Amazon has increased its presence in the spokenword audio market, announcing this morning that it has agreed to acquire Audible, Inc. the country's largest provider of digital downloads of spokenword audio. Amazon is paying $11.50 per share and assuming Audible's outstanding stock-based awards, making the value of the deal about $300 million. Audible's stock price was at $9.33 the day before that deal was announced, although its shares were selling at a 52-week high of $14.22 in November. The purchase is expected to close in the second quarter.

For the first nine months of 2007, Audible had sales of $78.8 million, an increase of 34% over 2006, and a net loss of $1.5 million compared to a loss of $7.7 million in the first nine months of 2006. Commenting on the purchase, Steve Kessel, senior v-p for worldwide digital media at Amazon, said Audible "offers the best customer experience, and the widest content selection in the industry."

Nearly 150 people had gathered outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, but the man known as the "Poe toaster" was, as usual, able to avoid being spotted by the crowd, said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. The tribute takes place every Jan. 19 - the anniversary of Poe's birth. The visitor did not leave a note, Jerome said, electing not to respond to questions raised in the past year about the history and authenticity of the tribute.

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Jerome invites a handful of Poe enthusiasts to join him inside the church every year but withholds details of the tribute in an effort to help the toaster maintain his anonymity. He said the visitor no longer wears the wide-brimmed hat and scarf he donned in the past. In 1993, the visitor left a note reading, "The torch will be passed." A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his two sons.

This year's visitor was the same man who has come to the grave site many times in the past, Jerome said. "We recognize him from his build, the way he walks," he said. "It would be very easy for us, visually, to see if this were a different person."

The Lebanese-born 24-year-old, who looks certain to get a Best British Male nod in next week's BRITs nominations, is a songwriting powerhouse. The singer told me: "I don't necessarily write things to meet quotas on albums."

"It's part of the plumbing of my daily life."

"Then I curate a few songs into an album."

"I was working on my second album before I had even finished making my first."

The society says it just charts words or phrases that have become prominent in a particular year, and is not telling people how to speak.

"Subprime" means literally "less than ideal" and is the technical term used to describe loans - especially mortgages - made to borrowers with poor credit histories.

A series of defaults on such loans spread panic through much of the banking sector in 2007 as financial institutions realised they had bought many of these loans from one another without knowing how risky they were.

Singer George Michael has signed a multimillion-pound deal to pen a "no-holds-barred" autobiography, it has been announced. HarperCollins said former Wham! star Michael, 44, would write the "access-all-areas" autobiography "entirely himself". Publishers said the deal is "one of the biggest ever concluded in UK publishing", but would not divulge figures.

The book, dubbed "one of the hottest remaining untold celebrity memoirs", will cover the pop star's personal and professional life and will hit the shelves in autumn next year. Michael's manager Andy Stephens said: "George has promised HarperCollins a no-holds-barred biography, and it's certain to be just that. "People aren't stupid, they're beginning to notice that the truth is more interesting than the stories the press come up with." Belinda Budge, managing director and publisher of Harper NonFiction UK, said: "This is an incredibly exciting publishing event.

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"Most importantly, this really will be a truly authentic book - and an exceptional one, as he's going to be writing it entirely himself."

"While no guild decision has yet been made regarding the Grammys, if a waiver is requested for the Grammys, it is unlikely to be granted," said WGA spokesman Gregg Mitchell.

The Grammys are produced by John Cossette Productions in association with Ken Ehrlich Productions, and are written by Ehrlich and author/journalist David Wild. Mitchell says there's been no decision yet as to whether or not the WGA would picket the Grammys, which air on CBS. Mitchell notes that there have been "no discussions yet" with the production companies involved with the Recording Academy's awards show.

Since the Grammys honor musicians, not actors, it is unclear how much impact the WGA's decision will have on the show, though the dozen or so actors who typically present awards would not be involved. Last year, Quentin Tarantino, Luke Wilson, Nicolas Cage, Terrence Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Rock, and David Spade appeared on the show. This year's nominees also include a number of musicans who have appeared in movies or TV, among them Justin Timberlake, Queen Latifah, Tim McGraw, Beyonce, Jack White, Jon Bon Jovi, and Fantasia. Among the Grammy nominee musicians who have historically refused to cross a picket line are Bruce Springsteen, the Beastie Boys, Joni Mitchell, John Mellencamp, and Steve Earle. And, obviously, writers would not contribute to the ceremony's script, though compared to other awards shows, the Grammys are a performance-heavy event.

Homer Noble Farm, a historic landmark in Ripton, Vt., was ransacked Friday night during what police say was a party attended by up to 50 young people. No arrests have been made, but police said Monday that they have tracked down some of the partygoers and believe they are minors. Police Sgt. Lee Hodsden says the intruders broke a window to get into the two-storey wood frame building - a furnished residence open to tourists in the summer.

Once inside, they destroyed tables, pictures, windows, light fixtures and dishes. Wicker furniture and dressers were smashed and thrown into a fireplace and burned, apparently to provide heat. Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups and cellophane, apparently used to hold marijuana, were also found. Hodsden said the vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building, located on a dead-end road.

"The opportunity to work with the American master Tom Wolfe is the kind of thrill and challenge that people entering book publishing dream of," Little, Brown Publisher Michael Pietsch said Wednesday. "Tom Wolfe is one of the great writers of his generation and he has been one of FSG's most significant and best-loved authors," Farrar publisher Jonathan Galassi said. "We are sorry to part company, and wish him all happiness and success in this next phase of his work."

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His new novel, "Back to Blood," will be a "Bonfire"-like tour of Miami, taking on "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption, and ambition." Among the characters: a Cuban nurse married to a French sex doctor, a Haitian woman "who passes for Anglo" and "a freshman journalist on the trail of a Russian-mob-comes-to-Miami story." Publication is scheduled for 2009.

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According to a publishing official familiar with negotiations, Farrar, Straus and Wolfe could not agree on a new contract: Having lost money on "Charlotte Simmons," the publisher was offering a reduced advance for "Back to Blood."