Brilliant badass Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel Committee announced today. The 82-year-old Canadian short story virtuoso was incredibly Canadian about the honor, remarking that she hopes her win will draw attention to other talented Canadian writers. Classier than Lena Horne serving… » 10/10/13 9:30am 10/10/13 9:30am

She joins Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Fry as the third non-royal to appear on British currency. She's replacing Charles Darwin on the £10 note, and she'll make her debut in 2017.
» 7/25/13 9:30am 7/25/13 9:30am

My favorite thing about The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons wasn't the stories, but how author Dan Brown's physical description of his protagonist Robert Langdon exactly matched the way Dan Brown looked in his author photo (down to the outfit), which makes me think that both novels were actually just extensive… » 5/13/13 3:50pm 5/13/13 3:50pm

After recently opting to read part of Paradise Lost instead of her own (relatively) brand-new novel, See Now Then, at PEN’s World Voices Festival of International Literature, Jamaica Kincaid talked to The American Reader about her career, as in, how it has been so awesome that she can get up onstage and read a little… » 5/05/13 10:30pm 5/05/13 10:30pm

We receive a near-constant stream public relations material, most it ignorable, some of it pertinent, and an even smaller percentage of it, on rare and delightful occasions, so goofily irrelevant that it's worth sharing. Like this: Men Don't Pee Straight: And Other Things You Should Know About Us, which is a book that… » 10/12/12 6:30pm 10/12/12 6:30pm

In a recent NPR interview with David Greene, author Jennifer Weiner — whose bestselling fiction has often been derided by literary critics as "chick lit" — talked about her latest novel, the dearth of women in Hollywood writers' rooms, and her ongoing feud with the New York Times, which hasn't been very kind to… » 7/08/12 1:30pm 7/08/12 1:30pm

Finally shedding the yoke of female dominance of the literary arts, the oft-ignored and long oppressed minority group known as "men" will finally have things to read made just for them. Starting in June, Esquire magazine will begin publishing a series of e-books called "Fiction for Men," finally giving voice to the… » 5/21/12 1:40pm 5/21/12 1:40pm

Today in depressing housing-market news, YA author Francesca Lia Block could lose her home because the bank won't return her calls. The author of the Weetzie Bat books is underwater on her mortgage due to the recession. To make things more complicated, the mortgage is in her mom's name, and her mom is now dead. To… » 3/13/12 5:30pm 3/13/12 5:30pm

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… » 12/12/11 5:45pm 12/12/11 5:45pm

A new book by Shel Silverstein has been released posthumously called Every Thing On It and is in book stores today! The book, containing 145 poems, was created though the efforts of editor Toni Markiet and the family of the deceased poet, in hopes of staying true to Silverstein's aesthetic and keeping it authentic. » 9/20/11 4:15pm 9/20/11 4:15pm

The world has lost a wonderful crazy cat lady. Lilian Jackson Braun's series of mystery novels included titles like The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers, The Cat Who Played Brahms, The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare, The Cat Who Sniffed Glue, and, of course, The Cat Who Smelled a Rat. » 6/09/11 1:00pm 6/09/11 1:00pm

My class read Clan Of The Cave Bear in fifth grade. I'm not sure why — was it part of English? History? Sex ed? What I do know is that it was vivid, and steamy, and taught us a gesture that meant, "You, on your knees for fornication. Now." » 3/29/11 5:20pm 3/29/11 5:20pm

On last night's Tonight Show, while sitting next to (a silent) Ron Howard, Snooki discussed her new novel—A Shore Thing, out today—as well as her new Jersey Shore roommate Deena, who shows her vagina on the first episode. » 1/04/11 12:04pm 1/04/11 12:04pm

For the first time since July 2007, Stephenie Meyer is missing from the top 50 on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list. The top 10 books are by men: Stieg Larsson, Jonathan Franzen, Nicholas Sparks, and, of course, Jon Stewart. » 10/14/10 12:03pm 10/14/10 12:03pm

Check out this interview with the wonderful British writer A.S. Byatt, in which she ruminates on God, Twitter, women writers and why the children of children's book authors are prone to suicide. » 8/25/10 4:53pm 8/25/10 4:53pm

A: Because he was being chased by Nazis. A new exhibit reveals that H.A. and Margret Rey, the creators of the beloved monkey (originally named Fifi), modeled his narrow escapes from danger after their own experiences fleeing Europe. [CBS] » 3/23/10 1:30pm 3/23/10 1:30pm

"[Tillie] Olsen's tales show the shortchanged lives of gifted women from the working poor: unable to at once make a living, make art, and meet the needs of their families." [CSM, Image via TillieOlsen.net] » 1/11/10 6:45pm 1/11/10 6:45pm

According to the Guardian, Le Guin resigned from the Author's Guild for cutting a "deal with the devil," and yielding to Google's desire for digitization of written materials without taking copyright (and author's rights) seriously. [The Guardian, Image via UrsulaKLeGuin.com] » 1/08/10 12:20pm 1/08/10 12:20pm