Poetry Society annual meeting ends in no confidence vote
Board of trustees volunteer to resign before being sent on their way by no confidence amid accusations of bad faithPerhaps the last organisation in the country to expect name-calling, accusations of bad faith and scurrilous postings on YouTube likening...
Jane Austen manuscript auctioned for almost £1m
Bodleian library at Oxford University buys fragments of unfinished novel The Watsons that reflect author's witThe only remaining privately owned fragment of a Jane Austen novel in the author's own handwriting has sold at auction in London for nearly £...
Researchers find 20 unpublished Anthony Burgess stories
Burgess's Manchester archive houses many short stories, film and theatre scripts and musical compositions as well as the original screenplay for A Clockwork OrangeAt least 20 unpublished stories by Anthony Burgess, the author of A Clockwork Orange, hav...
Zadie Smith loses battle to save London library
Brent council votes in favour of closing Kensal Rise – along with five others – to improve services at its remaining librariesThe author Zadie Smith's campaign to save a north-west London library opened by Mark Twain in 1900 has ended in failure af...
Ride a goose to the moon: the British Library’s SF odyssey
A 1628 novel anticipating space travel is the star of the show at the British Library's upcoming exhibition on science fiction in literatureWhen Francis Godwin, a 17th-century bishop, sat down to work out how man might get to the moon (he thought harne...
‘Oliver Twist’ workhouse saved from demolition
The derelict building that may have served as Charles Dickens's workhouse in his famous novel has been given listed statusIt was, wrote the 25-year-old Charles Dickens with heavy irony and no little fury, "a regular place of public entertainment for th...
Tennyson verse chosen to inspire Olympic athletes
The last line of the former poet laureate's poem Ulysses embodies Olympic values, the judges agreeWhich verse could inspire athletes sprinting from their lodgings at next year's Olympic Games in London, or trudging back after their events? After the pu...
Ian McEwan defends decision to accept Jerusalem prize
Pro-Palestinian writers had called on novelist to boycott Israeli awardIan McEwan has replied to pro-Palestinian writers who have accused him of accepting the "corrupt and cynical" Jerusalem prize for literature by insisting on his right to engage in d...
Ian McEwan says he will accept Jerusalem prize
Author – who will travel to city book fair to pick up award – accused of giving support to Israeli leadersIn a long literary career the novelist Ian McEwan has won prizes from many parts of the western world, but none perhaps as potentially controv...
The Catcher in the Rye ‘sequel’ to be published
Follow-up to JD Salinger's novel of teenage angst, written by a Swedish author, to be issued in a number of countriesIf you really want to hear about it … the chances are you will soon be able to, unless you live in north America. A sequel to JD Sali...
Roddick rubs shoulders with Manning in latest UK biography dictionary
Sixty volume Dictionary of National Biography adds 216 Britons who departed in 2007, including Deedes, Coren, Sherrin and MellyTo the waiting room of history that is the Dictionary of National Biography, 216 people who died in 2007 are being added toda...
New Year honours: Antonia Fraser – historian, novelist and now dame
Fashion designer Katherine Hamnett, artist Steve McQueen and producer Trevor Horn among those honoured in New Year listLady Antonia Fraser, the historian, biographer and novelist, becomes one of nine dames in the honours list. The widow of Harold Pinte...
