Well, this is awkward. An author has withdrawn from the National Book Awards shortlist after she was mistakenly honored by the National Book Foundation, who royally screwed up this year's awards process. more ›

It's happening: Courtney Love is writing her memoir. According to the AP (who awkwardly refers to her marriage to Kurt Cobain as "brief"—over two years!), the book will be out next Fall via HarperCollins. more ›

Ross Perlin is a young man of many hats. A researcher for the Himalayan Languages Project in southwest China, he has also written numerous articles on topics such as urban social landscapes, political and religious histories, and economic development. His first book, entitled Intern Nation, illustrates how the typical modern-day internship has become the "gateway to the white collar workforce," and how social, political, and economic factors serve to perpetuate unfair and often illegal workplace practices. Recently Ross told us about everything from business ethics to classism to the NYC intern boom to what we can all do to restore the internship's good name. more ›

While some of America was helping the real talent get back on track, another portion was helping no one by buying a book written by Jersey Shore's Snooki. The reality starlet is now a published author—though her book, "A Shore Thing," was a collaborative work with writer Valerie Frankel. According to the Daily News, Snooki prefers to go by her real name now, Nicole, and has excitedly declared, "I never knew I would write a book!" Only the big man in Hades could have predicted that one. more ›

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is adding "published author" to her resume (way to go, Simon & Schuster). The publishing house announced yesterday that they will put out the Jersey Shore star's novel—which, as the Daily News points out, is not a memoir despite being about "a girl looking for love on the boardwalk (one full of big hair, dark tans and fights galore)." more ›

Notoriously reclusive author J.D. Salinger has died at age 91 in New Hampshire, where he had been living since 1953. The author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative that he died of natural causes at his home in Cornish, where he had isolated himself from most of the world. more ›

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost eight years since the release of Jonathan Safran Foer’s best-selling first novel, “Everything is Illuminated,”. Since then, among other things, he’s released another novel, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," wrote a libretto for an opera, and been called everything from a "luminous talent" to "a fraud and a hack." His newest book, “Eating Animals,” is a personal account of his own struggles with and journey toward vegetarianism, and was inspired in part by the birth of his son. We talked to Foer about the process of researching, the factory farming system, and how his critics view him. more ›

The last two decades have found comic writer Jonathan Ames, known for his slanted wit and brutal honesty, become a veritable chameleon of pop-culture mediums. By turns novelist, essayist, journalist, theatrical performer, and amateur boxer, the Ames style has remained unmistakable—as the Times put it, Ames "has rarely strayed far from himself." more ›

Upon the release of Amy Sohn's new book, Prospect Park West, some Park Slope locals lashed out on the author (who also resides there with her family); but then again it isn't all that difficult to get the Brownstone dwellers riled up. Sohn's fictional tale, at points, holds a mirror up to the neighborhood, drawing upon the real life happenings there; from celebrity couples to sexless marriages to swingers to stroller-pushers. Last week she told us a little bit about it all, and confirmed that blow job prowess is indeed a fairly accurate measure of one's self worth. more ›

Nick Hornby is the sort of author you find yourself trying to remember, "Is he just super popular or is he actually a really good writer?" You know that the movies High Fidelity and About a Boy were solid, and maybe you could even be charmed into liking the dumb Red Sox movie with Jimmy Fallon if you started dating someone who found it to be an innocuous rental. So it ended up being a pleasant surprise when we picked up his just-published sixth novel, "Juliet, Naked," and found the pages just started breezing by. Hornby is once again dealing with music obsession and the distance that exists in the personal relationships of the obsessive types most of us know, or possibly are. more ›

Author and journalist Dominick Dunne, who wrote covered high society crime trials and wrote novels about high society crime, died at age 83 in Manhattan. His son Griffin Dunne said the cause was bladder cancer. Dunne was a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, which notes he "famously covered the trials of O. J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and Phil Spector, as well as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton... His first article for the magazine appeared in March 1984—an account of the trial of the man who murdered his daughter Dominique. Throughout his life, Dunne was a vocal advocate for victims’ rights." Vanity Fair has an archive of Dunne's articles and profiles; for instance, writing about meeting Claus von Bulow, Dunne observes, "On that May Sunday of the seventh week of his second trial, the Danish society figure was dressed in tight blue jeans and a black leather jacket." more ›

You may know Pete Fornatale from his voice on WFUV, but after reading Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock, you'll know him as your personal time machine back to 1969. His book contains plenty of stories from the weekend, as well as original interviews with The Who’s Roger Daltry, Joan Baez, David Crosby, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, organizers, and fans. Tonight you can get a combination of the voice and the stories, as he'll be reading at Borders in Columbus Circle (7 p.m.); and recently he told us a little bit about the good ol' days... and how they'll never happen again, no matter how many anniversary concerts are planned. more ›

Remember that guy who wrote the creepy sex book for teens. Well, he's back! This time targeting the L train set, and those who love them, with a book of short stories titled I Hate All of You on This L Train (dedicated to fellow author Tao Lin). more ›

The 33-year-old author using the pen name J. D. California, who penned a sequel of sorts to the classic Catcher in the Rye, should have known that J.D. Salinger doesn't take too kindly to phony folk. California's book is described as “An Unauthorized Fictional Examination of the Relationship Between J. D. Salinger and his Most Famous Character,” and prior to its U.S. release it has landed in the courtroom. Unsurprising, since Salinger has even kept the likes of Steven Spielberg from touching his characters. While he hasn't published a new work since 1965, he's done a good job at preserving his old ones (often through lawsuits like this one). more ›

Michelle and James Nevius are walking encyclopedias of New York City, and they're more than happy to school you in every step you take and every nook you may have otherwise overlooked. Michelle holds two master's degrees from Columbia, and James is a graduate of NYU (as well as an 11th-generation New Yorker). Their walking tours showcase their extensive knowledge, and now they've put it all down in a book, Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, which includes 14 (free) walking tours of various neighborhoods in the city, and 182 little chapters jam-packed with facts. This week they told us a little bit abut how they became such experts, Buddy Holly's home in the Brevoort apartments, and the only old-growth forest left in Manhattan. more ›

Author, literary critic and (as the AP describes him) "prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex and divorce, " John Updike died earlier today. The Pulitzer Prize winner was 76 when he lost his battle with lung cancer. Back in the '50s, upon graduating from Harvard, he was offered a position at The New Yorker from E.B. White. His contributions to the magazine are archived online and can be read here. For a time he lived in New York City, but departed for Massachusetts in 1957, saying the city was a "cultural hassle" and filled ith "agents and wisenheimers." The NY Times notes that after moving he said, ''The real America seemed to me 'out there,' too heterogeneous and electrified by now to pose much threat of the provinciality that people used to come to New York to escape.'' more ›

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is like a tour guide for locals. Monetarily challenged locals, mostly. Lucky for us, his new guide focuses on New York, and this week we got him to tell us all about how to live on a dime, have the perfect cheap date, and much more. Prepare to fill up your piggy bank! more ›

Creator of the television series ER, and writer of novels like "Jurassic Park" and "The Andromeda Strain," Michael Crichton has died at the age of 66. Though he was fighting a battle with cancer, his family is calling it "an unexpected death." Raised in Roslyn, Long Island, Crichton took some ambitious paths leading him to both Harvard Medical School and Hollywood. His family released a statement saying, "While the world knew him as a great storyteller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us -- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes. He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget." In December, what is now to be his last novel will be released. more ›

During the nearly thirty years he's lived in Brooklyn, Paul Auster has become one of the most respected novelists writing in America today. He's published over twenty books, including The New York Trilogy and The Brooklyn Follies as well as written and co-directed the films Smoke and Blue in the Face. His latest novel, Man in the Dark, deals with a retired book critic who battles his chronic insomnia by imagining a parallel universe where America is entangled in the midst of a civil war. We talked to Auster about the uncivil political war going on in the country right now, how the rest of the country sees our city as well as what his relationship is like with his previous characters. Tonight he'll be speaking at the NYPL (details). more ›

David Foster Wallace, whose writing evoked comparisons to Pynchon and Borges, died on Friday. The LA Times reports his wife found that he hanged himself in their Pomona, CA home (he taught creative writing at Pomona College). LA Times book editor David Ulin, in NYC for a National Book Critics Circle Board meeting yesterday, said, "What was a party is now a wake. People were speechless and just blown away." Wallace wrote a number of books, but his tour-de-force was Infinite Jest, a 1,079-page novel that Jay McInerney, in the NY Times Book Review, called "something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola.” Here's a profile of Wallace that Frank Bruni wrote for the NY Times Magazine in 1996. more ›

J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. have won their copyright infringement lawsuit against a web site operator who intended to publish an encyclopedia based on the author's multi-billion dollar fantasy franchise. Today a judge agreed with Rowling's argument that Steven Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon would amount to "the wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work." Vander Ark and his publisher had contended that the lexicon was a fair use allowable by law for reference books. But today's ruling found that it "appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide." The judge also awarded Rowling and Warner Bros. $6,750 in statutory damages, which should finally permit the struggling author to enjoy a modest retirement. more ›

, she'll take you on an amusing tour of her New York, one you've most likely seen glimpses of in the subway, the vestibule to your apartment building and while staring in the face of a locksmith who's let you back into two separate apartments on moving day. more ›

John Darnielle may be best known for his band The Mountain Goats, but he's also the latest blogger with a book; this weekend he's in town as both a musician and an author. more ›

While a judge deliberates on whether Harry Potter superfan Steve Vander Ark and his publisher violated copyright law by producing a lexicon based on J.K. Rowling’s hit novels, the 50-year-old librarian has simply been trying to keep it together. This week he told the New Yorker all about the trauma caused by the recent trial, during which he broke down in tears. more ›

As the Harry Potter copyright infringement trial drew to a close yesterday, the judge urged the two parties to use their “imaginations” and agree to a settlement. Judge Robert Patterson professed a love of literature and invoked Charles Dickens’s Bleak House as cautionary tale, “A very sad story. Litigation isn’t always the best way to solve things." more ›

The 50-year-old librarian on the receiving end of a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the Harry Potter author was driven to tears yesterday while testifying in a Manhattan courtroom. Steven Jan Vander Ark (pictured), a former Star Trek fan from Michigan whose exhaustive website The Harry Potter Lexicon would be published in a print version by RDR Books, told lawyers that he was devastated by the lashing he’s received from J.K. Rowling and "the Harry Potter community... This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so.” more ›

As detailed yesterday, the proposed book is essentially a print version of a Harry Potter fan site that Rowling previously awarded for excellence in web fandom (something she now “regrets bitterly”). But the website is free, and the billionaire author (along with Warner Brothers Entertainment) claims that a print version, if sold, would amount to “the wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work.” Rowling went on to dismiss the book as “sloppy, lazy, dire and atrocious,” which is ironic because Rowling once confessed that she consulted the Lexicon website to check facts while writing the Potter series. more ›

At a lively memorial for Norman Mailer held yesterday at Carnegie Hall, the esteemed author’s son claimed to channel his father’s spirit, a feat that turned into a tongue-in-cheek impersonation of Mailer that brought the house down. According to the Post, 42-year-old Stephen Mailer, one of nine Mailer children, stepped up to the podium, raised his arms like a revivalist, and shouted "Come on, old man, I'm all yours.”

He then fell to the ground as if struck by the spirit, staggered up, and began acting like his father. Clearing his throat before speaking, as was Mailer's custom, the son said in the gruff voice of his old man, “Can you hear me in the back? Hmm? Carnegie Hall? Well, why the f--k not? I think it's the perfect place for my memorial . . . I practiced my ass off.”

Five years ago today, the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq. Some $600 billion later, with over 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers, more than 6,000 U.S. casualties, and some some 82,000 dead Iraqi civilians, the U.S. continues to occupy the country. A Nobel prize-winning economist has calculated that the war will ultimately cost the U.S. more than $3 trillion. On Monday, during Dick Cheney's visit to Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed 43 people in Karbala. more ›

Five years ago today, President George Bush announced the start of the Iraq War. Some $600 billion later, with over 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers, more than 6,000 U.S. casualties, and some some 82,000 dead Iraqi civilians, the U.S. continues to occupy the country. more ›