Magdalena Gram, the deputy national librarian of Sweden, told The Independent that the library would be getting in contact with Larsson's father and brother regarding the short stories. Publisher Eva Gedin, who edited the best-selling Millennium trilogy, said that she was unsure whether the new manuscripts would ever be published, but that there had been conversations about releasing other pieces of writing by Larsson.

"It is in the hands of the rights holders if they are interested in having them published," she said.

"We have discussed with his brother publishing articles from Expo [the Swedish magazine Larsson edited] and other magazines."

Its publisher, HarperCollins, is trying to tap into what appears to be a near-endless reserve of affection for the book by helping to organize parties, movie screenings, readings and scholarly discussions. The publisher has recruited Tom Brokaw and other authors to take part by reading from the novel — which tells the story of the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch, who defends a black man accused of rape, and his family — in their hometowns.

Of course, there is also the hope that the events, which are scheduled to run through Sept. 22, will drum up more sales of the book. HarperCollins plans to issue four new editions of the novel next month, each with a different cover and all to be placed on special "Mockingbird" -themed floor displays in bookstores.

• The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker (Dutch) in translation. Harvill Secker
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (French) in translation. Europa Editions, USA, Gallic Press, UK
• In Zodiac Light by Robert Edric (British) Doubleday, UK
• Settlement by Christoph Hein (German) in translation. Metropolitan Books
• The Believers by Zoe Heller (British). Fig Tree
• Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (Irish) Fourth Estate, HarperCollins, UK, Pantheon Books, USA
• God's Own Country by Ross Raisin (British) Viking
• Home by Marilynne Robinson (American) Farrar, Straus & Giroux, USA, HarperCollins, Canada

The judges said Atwood's work "enabled, for the first time, the emergence of a defined Canadian identity, while exploring both national and transnational issues, such as colonization, feminism, structures of political power and oppression, and the violation and exploitation of nature.

***

Ghosh was praised for his fiction, which judges said "is distinguished equally by its precise, beautifully rendered depictions of characters and settings, and by its sweeping sense of history unfolding over generations against the backdrop of the violent dislocations of peoples and regimes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

The 11 letters, written between 1951 and 1993, were sent to his friend of more than 40 years E Michael Mitchell, who at one point Salinger addresses, Holden Caulfield-style, as "Buddyroo". They show that he would start work every morning at six, or seven at the latest, refusing to be interrupted "unless absolutely necessary or convenient", according to a report in the New York Times, which revealed that the letters were to be made public at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.

A 1966 letter points to "ten, 12 years' work [which includes] two particular scripts – books really - that I've been hoarding at and picking at for years," the New York Times reported, while in 1951, the author refers to a trip to London just before The Catcher in the Rye was published, during which he visited the home of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh for cocktails. "Naturally, some gin went up my nose. I damn near left by the window," Salinger wrote.

The two works are The Imitation Game, a biography of mathematician Alan Turing by comics writer and science biographer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Purvis; and Red Light Properties by Dan Goldman, described as a "paranormal real estate tale" by literary agent Bob Mecoy of Creative Book Services, who represents all the creators and negotiated the deal on their behalf.

The two works were acquired by Tor.com producer Pablo Defendini, who described the acquistions as part of Tor.com's mandate to experiment with nontraditional publishing strategies. But he also emphasized that the acquisition also highlights how important and popular comics have become on the site, which he also said will be redesigned and relaunched in 2010..

"No, I haven't read any of the Twilight series, but I did see the film. I felt that it reflected the deep desire of young women to have the mystery and protection and wisdom of older men. I think many girls mature much earlier than boys, and they are frustrated when they approach young boys for love or protection. Hence the fantasy of a wise and protective vampire coming into the life of a young girl who, of course, appreciates him in a special way."

Gourmet Today had a lot going for it before the magazine folded on October 5. For $40 (and $26.40 at Amazon), readers would get more than 1,000 recipes—for vegetable sides, seafood dishes, cocktails and much more -- from the editors at the prestigious magazine. There are no photos, but high-quality recipes and equally well-researched writing. However, now that Gourmet's final issue is on newsstands, sales of the book have jumped. Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has seen sales increase since the magazine closed -- which was only two weeks after the book went on sale -- and former editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, who'd committed to touring to promote the book months ago, has been a hotter than usual ticket in light of recent events. Booksellers are reporting a bump, and Amazon says sales of Gourmet Today have doubled since Conde Nast's announcement Gourmet was over.

Houghton reports that book sales were strong out of the gate (Gourmet Today went on sale September 22), but got stronger after a barrage of media coverage in the weeks following the October 5 news. According to publicity manager Alia Habib, the house printed 165,000 copies, and has received orders for 120,000 copies. Nielsen BookScan reports only 12,000 copies sold as of last week, although a "significant number" of Houghton's outlets (such as Williams-Sonoma) don’t report sales to BookScan, and the publisher has staged promotions at non-traditional outlets in the lead-up to holiday.

The university will announce today that Houghton Library, Harvard’s primary repository for rare books and manuscripts, will house the John Updike Archive, making the library the center for studies on the life and work of the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and prolific novelist, poet, and critic. College officials would not disclose how much Harvard paid to acquire the papers of Updike, who died in January at 76.

“John Updike is a terribly important American, given his cultural and literary achievement,’’ said William Pritchard, an English professor at Amherst College who chronicled the writer’s life and work in “Updike: America’s Man of Letters.’’ “It’s an extraordinary thing that his university is where his papers have landed.’’

Byron is dismissive of some of the other great writers of the day, particularly Robert Southey and William Wordsworth.

In the final letter of the series, he attacks Wordworth's denigration of a poet he much admired, Alexander Pope.

Wordsworth criticised Pope's poetic style as artificial and archaic, arguing that it did not express the true thoughts and feelings of men. Byron, however, disagreed, writing to Francis Hodgson: "Southey and Turdsworth such renegado rascals."

The show won't go on in Dallas. The Christian Book Expo, an innovative consumer-focused book show, won’t be repeated next year. The board of Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, show sponsor, decided not to stage another event in 2010. Attendance at this year's show, held March 20-22 at the Dallas Convention Center, was 1,500; organizers had hoped for 10,000 to 15,000. The show left the organization with a $250,000 shortfall, according to ECPA president and CEO Mark Kuyper. "We want to clean up the debt before we consider future options," Kuyper told PW in an e-mail.

His agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill "for several years" and had died on Sunday morning. Despite being referred to as a science fiction writer, Jim Ballard said his books were instead "picturing the psychology of the future". His most acclaimed novel was Empire of the Sun, based on his childhood in a Japanese prison camp in China.

*****

Director David Cronenberg brought Ballard's infamous book about the sexual desires stimulated by car crashes to the screen in the film Crash. The film caused a media stir, adding to Ballard's reputation for courting controversy. In later years he wrote other acclaimed novels such as Super-Cannes and Millennium People.

Welcome to the Suvudu Free Book Library. We know it can be hard to navigate the countless fantasy and science fiction series out there and figure out which ones are right for you. Well, we're here to make those tough decisions a bit easier on you. With the Suvudu Free Book Library, you can read the first book in some of our most acclaimed series absolutely free! We're kicking off the library with five full-length novels for you to sample, but we'll be adding new titles on a regular basis, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you're the first to find out what our newest free offerings are!

"No better mind has gone to work on where we are post-9/11," said Lee Abbott, one of three writers who served as PEN/Faulkner judges. As for cricket, Abbott said, he has never watched a game, but "I'd love to see one in O'Neill's company -- and he makes me feel that I did."

O'Neill, 45, is an Irish-born immigrant who sought out New York's cricket subculture when he arrived there in 1998. After a couple of seasons competing with cricket-loving immigrants from South Asia, the West Indies and elsewhere, he said in an interview, he realized there was "a story to be written about this marginalized and emblematically invisible world."

Grisham's "The Associate" deals with a character who attended the private Catholic college and was involved in a drunken rape scene in an off-campus apartment in 2003. Duquesne University spokeswoman Rose Ravasio said it's unfortunate Grisham "chose to use our name and associate it with a fictional incident of this nature."

Grisham told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he chose the school because he saw it once, and has been to Pittsburgh for Steelers and Pirates games. The novel contains several other references to Pittsburgh.

The address, to students passing out from of Kenyon College in Ohio, was given in May 2005, three years before the author hanged himself at his home this September, aged 46. It saw Wallace taking on the challenges of daily life, attempting to answer what the real-life value of education is, and looking at how we think about the world. It will be published as a small hardback, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered On a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life, running to some 150 pages, by Little, Brown US next April.

The publisher described the speech as a "pointedly observant examination of daily life", which it said was written with Wallace's "one-of-a-kind blend of casual humour, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy [which] offers advice that renews us with every reading". "[It] was Wallace's only philosophical public address," added Marlena Bittner, associate director of publicity at Little, Brown, and Wallace's former publicist.

The title, This is Water, is taken from the speech, in which Wallace told the anecdote of two young fish who meet an older fish, who asks them "how's the water?" They swim on, and eventually one of them asks the other, "what the hell is water?"

"If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about," Wallace told the graduates. "The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'"

The animated video adaptation of the horror master's short story "N." has been viewed more than a one million times on the Internet and on mobile phones since its release in July, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

King has well demonstrated his digital appeal before. His e-novella "Riding the Bullet" was a sensation in the early years of the Internet.

Mr. Boyden's triumph prompted the now-obligatory standing ovation by the invitation-only black-tie crowd of 500. Earlier in the evening, they'd dined on slow-roasted beef tenderloin and mustard seed spatzle, with bitter-chocolate mousse for dessert. The founder of the feast was Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch, who started the prize in 1994 to honour his late wife, journalist Doris Giller, then in 2005 brought Scotiabank aboard as corporate sponsor.

Among Mr. Rabinovitch's guests last night were former Ontario premiers William Davis and David Peterson, broadcaster Moses Znaimer, former Toronto mayor David Crombie, dancer Rex Harrington, lawyer Clayton Ruby, Indigo Books and Music head Heather Reisman, super-agent Michael Levine and, of course, the three Giller jurors. They read 95 books submitted by more than 35 publishers and released between Oct. 12, 2007, and Sept. 30 this year. A long list of 15 titles was announced in early September.

Swedish news agency TT says Le Clezio on Saturday accepted the Stig Dagerman Prize, worth $8,000 Cdn, at a ceremony in Alvkarleby, a small village 150 kilometres north of Stockholm. Le Clezio was awarded the prize for his ability "to fill the book's white pages with the most delightful combinations of words," the Stig Dagerman jury said. The award is named after Swedish author Stig Dagerman, who died in 1954. The prize was established in 1996 and honours efforts to promote the freedom of expression.

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes said a team of historians and researchers found a document written by the SNB, or Czech Communist police, that identified Kundera as the person who informed on a man who was later imprisoned for 14 years. The reclusive Kundera, the author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," lives in Paris. Phone calls to his publisher seeking comment were not immediately returned.

According to the file, published on the institute's Web site, Kundera in 1950 informed on Miroslav Dvoracek, who had been recruited in Germany by the Czech emigre intelligence network to work as a spy against the Communist regime. Dvoracek visited a woman in Prague and left a suitcase in her apartment. She told her boyfriend, who later told Kundera, and Kundera went to the police. Dvoracek was arrested when he came to collect the suitcase. He was later sentenced to 22 years in prison and eventually served 14, working in uranium mines.

*****

Kundera joined the Communist Party as a student, but was expelled after criticizing its totalitarian nature. After the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia crushed the liberal reforms of Alexander Dubcek, he left the country. The books Kundera wrote after his departure were banned from publication in his homeland until the Communist collapse in 1989, but his work was respected among dissidents.

British writers were yesterday coming to terms with the death of the doyenne of the London literary scene, Pat Kavanagh, paying tribute to her strength of spirit, tenacity and straight-talking.

Kavanagh, 68, who was married to the novelist Julian Barnes, was at the summit of her profession, representing writers including Ruth Rendell, Margaret Drabble, Robert Harris, Joanna Trollope, Andrew Motion, Clive James, and Wendy Cope. What the writers had in common was their fierce loyalty to their agent, who died yesterday morning from a brain tumour.

The novelist Robert Harris - a client for 27 years - said everyone was reeling from her loss. "She was fantastically efficient and just the person you wanted to have represent you. There was no one quite like her really. And she was exotic, like a bird of paradise. She was unflappable and she didn't let you get above yourself.

"She always described herself as being like a family doctor or a country solicitor. She didn't believe in trying to screw an enormous amount of money out of publishers. Pat was always quite indiscreet and very funny and you know, in a world full of bs, there was no bs from Pat. She didn't suck up to her writers."

Telegraph Media Group has signed writer Alexander McCall Smith to pen a serialised novel exclusively for Telegraph.co.uk. The website will publish the first of 100 successive episodes of his new novel, Corduroy Mansions, on Monday.

In what is believed to be the first project of its kind on a UK website, the serialisation will include simultaneous daily podcast editions, narrated by Andrew Sachs, available to download through iTunes. Edinburgh-based Alexander McCall Smith has published more than 60 books but is most famous for his series of novels that started with The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It achieved global recognition in 1999, selling more than 20m copies and has been translated into 44 languages across the globe.

It was subsequently made into a film produced by the late Anthony Minghella. "Over the last five years I have come to realise how enjoyable it is to write a daily serial novel for a newspaper. I am particularly pleased to be starting a new one for the Telegraph website. Corduroy Mansions will be written as it is published, giving readers the opportunity to influence what happens in the story. I can't wait to begin," said Alexander McCall Smith.

The controversy kicked off when Brand introduced "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Cam Gigandet and Robert Pattinson for their much-hyped appearance. Strolling into an aisle to introduce a performance by Paramore in a re-creation of Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go, the actors each took a turn reciting their lines — but before Pattinson could conclude their moment in the sun, Brand cut off the 22-year-old heartthrob.

"This is a confusing concept," the VMA host rambled as Pattinson could only stand there, politely waiting his turn to speak. "It's bloody confusing, but something exciting is about to happen. Paramore are going to perform from the Whisky ..."

As Brand continued to go off the page, Pattinson tried once again to say his line, but all he could get out was a barely heard, "Please welcome ..." Suddenly, his position of honor (being the "Twilight" star to get the final word) had turned into a perceived embarrassment.

"He insulted all 'Twilight' fans," a Twilighter named Sukiyaki posted on MTV.com. "MTV, I hope you have enough space to house all the hate mails about Russell Brand."

The impenetrable-sounding book, a comprehensive record of Greece's postal routes, is published by the Greek Hellenic Philatelic Society of Great Britain, which "exists to encourage the collection of Greek stamps and to promote their study".

The Diagram prize is The Bookseller magazine's award for oddly named publications, and this 72-page book has won the Diagram of Diagrams, for the weirdest title in the past three decades. It nipped in ahead of People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It, and How to Avoid Huge Ships.

"I think the voters wanted a feelgood story about rural postmen because of all the news of post offices closing around the country," said The Bookseller's charts editor Philip Stone. He has so far been unsuccessful in his attempts to contact the book's author Derek Willan to let him know about his win. "There's no prize but the boost in sales is surely prize enough," Stone said. "When we announced our last shortlist, sales increased by 1,000%, from one copy sold in the two weeks previously to ten afterwards."

The Diagram prize was launched in 1978 as a way to relieve boredom at a particularly tedious Frankfurt book fair. The Diagram of Diagrams saw the public voting for their favourite odd book title from 30 years of former winners. More than 1,000 votes were received, with Greek Rural Postmen taking 13% of the public vote.

The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will leave the rights in the hands of Penguin Group Inc. and the heirs of Steinbeck's widow, Elaine Steinbeck. John Steinbeck died in 1968; his wife in 2003. The appeals court in Manhattan said a lower court judge misapplied copyright law in awarding the rights in 2006 to the son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter Blake Smyle, who already receive a portion of the proceeds of sales.

The recently reopened message board on the Twilight series Web site has been very active, and on Amazon-where the novel remains ranked #1 in sales-the book has generated more than 1,600 reviews (nearly twice the reviews of the previous book, Eclipse) and more than 1,000 "customer discussions." Unhappy readers expressed a variety of opinions, including incredulity with certain plot points or the way threads were tied up, while others felt the writing wasn"t as strong as in the previous books.

In one heavily trafficked thread entitled "Unhappy with Breaking Dawn? Don't burn it-RETURN it!," commenters debated whether returning the book was a valid way to express unhappiness with the book. "Technically, reading a book and returning it is theft of knowledge," read one post, while the original commenter, a former bookstore employee, wrote, "I don't advocate making a habit of buying new books, reading them, and returning them. But once in a while... I do think mass returns are a useful form of consumer protest." Another poster recounted, anecdotally, returning the book at Borders: "They took back my book with no problem. Got into a discussion with the cashier about how I was the 15th (!!!) person to bring my book back today."

Amazon and the publisher Grove/Atlantic will give away the electronic download of a new novel, Spirit House, by Christopher G. Moore, to Amazon Kindle customers beginning Friday, in advance of the book's release in print on Aug. 28, the companies announced on Wednesday. Morgan Entrekin, the president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic, said in a statement that the deal with Amazon "is a great way to expand Moore's audience even further." The Kindle, a portable electronic reader that downloads books, newspapers, blogs and magazines, sells on Amazon.com for $359.

Dante, the father of the Italian language, fled his native city in 1302 after being sentenced to death for crimes including fraud and extortion. Florence council was to have healed the 700-year rift with the poet by presenting the city's golden florin to Count Pieralvise Serego Alighieri. The count, however, believes the Florentines are not sorry enough.

Last month, a meeting of the council's cultural committee, held to annul the expulsion order, prompted the kind of rancorous divisions that led to Dante's exile. Five councillors voted against the annulment and several others stayed away.

Count Pieralvise said it was "anything but a collective 'mea culpa' and symbolic ending of [Dante's] exile". "I could have wept when I read the comments of some of the councillors," he said. The proposed reconciliation, the initiative of two councillors from Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, ran into fierce opposition from the radical left. Nicola Rotondaro, the leader of a communist group on the council, said Dante "did not need the council to rehabilitate him".

"If he had been sent to his death, would we perhaps have asked for his resurrection?" he said. The count said it was "as if the people of Stratford-upon-Avon had quarrelled over an event in memory of Shakespeare".

[I]ts Reader Digital Book will be able to read electronic books published using the .epub format that many of the largest book publishers are using. Until now, Sony's e-book reader could only read books available from the Sony e-book store, PDF documents, and DRM-free text. Starting next month, the new PRS-505 Sony Reader model will be able to access secure DRM- and non-DRM-protected content in the .epub format, formerly called the Open eBook format.

The Sony Reader Digital Book is the first e-book reading device to support the .epub format, which is the XML-based standard format proposed by the International Digital Publishing Forum. It allows publishers to convert books to different formats, protect the copy using DRM (digital rights management) and has the ability to resize PDF e-books and other text to better fit the reader's screen size.

*****

"This upgrade opens the door to a whole host of paid and free content from third-party eBook stores, Web sites, and even public libraries," Steve Haber, senior vice president of consumer product marketing for Sony Electronics, said in a statement.

The announcement is the latest move in a standards war over e-book formats pitting Sony against Amazon. Amazon's Kindle e-book reader and e-books it sells support the proprietary .azw format. Amazon also acquired Mobipocket, which offers a format for texts read on PDAs and BlackBerrys and its Kindle can read DRM-free .mobi files.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a magic wand is more powerful than either, or at least according to this year's Forbes' list of the world's richest celebrities. Harry Potter author JK Rowling earned more than any other celebrity, according to the annual Celebrity 100 list, taking home $300m (150 million pounds) last year. There were other strong British performances from Keira Knightley, announced as the world's second best paid female actor, Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe and David Beckham.

Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Van de Wetering moved to Maine in 1975 and enjoyed a passion for Zen Buddhism, motorcycles and jazz, among other things, the Bangor Daily News reported. He died on July 4 of complications from cancer, said Nikki Smith, his longtime literary agent.

Van de Wetering lived in a number of countries including Japan, where he joined a Zen monastery, which he wrote about in his first book, "The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery." Later, Van de Wetering created the popular "Grijpstra and de Gier" series of detective novels, set in Amsterdam, that drew from his experience as a police officer.

In 1984, he was awarded the international Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, a French prize for crime fiction, for his book "The Maine Massacre," a Grijpstra and de Gier mystery set in Maine.

Animal's People author Sinha stopped taking food on June 10, marking the beginning of a global fast intended by campaigners to bring US giant Dow Chemical to court in India to face criminal and civil charges relating to the disaster.

Animal's People author Sinha stopped taking food on June 10, marking the beginning of a global fast intended by campaigners to bring US giant Dow Chemical to court in India to face criminal and civil charges relating to the disaster.

In December 1984, Union Carbide's pesticides factory released a cloud of highly toxic gases over the central Indian city of Bhopal that killed 8,000 people immediately, according to Amnesty International, and injured half a million. Dow took over Union Carbide in 2001, inheriting a legacy that has seen at least another 15,000 deaths and a second health epidemic, resulting from severe contamination at the now abandoned site, that affects another 25,000. Sinha, who lives in France, has joined nine Bhopal campaigners fasting in New Delhi, seven of whom have been severely affected by either gas or water contamination.

It's a good enough package that my guess is that digital readers will soon become common, perhaps even the usual way we read books. How will this affect the publishing business? Right now, publishers make as much from a Kindle download as they do from the sale of a physical book. But the experience of the music industry suggests that this won't last: once digital downloads of books become standard, it will be hard for publishers to keep charging traditional prices.

Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors' other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it's good enough for me.

Now, the strategy of giving intellectual property away so that people will buy your paraphernalia won't work equally well for everything. To take the obvious, painful example: news organizations, very much including this one, have spent years trying to turn large online readership into an adequately paying proposition, with limited success.

But they'll have to find a way. Bit by bit, everything that can be digitized will be digitized, making intellectual property ever easier to copy and ever harder to sell for more than a nominal price. And we'll have to find business and economic models that take this reality into account.

A locket containing what is believed to be Jane Austen's hair is expected to reach more than £5,000 at auction. The lock of light-brown hair, which the auctioneers admit may never be confirmed as having come from the novelist's head, forms part of an "in memoriam" locket, in which the strands of hair are woven into the shape of a weeping willow. The hair is also used for the lettering on a decorated gravestone on which the name Jane Austen appears.

Dominic Winter of the Dominic Winter Auction House, near Cirencester, said that "we have shown it to various Austen and decorative object experts including Tom Carpenter, curator at the Jane Austen House, Chawton, in Alton, Hampshire, where we compared it with the only other known lock of Austen's hair. "Their lock is discoloured and the evidence from direct comparison was inconclusive. First-hand accounts of Jane Austen's hair colour vary too, from light to darkish brown.

"We have taken the back off the frame and examined all the materials and in our opinion this could have been made at the time of Jane Austen's death in 1817, or slightly later as the backing paper and frame look closer to mid 19th century as Austen's fame rose. "There is no sign that this was made recently or to deceive, the lucky vendor who spotted it some 20 years ago among some bric-a-brac having no idea of its previous provenance."

Hairwork as a craft became prominent in England from the early 1800s and flourished in the Victorian era, with hair preserved in lockets and brooches, the auctioneer said. It is well documented that Cassandra, Jane Austen's sister, cut off several locks of hair as mementoes before Jane's coffin was finally closed, Dominic Winter Auction House said.

And I meant every hyperbolic word of it. See, sometimes you can judge a book by its blurber.

"I have no idea at this point how many books I've blurbed," says humorist Jonathan Ames, who is approached frequently to dish out book-jacket praise.

"It may be about 50. It might make some long, strange poem if I was to collect them all."

In fact, one of his blurbs was even declared "best blurb" by New York magazine for "The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own," which Ames notes, "on the title alone, deserved a great blurb."

While he tries to blurb honestly, he does admit, "Once I promised someone that I would blurb their book, and then I read it and didn't feel so strongly about it. This was years ago. But I blurbed it anyway, and then a fan e-mailed me and said they bought the book because of my blurb and were sorely disappointed. I felt bad about this. But I guess it shows that blurbs actually do work once in a while."

Oh, they totally work. Even if it's just to generate an article about blurbing.

Publicist - and now best-selling author - Sloane Crosley (who, yes, has a blurb from Ames) has seen press from Radar to New York magazine about her bevy of notable blurbs as a first-time author, the question being whether she "cheated" by using her publishing clout to secure out-of-sight blurbs.

Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who more than anyone brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

It was the first time Pulitzer judges, who have long favoured classical music, and, more recently, jazz, awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive. "I am in disbelief," Dylan fan and fellow Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz said of Dylan's award. Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," a tragic, but humorous story of desire, politics and violence among Dominicans at home and in the United States, won the fiction prize. Diaz, 39, worked for more than a decade on his first novel - "I spent most of the time on dead-ends and doubts," he told The Associated Press on Monday - and at one point included a section about Dylan.

"Bob Dylan was a problem for me," Diaz, who has also published a story collection, "Drown," said with a laugh. "I had one part that was 40 pages long, the entire chapter was organized around Bob Dylan's lyrics over a two year-period (1967-69). By the end of it, I wanted to throttle my like of Bob Dylan."

Publishing officials are reluctant to discuss sales figures, but say that they have seen double digit increases in ebook sales since the Kindle's release, and renewed interest in downloads for the Sony Reader. Sales for the most popular ebooks are in the hundreds, comparable to the number for the Reader, which came out in 2006.

"The Kindle has increased awareness. Publishers have told me that in some cases the Sony numbers were double or triple what they had been," says Michael Smith, head of the International Digital Publishing Forum, which tracks ebook sales. Selling through Amazon.com for $399 (£199), the Kindle is thinner than most paperbacks and weighs 0.29 kg. It can hold some 200 books, along with newspapers, magazines and an entire dictionary.

The Kindle has been praised for the selection of texts available -- more than 100,000 books, blogs and newspapers -- and for the speed of delivery, which averages less than a minute. Fans include authors such as Toni Morrison, Michael Lewis and Neil Gaiman.

A fire on Saturday caused about $20,000 in damage to the home of Tom Clancy, a best-selling author of political thrillers, authorities said. Firefighters were called to Clancy's Calvert County, Maryland, home about 12:15 p.m., said Lt. Fred Holzberger of the Prince-Frederick Volunteer Fire Department.

Clancy and his family were home at the time, but no one was injured, Holzberger said. He said the fire started on the deck and reached the home. The blaze was extinguished in about 20 minutes. The fire is under investigation by the Maryland fire marshal's office

I didn't even know there was a film being made. For years! Not only two or three or four or five -- for almost 20 years. I didn't even know Erik was making a film all those years. I thought Erik was an odd little fanboy, superannuated elf if you will, who would come by periodically and push a camera in my face. I consider that part of the job. When I'm at home, I'm a writer. When I'm out on the road, you do what has to be done. You sit for four hours and sign books or answer silly questions or people want to take a photo and you do it. It's just part of the rigor. When Erik said, about two years ago, "It's about time you know what we're doing here: We're doing this movie," I still couldn't grasp it. And I'm not a slow pony! I get things pretty quickly. I thought, maybe this guy is going to sell it to the Sundance Channel, or it'll be on the History Channel or something.

I don't care much one way or another about it. I'm about as celebrated or as famous as I care to be, but what the hell? Can't do any harm, he seems a nice chap. When I went to look at the first cut, it was as if -- the trope that is most specific, I think, is the scene in "Tom Sawyer" where everybody thinks he and Huck are drowned and he comes back and he goes to the church where they're having the funeral service for him and he's up in the loft listening to all the wonderful things people are saying about him. It's an out-of-body experience. Last night, for instance, in the theater, I sat there and I looked at the movie with no vested interest. I don't look and say, "Gee I had a pimple that day," or "Gee, I wish somebody hadn't said that." I look at it as a movie about this funny, weird old guy. And I think, "That's a funny, weird old guy. I'd love to know him. He's really funny."

Doubleday has acquired North American rights to bestselling Shadow of the Wind author Carlos Ruiz Zafon's new book, following an intense seven figure auction that came to a head when Doubleday's publisher, Steve Rubin, found himself facing off against Deb Futter, the new editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing's adult division whom Mr. Rubin trained in the ways of the business when she worked for him. Both Mr. Rubin and Ms. Futter were apparently in the auction-- conducted by Tom Colchie on behalf of Spanish-based literary agent Antonia Kerrigan-- until the very end.

Ms. Futter and had been working at Doubleday for many years, and serving as deputy editorial director there when she left for her new job. She started at Grand Central in January.

Alison Rich, the executive director of publicity at Doubleday, confirmed that Mr. Rubin had acquired the book, and that Doubleday editor-in-chief Bill Thomas will edit. Ms. Rich would not comment on the size of the advance.