Amazon consumer book reviews as reliable as media experts
Study shows Amazon reviewers more likely to look favourably on debut authors, while professionals prefer prizewinnersAmazon reviews are just as likely to give an accurate summary of a book's quality as those of professional newspapers, according to a s...
Campaigners block council’s efforts to remove books from Kensal Rise library
Protesters gather outside 111-year-old library, which has been closed down by Brent councilAround 50 campaigners have gathered outside Kensal Rise library in north-west London after Brent council workers began removing books from the closed library, wh...
The $50m Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr set for Avengers windfall
Actor's profit-sharing deal with Marvel will see his salary dwarf those of his co-stars following success of superhero movieRobert Downey Jr is set to garner a spectacular $50m payday for his turn as Iron Man following the huge box-office success of su...
Aaron Sorkin to write script for Sony’s Steve Jobs biopic
The Social Network's Oscar-winning screenwriter is to pen film based on bestselling biography of the late Apple founderHis legacy already surrounds us in the shape of iPods, iPhones, iPads and myriad other iconic, sleek and indispensable examples of 21...
True Blood author can suck no more out of vampire series
Charlaine Harris has announced that the final novel in her Southern Vampire Mysteries series will be published next yearMourning has broken out among fans of the telepathic Louisiana waitress Sookie Stackhouse after author Charlaine Harris announced th...
Carlos Fuentes dies aged 83
Mexico's most celebrated novelist has died in hospital in Mexico City, reportedly from a sudden illnessCarlos Fuentes, Mexico's most celebrated novelist and a leading figure in Latin America's 20th century literary boom of the 1960s and 70s, has died i...
Michael Gove’s King James Bible plan rescued by millionaire Tory donors
Education secretary will send a copy of the Bible to every state school after donors club together to save £370,000 initiativeMillionaire Conservative party donors have clubbed together to rescue a plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to sen...
Aharon Appelfeld scoops Independent foreign fiction prize
Israeli author's dark tale of a Jewish boy taken in by a prostitute during the second world war 'glows on the page', said judgesInspired by his experiences during the Holocaust, a novel by the 80-year-old Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld has won the Ind...
Gabriel García Márquez falls victim to Twitter death hoax
A Twitter account claiming to belong to Italian author Umberto Eco reported the death of Márquez, who is said to be visiting family in AmericaRumours of the death of the great Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez have been, in the immortal word...
Pay us for library ebook loans, say authors
Many writers rely on income from library loans, says the Society of Authors, in calling for digital books to be included in PLR schemeAuthors are calling on the government to remunerate them when their ebooks are lent from libraries, calling it "patent...
Influence of classic literature on writers declining, study claims
Modern authors are stylistically influenced by their contemporaries rather than writers from the 18th and 19th centuries, according to word-frequency study of classic literatureHarold Bloom famously dubbed it the "anxiety of influence" (paywall): the e...
Crime writer Petros Markaris channels Greek rage into fiction
Murders at heart of new book resonate strongly with a mass readership furious at Greece's tax-dodging eliteA serial killer is stalking the wealthy suburbs of Athens with an idiosyncratic choice of victims. They are all rich Greeks who have failed to pa...
