writing group diaries to listening to music, the mobile novel, as the genre is called, is the latest form of entertainment on the go.

Most of these novels, with their simple language and skimpy scene-setting, are rather unpolished. They are almost always on familiar themes about love and friendship. But they are hugely popular, and publishers are delighted with them. Book sales in Japan fell 15% between 1996 and 2006, according to the Research Institute for Publications. Several cellphone novels have been turned into real books, selling millions of copies and topping the best-seller lists. "Love Sky," one of the biggest successes so far, is about a boy with cancer who breaks up with his girlfriend to spare her the pain of his death. It has sold more than 1.3 million copies and is being made into a movie due out in November.

The article says the mobile novels with the most subscribers are also selling well in the bookstores as printed books. The mobile novelists write the novels on their cell phones which often results in sore fingers. The WSJ article says one of the mobile novelists Satomi Nakamura "broke a blood vessel on her right little finger" from writing her stories using her cell phone.

Posted in Romance

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Visit ShoppersShop.com's Halloween Shopping Website to find costumes, coupons and resources.

It is college football season and a slew of books about college football have been released for sports fan to read. A Chicago Sports article mentions three books of interest to college football fantatics.

College football coaches, take note: Three recently released books about your sport are way more valuable than any playbook.

Sports Illustrated's Austin Murphy chronicles the emotional swings of the 2006 season in "Saturday Rules," SI.com's Stewart Mandel separates the B.S. from the BCS in "Bowls, Polls & Tattered Souls" and ESPN.com's Bruce Feldman shines a light on the often cold, cryptic business of college football recruiting in "Meat Market."

Those three books sound interesting but the most fascinating college football book out this season has to be Bo's Lasting Lessons: A Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership by Michigan coach Bo Schembechler and former Detroit News reporter John U. Bacon.

Bo Schembechler just finished the book a week before he died last year at age 77. The book is a local bestseller in Michigan's hometown of Ann Arbor. It might offer some comfort to Michigan's fans enduring a tough football season that includes an embarrassing loss to Appalachian State.

Posted in Nonfiction

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Borders has renewed its agreement with Sony regarding the sale and promotion of the Sony Ebook reader. Under the new deal, Borders will continue to sell the Sony Readers, but will expand the number of stores where it is sold to 500 nationwide.

Borders is also going to launch a co-branded online store with support from Sony that will offer digital ebook downloads. The store will stock more than 20,000 books by authors such as Dean Koontz, Khaled Hosseini and Michael Connelly. The online store will eventually become part of Borders' revamped website.

"Embracing technology as a path to differentiate Borders is a key part of our company's strategic plan," said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer George Jones. "Sony's long history of innovation and pioneering efforts in establishing the e-book category with the Reader makes them a great partner. We firmly support the e-book as a format we believe will be of growing importance to our customers in the future, and this agreement is a big part of our plans to make Borders a true cross-channel retailer, fulfilling our mission as a headquarters for knowledge and entertainment."

"Borders is a world-class brand with incredible reach and influence, and their commitment to e-books is a clear sign the category is moving beyond the early adopter phase into the mainstream," said Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics Inc. "We look forward to working with Borders and the publishing community to broaden the audience by delivering a greater selection of digital content to people who love to read."

If the deal wasn't working, the agreement wouldn't have been renewed. When the Sony Ebook Reader drops in price, we predict sales will go even higher.

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Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has topped the Amazon.com bestseller list with his memoirThe Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Greenspan's book was highly critical of the Bush administration which has probably helped with book sales. In the book Greenspan also warns that the Euro could eventually outperform the U.S. dollar. Bloomberg reports that The Age of Turbulence is number one on Amazon.com ahead of O.J. Simpson's controversial title, If I Did It.

Alan Greenspan's new memoir topped the best-seller list at Amazon.com Inc. for a second day as the former Federal Reserve chairman showed that people still want to hear what he has to say.

"The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," which went on sale yesterday, was ranked ahead of O.J. Simpson's book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," and the last Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling on Amazon.com, the world's largest Internet retailer.

Greenspan, 81, led the Fed for 18 years until January 2006, and is widely considered to have played a major role in engineering the 1991-2001 economic expansion, the longest in U.S. history. The 531-page book recounts his childhood in New York, his relationships with the six presidents he served and his outlook for the U.S. economy in 2030.

"It will be a best seller in the narrow circles of Wall Street, government, Washington and top businessmen and women," said Edward Atorino, an analyst who follows the publishing industry at Benchmark Co. in New York.

First-day sales of the memoir, published by Penguin Press, "far exceeded our expectations," said Antoinette Ercolano, vice president for trade-book buying at Barnes & Noble Inc., the world's biggest bookstore chain.

CNN/Money says the book is also the bestselling title on Barnes and Noble's website. Alan Greenspan was paid an advance over $8.5 million (hat tip Swampland) by Penguin Press to write the book. Based on the book's very strong sales it looks like the huge advance was worth it.

Posted in Nonfiction

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Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has signed a book deal to write her unvarnished memoirs.

Cherie Blair is writing a "full account" of her journey from a working-class childhood to life in Downing Street - and the more explosive it is, the more money she will get. If Mrs Blair has promised a warts-and-all account of her dealings with Gordon Brown, Carole Caplin and Alastair Campbell, her advance could exceed the £1 million reportedly paid to Mr Campbell for his diaries The Blair Years. However, publishing insiders said that the advance could be as little as £250,000 - less than that offered to David Blunkett and John Prescott - if she intends to skim over the conflicts at the heart of new Labour in order to protect her husband's reputation. The book will be published in October next year, with Mrs Blair expected to deliver a first draft in the spring.

There was no bidding war for Mrs Blair's autobiography; instead, her literary agent, Kate Jones at ICM Books, took an outline straight to Ursula Mackenzie, the chief executive and publisher of Little, Brown. It was Ms Mackenzie who handled the most revelatory political memoir of modern times - Edwina Currie's stunning confession of her affair with John Major, which was exclusively serialised in The Times in 2002.

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Little, Brown refused to release details of Mrs Blair's advance beyond confirming that no newspaper serial-isation deal had been struck. Katherine Rushton, of The Bookseller magazine, said: "Cherie Blair could have earned an advance of up to £1 million, depending on how frank she is prepared to be about the Downing Street decade, the Brown-Blair relationship, and the scandals around Carole Caplin and Peter Foster. The advance will have been inflated because she is publishing relatively quickly and the possibility that Mr Brown will call an election in the publication year.

"It's very hard to put an estimate on the number of copies the book could be expected to sell - 50,000 in hardback would be a good result and one I think she could achieve. If Cherie gets the book right and it does very well, she could be looking at 100,000 in hardback. She is like Marmite in that she totally divides opinion, but with the amount of controversy that surrounds her I think she could scoop up as many sales from her detractors as from her fans."

Marmite, eh? Will that translate into book sales? It all depends on how much she reveals about the Iraq War planning and her husband's true feelings about President Bush. That's what we think. It could be an incendiary book -- or a big bore. But knowing how outspoken she is, we're thinking incendiary.

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O.J. Simpson's arrest for armed robbery in Las Vegas has had a fantastic effect on the book sales of his infamous faux memoir, If I Did It: sales are booming.

Late Tuesday afternoon Las Vegas prosecutors filed 10 felony counts against author O.J. Simpson and his cohorts, including surprise charges of assault and kidnapping in connection with the robbery of Simpson sports memorabilia from two memorabilia dealers. Simpson is due for arraignment in Las Vegas this morning. Simpson claims that the memorabilia was his and he was just retrieving it.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Beaufort Books announced that it was going back to press for an additional 50,000 copies. "The arrest brought the whole question of O.J. and the law back into everybody's consciousness," Beaufort owner Eric Kampmann told the AP.

If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer is now #2 on Amazon.com's bestseller list today. We cannot believe that we're going to be subjected to another O.J. Simpson criminal trial! What is wrong with this guy, anyway? Could it be that escaping justice once made him even cockier, to the point where he thought it would be ok to conduct his own "sting" operation to get some sports memorabilia back at the point of a gun?

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Oprah has spoken: she will not buy or read If I Did It, the O.J. Simpson faux memoir about how he killed his wife and Ron Goldman. She did a show about the book in which the Goldmans (on the left) and the prosecutors in the case (Marcia Clark and Chris Darden on the right) discussed the issue. Denise Brown refused to appear with the Goldmans, but appeared in a taped segment. She finds the book disgusting and says the Goldmans are hypocrites. We happen to agree.

Winfrey said she won't buy or read the book, and asked the Goldmans if they don't feel its proceeds are "blood money." "It's sending him a message," Kim Goldman said. "He put hours putting together this confession about how he killed Ron and Nicole, and he worked hard thinking he was going to make millions off of it. And we snatched it right out from under him."

Winfrey said dedicating a show to the topic was a "moral, ethical dilemma" for her. She said she committed to the show when the guests were to also include Nicole Simpson's sister, Denise Brown, who has been severely critical of the Goldmans for publishing the book. Brown later refused to share a stage with the Goldmans, however, and Winfrey said she felt she had to keep her word to the Goldmans. Winfrey acknowledged that her program often promotes books and authors, yet, she said, "I don't want to be in the position to promote this book, because I, too, think it's despicable." Denise Brown did speak to Winfrey, but on her own in a segment taped earlier. She said she decided against appearing with the Goldmans because she feared it would give the book "more impact."

She called the Goldmans hypocrites for changing their minds about publishing a book Fred Goldman earlier called "disgusting" and "despicable" when O.J. Simpson stood to benefit. "I felt the same way. I stood my ground on that," Brown said. "I still don't believe it should be published. I think it is a morally wrong thing to do." Winfrey told the Goldmans she wishes they could find some peace, but Fred Goldman said the book's publication won't help with that. "It brings a certain level of satisfaction that we've taken something from him," he said. "I think it also is a recognition for him to know forevermore that we're going to be after him ... to punish him for what he's done, to get some piece of justice."

At least Oprah said she wouldn't read the book. Good for her.

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Paddington Bear is heading to the silver screen. Warner Bros. and producer David Heyman are teaming up to create a live action Paddington Bear adventure. Hamish McColl is writing the screenplay. Michael Bond wrote eleven of the books about a talking bear who gets adopted by a London family who finds him, lost and alone, at Paddington Station.

Paddington has journeyed from Darkest Peru, wearing a duffle coat, hat and Wellington boots, carrying a suitcase containing an empty jar of marmalade and wearing a label around his neck that reads "Please look after this bear, thank you." His arrival in the household of the Brown family leads to comic mishaps and misadventures for the well-meaning but accident-prone young bear.

Heyman, who is producing through his London-based shingle Heyday Films, commented, "Paddington Bear is a universally loved character, and I have wanted to bring him to screen for some years. Michael Bond's 'Paddington' books have such wit, wonder and charm. Essentially, Paddington's story is that of an immigrant arriving in London and trying to find a home and a family. Above all, I love Paddington's unique style of comedy."

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The Warner film will not be adapted from any specific book but will draw inspiration from the whole series. It's likely to be live action with a CGI bear in the manner of "Stuart Little."

We thought the CGI was really creepy in Stuart Little, so we're not so sure about this. Let's hope the technology has improved since then and that Paddington Bear will look endearing, not revolting.

Posted in Children's Books

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Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern are suing MSNBC's Rita Cosby and her publisher over Rita's upcoming book which alleges that Larry and Howard were gay lovers and that there is a sex tape out there that proves it. Rita's book also claims that Stern and Birkhead cut a custody deal and that Stern kept Anna Nicole pumped up with drugs. Stern and Birkhead furiously deny the allegations.

Birkhead, the father of Smith's infant daughter, said that though he has yet to see the book, he intends to sue Cosby, her sources and Grand Central Publishing. "This is going to be one of the most expensive lawsuit settlements in book-publishing history," Birkhead told The Associated Press Tuesday.

Stern also planned to "file and aggressively pursue a libel case" against Cosby and her publishers, his attorney, L. Lin Wood, said Tuesday. "The more information I have received over the last several days about Ms. Cosby's book, the more convinced I am that she has, as a practical matter, authored a work of pure fiction," Wood said in a statement.

Birkhead acknowledged meeting with Cosby several times after Smith's death in February. But he flatly denied that he and Stern, Smith's attorney and sometime boyfriend, ever shared a sexual tryst. "It's totally false and defamatory," Birkhead said. "This book is fueled by Internet gossip and tabloid reports. She never once tried to contact me or Howard to see if any of these things were true."

Cosby claimed there is a videotape of the alleged encounter and that one of Smith's former employees had seen the Playboy Playmate watching it. But Birkhead said no tape could exist because the encounter did not occur. Cosby quotes Birkhead on some topics in the book, she said, but not on the sexual rumors. "We also knew what Birkhead would say because we've seen him inconsistent on many other things," she told AP Tuesday, adding that the book cites numerous sources and was "carefully vetted through attorneys at our publishing house." "I have nothing to hide," she said. "I make no apologies for the book, and at the end of the day, the American public will see that these two men conspired to fool us all."

Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death is in stores now. Several thoughts come to mind: first, couldn't Rita have come with a more original name for the book? Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour, anyone? As for the gay affair, Stern just seems like a dorky straight guy to us. And as for the tape...just the thought of a Larry Birkhead/Howard K. Stern sex tape has made us lose our appetites. For a week. Someone should be sued for forcing us to even consider the concept.

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