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An Oklahoma romance writers' group recently launched a contest for the best book in each of nine sub-categories (example: "Paranormal –- Single titles –- dark or light, futuristic, magic, alternative Earth, urban fantasy, vampire, werewolf, etc."). The problem: no gay romance allowed. More »
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Literati rejoice — Gertrude Stein was born on this day in 1874. Today is her 138th birthday! More »
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Romance novels aren't typically bastions of gender diversity, but the new title Two Spirit Ranch does have an interesting premise: More »
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This shot of fantasy author Jim Hines's butt is funny, but it's also serious. Hines posed like the women on various fantasy covers as a way of showing how ridiculous — and sometimes painful — the poses would be in real life. He writes, More »
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Millions of people have read the books and seen the Swedish movies and/or the US flicks, and soon there will be a new way to experience The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: As a graphic novel. More »
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Not to alarm you, gentle readers, on this so-far placid Sunday morning, but Disney's marauding editors have hacked the Hundred Acre Wood to cheap, American pulp.  According to the Telegraph, conscientious British readers are horrified at error-strewn, Yankified modern updates of the children's classic in which Pooh and his friends used to play chess or draughts but now play chequers because that's about the most nuanced board game Americans can handle. More »
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Recently I've been hunting for a new apartment, and while measuring walls to see if my bookcase will fit, I have asked myself a terrifying question: In this day and age, with the internet and Kindles and Nooks and iPads and ebooks, do I still need a bookcase? Do we still need books? More »
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One of the things to look forward to in 2012? The release of Naomi Wolf's Vagina: A Biography. Hopefully we'll learn all about Vagina's childhood, where she went to school, the key to her success, and how she met Penis. More »
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When Colleen Houck had trouble getting an agent for her young adult novel Tiger's Curse, she decided to self-publish it. Now it's a bestseller that's being made into a film. More »
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Readers of Didion's recent memoir of grieving her daughter, Blue Nights, may be forgiven for remaining somewhat unclear, even upon finishing the book, as to what exactly killed Quintana Roo Dunne Michaels. Quintana, whom Didion often calls Q, was in 2005 a recently married New York-based photo editor in apparent good health. She fell into an extended illness and died at the age of 39. More »
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Holiday gift alert for any of your literary-minded friends! Flavorwire happened upon an Etsy shop called Uneek Doll Designs that sells handcrafted dolls of famous authors. My favorites, above, are Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, and Judy Blume. Can you imagine if people gave these dolls — along with the books of by said authors — instead of Barbies and Bratz dolls? I can almost sense the revolution already... More »
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Recently, we got the following email: More »
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Those of you who were waiting with bated breath for Amanda Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito to pen dueling memoirs will rejoice at the news that both have acquired literary agents. According to TMZ, Knox has signed with Robert Barnett, who has also represented a bipartisan slate of political memoirists including Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. Sollecito, meanwhile, will be working with Sharlene Martin, who represents such authors as Debra Barrus, author of From Mormon to Madame, which "reveals her trials and tribulations in the dating world and in relationships with controlling and abusive men, her entry into the brothel business, her battle with her dishonest business partner and her struggle — aided by two female veterans of the industry — in making the bordello a rousing success." Somehow, we bet Sollecito's book will be more fun. More »
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Welcome to this year's Jezebel Gift Guide! I know we haven't been together that long — it's only Dec. 5, after all — but I just got you a little something. No really, it's nothing — unless you got me something really nice, in which case I thought long and hard before carefully selecting it. C'mon, open it! More »
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In light of allegations that he carried on a 13 year long extramarital affair, non-joke Presidential candidate Herman Cain has told his top aides that he's "reassessing" his campaign's future. And, given the dramatic downturn in number of copies of This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House flying off the shelves while stories of Cain's indiscretions came to light, we should probably be "reassessing" whether or not this entire campaign was a ploy to promote sales of his book. More »
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Alexander Maksik's new novel You Deserve Nothing tells a steamy story about a student-teacher affair at an international school in Paris. Reviewers have called it a "bravura performance" and "rivetingly plotted" written with "dazzling clarity and philosophical rigor." But what they don't know, what Maksik has never mentioned, is that the story may be true.

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Anne McCaffrey, author of the famous "Dragonriders of Pern" series of fantasy novels, has died at the age of 85. She was one of the first fantasy authors to focus on female heroes, and she was the first woman to win the Hugo and the Nebula award, some of the sci-fi and fantasy communities highest honors. Here's the message her son Todd posted on Facebook announcing her death: More »
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If you're looking to read some sexy sexy prose, you probably shouldn't bother with Stephen King's latest novel 11.22.63, which the Literary Review nominated for the 2011 ‘Bad Sex in Fiction' Award for such titillating passages as this: "She was wearing jeans. The fabric whispered under my palm." Hot. More »
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Last night's Simpsons dove into the world of fiction writing in an episode titled "The Book Job." Lisa was disgusted with Homer's periodical of choice — JetSki Wanter magazine — which was written by a committee of writers. So Homer got the idea to gather Springfield's best and brightest and work on a YA novel! The group discussed all of the elements that make such a series successful: Orphans, vampires, and trolls. And! As we all know, the troll needs to be played by Robert Pattinson in the flick for true success — perhaps that'll come in The Book Job, Part 2: The Movie Deal. More »
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A tipster tells us that the book world is buzzing about a major book deal made today. Apparently American Apparel's director of marketing got a half a million dollars as an advance for a book called Confessions. Our confidant writes, More »
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When I was a kid, there were two best-selling books by photographer Jill Krementz that I read over and over, attempting to soak up the images, the words, the spirit of the narrative. One was A Very Young Gymnast. The other was A Very Young Dancer. In today's New York Times, we find out what happend to the little girl from A Very Young Dancer. "It's kind of a sad story," Stephanie DePierro tells writer Helene Stapinski. More »
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All 206 pages of Michele Bachmann's book are hitting stores on Monday. Her campaign hopes the volume, with the Lifetime Original Movie-ready title Courage of Conviction, will boost her campaign's profile and provide the boost she needs to come from behind to nab the Republican Presidential nomination. This is a great idea. Other fact-challenged Republican candidates would be well served to follow Bachmann's lead. More »
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Vulture has debuted a new extended trailer for Diane Keaton's new book Then Again in which the actress speaks about her mother's influence on her life, her career in acting, and that special moment in a Salvation Army where she first fell in love with wearing men's hats. Keaton recalls playing Annie Hall in the impossibly cool way that only she could and remembers when she was first asked to do love scenes: "When I started kissing in the movies, that was, about, the greatest thing that ever happened." We bet it was. More »
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Think of 30 Rock, first season, third episode. Jack the-Great-and-Powerful Donaghy is setting up Liz No-I-Don't-Need-Any-of-Your-Help-Especially-Not-with-Dating-which-I-Don't-Have-Time-for-because-I'm-All-About-My-Career-Thanks-a-Lot Lemon with his friend from out of town. Jack catches her in the hall and tells her the name of the fancy restaurant where he's set up the blind date. A pause. He takes in her typically casual attire [i.e. unglamorous sweatshirt and jeans]. "What are you going to wear?" he asks (as though he doesn't know). Exasperated with his overbearing behavior, Liz insists "I don't have time to change." Jack shakes his head gravely, "That won't do." He hands her cash and tells her to go to a women's clothing store during her lunch break. Liz grudgingly accepts and turns up looking elegant for a change. More »
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How many times have you said or heard some version of this: "I don't know. One minute we were dancing, and then the next thing I knew we had just had sex. It kind of just happened." "We woke up together, and she was like, ‘So, when can I see you again?' And now I guess we're in a relationship? It just happened."
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J.D. Bauer is an outspoken environmentalist who's written a young adult novel called Quest for Water. Incidentally, he's also a serial killer. More »
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There are some writers who enter our consciousness at just the right time and remain firmly lodged for life, affecting, like a penny in a drinking fountain, the taste of everything that comes after. I am speaking primarily of the books one reads between about the ages of 17 and 20. Whether classics or assigned texts or whatever now vaguely embarrassing tome happened to be trendy the summer you learned to drive, for better or for worse, they tend to be formative. Everyone, I like to believe, has those books. More »
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In his new book, Mom & Dad, Terry Richardson devotes one volume to his father, the fashion photographer Bob Richardson, and one volume to his mother, whom he does not name. The photographer, whose unprofessional behavior has been criticized by some of his subjects, has spoken about his difficult childhood in various interviews over the years. More »
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Does the world really need a book penned by Kate Middleton's sister? If it was a guide to turning one's ass into an international sensation through the (alleged) use of Spanx, we could see it, but there's already a book about butts and Pippa Middleton wasn't consulted. More »
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Halloween hijinks! Novelist Ann Rice has trolled all Twihards by posting a controversial message on her Facebook wall: More »
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If you spent your childhood reading about the adventures of a spunky girl from America's past and longing for an overpriced doll, there's a good chance you're familiar with Valerie Tripp's work. The prolific American Girl writer penned all of the books in the Molly, Felicity, Josefina, and Kitt series, and half of the Samantha books. Now she's working with two D.C-area moms on a series that they hope boys will find just as engaging. More »
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For many of us, The Joy of Sex was our first (usually accidental) introduction to pubes. For its publishers, it was a challenge — how do you show people how to have sex without showing actual, well, sex? Very carefully, it turns out. More »
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A new book written by a former servant of the British royal family reveals that the line to the throne is fraught with secrecy, painfully rigid decorum, and sort of adorable nuttiness. We should have been tipped off to this by their taste in hats. More »
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Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has written a book. Unfortunately, much of that book tries to justify all that lying the Bush administration did to get us into Iraq. Fortunately, she spends some of the book indulging the public's desire to learn about how everyone in the Bush White House was behind closed doors. Here's what Condi had to say on what went right, what went wrong, and what went weird. More »
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Director Spike Jonze and accessory designer Olympia Le Tan teamed up to make this creepy-romantic, Halloween-appropriate short. Mourir Auprès de Toi ("To Die By Your Side") is set in a bookstore — actually, the famous English-language Paris booksellers Shakespeare & Company, to be precise — where the covers come to life after dark. It stars a skeleton from the front of Macbeth (King Duncan, ahoy) and a lady from the cover of Dracula (Mina?). Moby Dick of Moby-Dick fame also makes an appearance at a climactic juncture. More »
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Fantasy lovers rejoice — today is renowned writer Ursula Le Guin's eighty-third birthday. More »
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Tyra Banks says it took five years to write her New York Times best-selling sci-fi Young Adult novel, Modelland. Characters like Tookie de la Creme don't name themselves, ladies! (Seriously though: her poor, ignored ghost-writer.) Ty-Ty got the idea while in the back of a car, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and promptly lost the piece of paper until she cleaned out her purse. Once she got serious, it sounds like she really got into the research. "I love Roald Dahl. On my nightstand right now is James and the Giant Peach, which I'm reading for the second time. I just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I read three Twilights." Now we're picturing Tyra Banks in bed with her banker boyfriend, furiously reading all the YA she missed out on as a kid. She worked on the book while shooting Top Model and initially produced a draft of over 1000 pages. She says the stress made her hair fall out. [WSJ] More »
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Last week the National Book Foundation announced its "5 Under 35," four of whom were women. Now it's announced the finalists for the prestigious National Book Award — and these include a lot of ladies too. More »
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Last year, four out of the National Book Foundations prestigious "5 under 35" were women. And this year, ladies lead the field again. More »
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Clair Huxtable is the perfect professional black mom. Actually, Clair Huxtable transcends race: She's the perfect professional mom, period. She also transcends generations: While June Cleaver, Carol Brady, and Edith Bunker may lose potency over time, if you go back to the archives, you'll find Clair Huxtable still holds up strong. Every TV mom is still aspiring to be Clair. She simply covers all the bases: Effective lawyer. Attentive parent. Lightning-fast hoagie snatcher. More »
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