This exquisite limited edition atlas takes cartography to a new level. For the map enthusiast, the collector, the armchair traveller, or for those who enjoy luxury, this beautiful leather-bound edition is a "must-have" for the library. Only 3,000 copies of this highly prized volume will be printed. Highly detailed maps, produced by a team of international cartographers, are the foundation of this book. Each of the countries of the world is also described and illustrated in detail, with focus on the geography, history, culture, and unique features.

An assembly of Catholic bishops on Monday called for the use of mass communications -- including television, cinema, DVDs and even iPods -- to be used to spread the Bible in as many languages as possible.

The nod toward technology is not unusual: The Vatican had one of Europe's first Web sites, for example, and has always been quick to adopt new technologies. The bishops' conference said that the stakes are higher than ever, arguing that the written word was insufficient for the modern world.

"The voice of the Divine Word must resonate over the radio, on Internet channels with virtual distribution (and by) CDs, DVDs and iPods, and on television and cinema screens," an official statement said.

So far in 2008, four books published by Sen. Barack Obama between 2004 and fall 2008 have sold a combined 912,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan.

In comparison, Sen. John McCain's five titles, published between 1999 and summer 2008, have sold a total of 116,000 copies - almost 800,000 copies less than Obama.

Between January and September 21, 2008, McCain's top selling book, "Faith of My Fathers," sold 73,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, and audio editions.

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.

Rushdie's lawyer Mark Stephens said today that the authors of the book now "accepted that much of the story published in the Mail on Sunday was false". He said that Evans had been "over-egging" his position at the time: "He was a police driver making out he was an armed special protection officer," he said.

Stephens added that Rushdie had made no requests for damages, nor for any changes in opinions in the book, merely for "the falsehoods" to be changed. "The authors have admitted that there were falsehoods in the original manuscript and have made amendments accordingly," he said.

The Obama campaign has written a 40-page rebuttal that criticizes author Jerome Corsi as "a discredited, fringe bigot" and his book as "rehashed lies."

The book is a compilation of all the allegations and innuendo against Obama - that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a black rage hidden beneath the surface. Obama's rebuttal is titled "Unfit For Publication" and is set to be posted on the Obama campaign's rumour-fighting website, FightTheSmears.com.

The publisher of a book that Salman Rushdie says portrays him as "mean and arrogant" has delayed publication for a week following Rushdie's threat of legal action. On Her Majesty's Service by Ron Evans was due to be published yesterday, but John Blake Publishing has moved this to August 11 in the hope that once Rushdie has read the book in its entirety he will see it as a "light-hearted and affectionate" portrait.

Rushdie's lawyers contacted John Blake earlier this week over excerpts in the weekend papers from the former Special Branch officer's memoir. These claimed that the security guards protecting Rushdie during the fatwa against him "got so fed up with his attitude that they locked him in a cupboard under the stairs and all went to the local pub for a pint or two". Evans also claimed that the guards nicknamed Rushdie Scruffy, which Rushdie said was untrue.

Managing director John Blake said he was confident that once Rushdie had read the whole book he would realise it was no threat to security. He added: "If anyone should be defending freedom of speech it should be him ... I can't believe that he'd really want to ban a book because it says that detectives named him Scruffy -- in a way that's almost affectionate."

"We really want to maintain and have a greater leadership position in photography," said Nina Hoffman, president of National Geographic Books. Leah Bendavid-Val, director of photography publishing for National Geographic Books, said the books in the Focal Point series "will appeal to connoisseurs, professionals, collectors, serious students of photojournalism and all lovers of photography."

As such, the books are moderately high-priced; the fall list includes three $40 hardcovers—Windows of the Soul: My Journeys in the Muslim World by Alexandra Avakian, The Life of a Photograph by Sam Abell and Odysseys and Photographs by Maynard Owen Williams, Volkmar Wentzel, Luis Marden and Thomas Abercrombie—as well as a $75 tome: Reza War + Peace by Reza. Hoffman said that while the fine art photography market is small, "it is at the heart of National Geographic. We want to stake a claim, and we do in the magazine world. We want the same recognition in books."

[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.

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"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.

There was one question in particular of interest to us book lovers, and that came from a woman who asked what Obama would say to young writers. He was surprised by the question, which he admitted was one he hadn't heard before, but didn't hesitate to answer. He referenced his two books, and specifically mentioned how he wrote them himself, along with many of his speeches. With a light inflection, he said, "In terms of getting a job, knowing how to write is a good thing."

He talked about how he kept a journal, and how it was important for teaching him not only how to write, but also how to think. But my favorite part was when he said, "Over the course of four years I made time to read all of the Harry Potter books out loud to my daughters. If I can do that and run for president, then you can find time to read to your kids. That's some of the most special time you have with your children."

Previously unseen documents, postcards, sketches and personal belongings of the Czech-Jewish writer, who wrote in German, have been gathering dust in the home of Esther Hoffe, the former secretary of Kafka's friend and executor Max Brod since his death in 1968. Hoffe's refusal to relinquish the documents led to a literary game of cat and mouse between her and the state of Israel, under pressure from the country's cultural elite, which on one occasion even led to her arrest on suspicion of smuggling Kafka's writings out of the country.

Now, following her death at the age of 101, Kafka lovers hope the row may have come to an end. Researchers are ready to pounce on the contents of Hoffe's flat, fully expecting the items will throw new light on the mysterious writer who died at the age of 41, as well as his friendship with Brod, his greatest champion.

But authorities in Tel Aviv have warned that the papers, with their high sulphuric acid content, may have stood up poorly to conditions in Hoffe's damp flat in the centre of Tel Aviv and to the hordes of cats and dogs which she kept until two years ago when health inspectors intervened after neighbours complained about the stench.

A Child Called It was a horrific tale of sadistic abuse at the hands of his alcoholic mother, who kept him locked in the family basement, force-fed him dog faeces and ammonia, and stabbed and burned him. A sequel recounted his childhood in foster care after police and teachers rescued him at 12, quickly followed by a third volume charting his journey through the US air force to become a juvenile counsellor, bestselling author, motivational speaker and living legend of the daytime Oprah circuit. His books have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a decade, breaking every record since the list began.

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Pelzer believes people like his books because they put their own problems in perspective. "A Child Called It was a story about resilience, it was never about boo hoo hoo, it was about a kid that didn't quit. I never sat down and thought: I'll do it to commercialise it, or for morbid fascination. I did not know until I came to England, on a book tour in the late 90s, that there was this thing about a morbid fascination. That's when I was accused of it, of being a morbid writer. That had never happened in America."

How does he feel about the criticism that misery literature feeds a voyeuristic taste for cruelty? "I can't help what other people may think." But he must have an opinion, surely. "You know, that's not my job, ma'am. My job's to do a good job. That's my opinion."

That jaw-dropping sum got the house world English rights, which means they'll be able to publish the book-described to Media Mob as a collection of comedic "rants" -- through any of their international units and sell whatever rights they don't want to other publishers.

Because Mr. Brand is a much bigger star in England than he is anywhere else, the UK unit is covering the lion's share of that massive advance, our source said. Stateside, the book will be published through HC's Collins division and overseen by editor Gillian Blake.

Mr. Brand, who is currently working on a second movie with Mr. Apatow and recently wrapped one with Adam Sandler, published a raucous memoir last year about his addiction to drugs and sex that was a huge bestseller in the UK. That book, entitled My Booky Wook, originally involved a ghostwriter, but Mr. Brand didn't like what he saw of a first draft and decided to write it himself -- in Tuscany! -- over the course of about a month.

The launch will mark the end of the two-week festival, coinciding with the veteran actor's 78th birthday. Festival bosses said the James Bond star's "eagerly-anticipated" first book, entitled Being A Scot, will shed light on his views about many aspects of Scottish life and culture. Connery is expected to attend the book launch, which comes at the height of the city's world-famous festival season. Book festival director Catherine Lockerbie said a number of other James Bond themed-events - including the launch of Charlie Higson's fifth and final Young Bond novel - would be held to mark 007 creator Ian Fleming's centenary.

Unveiling the programme today, she said: "In this special year it was obviously essential to bring Sir Sean back to the city of his birth, on the day of his birthday, for a world exclusive launch of his first book, Being A Scot." "What we will unveil is a rather remarkable document, written in conjunction with his friend, the brilliant Scottish film-maker Murray Grigor."

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.

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.

Scholastic announced today that it will create a children's book line from the BBC program Planet Earth. The company holds U.S. and Canadian English and French rights for the Planet Earth children’s books program and will publish and distribute the titles through its trade, school book club and school book fair channels. The books will be printed on 30% post-consumer waste recycled paper.

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The program will launch in September with the full-color, 48-page Planet Earth Scrapbook and Planet Earth Reader. The program will continue with three January 2009 publications (a second reader, a board book and scrapbook), followed in April 2009 by a full-color 98-page Guide to the Planet timed to coincide with Earth Day. The program will include paperbacks, board books, phonics books, novelty books and scrapbooks. It will target preschoolers, middle-grade students and teens. High-quality 30% post-consumer waste recycled paper will be used for all titles.

A student faces disciplinary action after two people threw green whipped cream pies at New York Times columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman as he began an Earth Day speech at Brown University. A video of the Tuesday incident posted on YouTube.com shows Friedman telling the audience, "It's great to be back here at Brown," shortly before Margaree Little, a senior English literature major, and an unidentified man storm the stage.

Friedman managed to avoid most of the cream, although his shirt and the back of his head were splattered and he appears to slip on cream on the stage. He left the stage to clean himself off before resuming his speech. He said Friday he was not pressing charges. "I'm leaving it for Brown to decide what kind of values they want to uphold on their campus," he said.

Little, who's scheduled to graduate in December, said she was undergoing disciplinary action by the dean's office and expulsion was "not off the table." She declined to identify the man who was with her or to say whether he was a Brown student.

Little, 22, said Friedman's brand of environmentalism is a "sham" because she believes he supports things like biofuels that reduce the availability of food and displace thousands in Haiti and other developing nations. Friedman, an environmentalist, has written about taking a careful approach and ensuring biodiversity is preserved in areas where biofuel crops are grown.

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.

Michael Cader, who tracks book deals for his electronic newsletter, Publishers Lunch, counts 295 memoirs signed by publishers last year, compared with 227 debut novels and 214 memoirs in 2006. Memoirs accounted for 12.5% of non-fiction deals, up from 10% in 2006 and 9% in 2005.

Citing two recent best sellers, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, a post-divorce travelogue, and Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, about her bizarre parents, literary agent Amy Williams says memoirs share reality TV's voyeuristic appeal. Memoirs can "make us feel better about ourselves because whether we're honest about it or not, we all like feeling as if someone has it worse than we do, or behaved in a way we never would have," Williams says.

Agony sells, especially when touted as a true story. Of course, memoirs can be exaggerated or falsified. After acknowledging inaccuracies in his best-selling addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, James Frey is now writing a novel. "Frey gave all of us a black eye," says Janice Erlbaum, whose second memoir, Have You Found Her, is about volunteering at a homeless shelter where she once lived. In her first draft, "I went overboard trying to prove the story was true. I didn't want to leave anything out. In the end, I knew I was dealing with something stranger than fiction."

The first Quills event took place in October 2005 to celebrate the best in book publishing while promoting the cause of literacy in the U.S. Former Variety publisher Gerry Byrne chaired the Quills Literacy Foundation, which was overseen by an Advisory board made up of 40 members of the publishing and media community.

"To help create a program to celebrate the written word was a privilege," says Byrne. "Thank you to all my colleagues at Reed, NBC and throughout the book publishing world for their support." Acting as Partner, NBC televised the annual black tie awards ceremony on the owned and operated stations and affiliates. As part of the dissolution of the Quills, the remaining Foundation funds will be distributed to First Book and to Literacy Partners.

"The Quill Awards have truly helped us advance the cause of literacy for the hardest to reach children in our country, helping to give them the skills and resources they need for a hopeful and successful future," said Kyle Zimmer, First Book President. "First Book is tremendously grateful to the Quills Literacy Foundation; their legacy will live on through their generous contribution as we continue to provide beautiful, new books to the children who need them the most."

"On behalf of Reed Business Information, we wish to thank our publishing colleagues, including the publishing houses, booksellers, librarians and our sponsors for their support of the Quill Awards program," said William McGorry, Quills Director.

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."

Attorney Larry D. Drury had urged U.S. District Judge Richard J. Holwell to approve the deal, which offered a refund to anyone who bought the book before Frey's falsehoods were acknowledged. The Manhattan jurist said he would bestow final approval on the settlement because it was "most fair, adequate and reasonable." Although the book was a huge hit that exploded in sales after Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club, only 1,729 readers came forward to benefit from the settlement, Drury said.

In January 2006, the website The Smoking Gun revealed that Frey's memoir of addiction and recovery contained numerous fabrications. Frey and his publisher then acknowledged that he had made up parts of the book. Drury noted that 93,738 copies of the book were sold in the seven months after the controversy erupted. The various lawsuits filed by readers were consolidated before Holwell, and a settlement was reached. It called for refunds for readers who felt duped by the book, which earned its author more than $4 million.

Although Random House set aside $2.35 million in a fund to cover costs related to the lawsuits, advertisements in 962 newspapers and elsewhere drew only the 1,729 claims for reimbursement by the deadline, costing just $27,348. Another $783,000 will be paid out in legal fees, as will $432,000 in costs associated with publicizing and carrying out the settlement. As part of the settlement, Random House agreed to include a warning in the book that not all portions of the book may be accurate. In addition, an author's note about the subject was to be included in copies of the book until this December.

The settlement also calls for roughly $180,000 to be divided among three charities: the American Red Cross, the Hazelden addiction treatment center and First Book, a non-profit that gives children from poor families a chance to read and own their first book.

"He's not in very good shape. It's breaking my heart," ex-wife Carol Mailer said yesterday. "He went in this time because his lung collapsed. . . . They got the scar tissue out, and the surgery was successful. "But I just don't think he's doing well. My heart is heavy," she said. Mailer, who was raised in Brooklyn and grew up to win two Pulitzer Prizes, was hospitalized over Labor Day in Boston for asthma.

But the 84-year-old dad "insisted on leaving the hospital to be at [daughter Maggie's] wedding" Sept. 8, even if he was too weak to walk her down the aisle, said Carol Mailer. An in-law at his home in Brooklyn yesterday said, "Everything's fine. He's recovering." Carol Mailer said: The kids are [at Mount Sinai] every day. "Norman still has a huge spirit and is making jokes," she said. "He was even thumb-wrestling. "He's an extraordinary man. He's a fighter."

"Saul Friedlander gave a voice to the grievances and cries of those human beings who were turned to dust _ he gave them memory and a name," the German Book Trade association said in awarding Friedlander its 2007 peace prize. "The acknowledgment of human dignity forms the basis for peace among mankind, and Saul Friedlander returned to the murdered millions the dignity of which they had been robbed," it said.

Friedlander, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, was awarded the $35,500 peace prize on the final day of the annual book fair in a ceremony at Frankfurt's St. Paul's Church. Among Friedlander's best-known works is his two-volume collection "The Third Reich and the Jews." "Friedlander is one of the last historiographers to have witnessed and experienced the Holocaust _ a genocide that was announced early on, planned openly and carried out with machinelike precision," the association said. "Friedlander rejects the distanced approach often associated with the writing of history: He creates a space for incomprehensibility _ the only possible reaction to such an unfathomable crime."

There, we've done it. We've gone and changed the name of Holtzbrinck. Just like that, we're Macmillan. Actually, we've been talking inside about the name change for so long — over a year now — that it's somehow shocking to see it finally happen. Of course, this is much more than just a name change. (Although, I confess that it will be nice that my English mother will finally know who I work for.)

In Macmillan, we in the US are adopting a name that Holtzbrinck has been known by internationally for years. But it's not only our business cards and boxes that are changing. That's the easy stuff. Underneath, we are shifting the way we think about how we do what we do.

And what do we do? We publish.

Yes, we publish books, magazines, and textbooks. But our role as publishers is not really to turn paper into books. It is to help creators find and connect with their audiences wherever they are. It is to publish information, entertainment, education, and ideas in whatever media and formats are appropriate. And through all the channels – digital and traditional – where our audience can be found.

Gore is working on a new environmental book, The Path to Survival, that will be released as a paperback original on April 22, 2008, Earth Day. According to publisher Rodale Books, Gore will continue where he left off in An Inconvenient Truth and offer "a visionary blueprint for the changes we should make as a world community."

"He (Gore) explains how making bold choices now to protect our environment will also create new jobs, propel sustainable economic improvements, and inspire a new generation to tackle our most challenging issues with moral leadership," according to a statement issued Wednesday by Rodale.

"Part scientific manual, part expose, part visionary call for a new planet-wide political movement, the book will appeal to those who were motivated by the call to action of An Inconvenient Truth and who are now ready to fight for the solutions that were considered politically impossible only a short time ago."

Rodale publisher Liz Perl told The Associated Press that no movie version is currently planned for The Path to Survival. An Inconvenient Truth was released as a feature film in 2006 and won the Academy Award for best documentary. The companion book, also a paperback original, topped The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction paperbacks.

Details of the agreement, including the name of the New York publishing house, will be released Tuesday, said Michael Wright, a spokesman for Los Angeles-based literary agent Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management.

"The family and publisher have pledged to leave Simpson's manuscript entirely intact, but they will also add key commentary," Wright said in a prepared statement. "The Goldmans, the publisher and Sharlene Martin will all contribute portions of sales proceeds to the Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice."

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Last month, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded rights to the book to Goldman's family to help satisfy a $38 million wrongful death judgment against the former football star.

The first two books from the agreement, The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics and The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics, will be released in September and October, respectively.

"Martha Stewart is unparalleled for her creativity, aesthetic, and vision in the lifestyle and cooking genres," said Lauren Shakely, senior vice president and publisher of Clarkson Potter/Publishers, Potter Craft, and Potter Style. "We are thrilled to extend our partnership and honored to continue to bring her ideas into the book marketplace."

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"I'm delighted to be continuing my work with Clarkson Potter, which has been my book-publishing home since 1982," Stewart said in a press release. "I am so pleased that this 10-book collaboration will debut with classic recipes from the pages of Martha Stewart Living. I have been cooking nearly all my life and understand the value of the clearly written, carefully tested, and unique recipes that home cooks will take pleasure in preparing with great results."

In the book, published in August, Robbins ("Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities") chronicles the lives of students in a Bethesda, Md., high school as they navigate the SAT and college-application process. The teens are obsessed with success while they contend with illness, physical deterioration, cheating, obsessed parents and emotional breakdowns.

"I read the book while I was at the tail end of the 'Night at the Museum' shoot, and it really spoke to certain experiences I had had as a 16-year-old, virtually killing myself to get into Yale," Levy said. "And I was kind of horrified to admit that I related to these kids. And there is something really unique about the culture right now where you have kids sacrificing the enjoyment of their youth to get to the next level. And the question is, what is the cost of ambition when you are 17 years old?"

The plan is to make a character-driven teen comedy a la John Hughes. Tom McNulty, president of production at 21 Laps, met with writers for nearly a year before hearing the take from Gatewood and Tanaka. "Overachievers" is the latest project set up by 21 Laps, which has been on a tear. "The fact that 21 Laps is able to develop material as broad-ranging as a character-driven comedy like 'Overachievers' or four-quadrant fantastical tentpole 'The Seems' or 'The Devil You Know,' I'm thrilled," Levy said. "I just don't like one kind of movie, and I don't want my company to only develop one kind of movie."

The winning bid is a world-rights deal with the Alfred A. Knopf imprint in hardcover and the Vintage trade paperback imprint, both owned by Random House Inc. Although terms were not disclosed, the $5 million that insiders say Agassi scored catapults him into an exclusive memoir club that includes former President Clinton, who got an estimated $12 million, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who scored more than $8.5 million from Penguin Press, Hillary Clinton, who landed $8 million from Simon & Schuster, and Jack Welch, who got $7.1 million from TimeWarner Books (now a part of Hachette Books).

His deal is believed to be a champion among sports memoirs. In an unusual move, the winner was not the highest bidder. The top bid was believed to be $5.35 million, but Agassi agents Michael Carlyle and Richard Pine at InkWell opted to take an offer from Knopf, which was actually in fourth place after a week of fierce bidding that started at $4 million. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette's Warner 12 imprint were all jockeying for the lead in and around the $5 million to $5.35 million range. President Clinton, who also published with Knopf, was said to have urged Agassi to go with his imprint.

There is no timetable for the launch of the book, which would have to sell in excess of 500,000 copies to break even, one industry source estimated. The book is expected to cover Agassi's stormy marriage to Brooke Shields, his current one to tennis great Steffi Graf, as well as his work with underpriveleged youths at the Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas.

The fellowships, often referred to as "the genius awards," recognize people in a broad range of disciplines who show exceptional creativity and the potential for continued innovative work.

Each award provides $500,000 over five years and comes with no stipulations, allowing each fellow to use the money as he or she sees fit. No one may apply for the MacArthur Fellowships. Each year the foundation chooses several hundred people from diverse fields who serve anonymously as nominators. A 12-member selection committee then recommends final candidates to the foundation's Board of Directors.

David Carroll, 64, author and illustrator, Warner, N.H. He has written several books on the ecology of New England's deciduous hardwood forests and wetland habitats, providing detailed descriptions of creatures that live in swamps, bogs, and other areas threatened by human development.

Adrian LeBlanc, 42, narrative journalist, New York. She specializes in "immersion reporting," spending 10 years with a family in the Bronx before she wrote Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx, which was published in 2003.

David Macaulay, 59, author and illustrator, Norwich, Vt. His illustrated books on architecture, engineering, and other disciplines "demystify the workings and origins of objects as mundane as a stapler and as monumental as a cathedral."

Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York. Her works include "Passion Play: A Cycle," in which she traces the politics of religion from the Elizabethan Age to modern times, and "Orlando," an adaptation of the novel by Virginia Woolf.

George Saunders, 47, professor of creative writing, Syracuse University, N.Y. His short-story collections combine seemingly discordant elements, including satire, surrealism, and colloquial language.

Porn producer Paul Barresi is writing a book, Pellicano’s Enforcer, about how he allegedly helped incarcerated former private-eye-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano protect celebs from negative stories.

In one chapter that's been posted on an Internet site, Barresi tells how someone came to him trying to sell a story about Cruise — similar to the one that Cruise successfully sued porn star Kyle Bradford (a.k.a. Chad Slater) over — and Barresi details how Cruise’s team got the story killed.

Barresi neither proves nor disproves the claim, but Cruise, says a well-placed source, "cannot be happy with the story," adding, "it's been a tough time for Cruise and my bet is that his lawyers are going to come out with both guns blazing — legally speaking of course."

Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, told the Scoop that the allegations made by Barresi are "utterly, one hundred percent false" and "we can prove it." He adds, "If Mr. Barresi were to publish what we have seen on that Web site, I absolutely would recommend appropriate legal action against both Mr. Barresi and the publisher." Fields also says that he’s "considering" steps to have the chapter removed from the Web site.

What is the price of a disappointed reader? Should we really be compensated for suffering through a bad — or a dishonest — work? These are important questions, with implications for other books and writers. Can we sue an author now on the grounds of aesthetic differences? What about a reviewer with whom we disagree? Is any untruth or fabrication we find in a work of nonfiction now considered actionable?

What I find even more troublesome, however, is the idea that Frey should have settled at all. Sure, he eclipsed the line between fiction and nonfiction in his memoir, but throughout the early days of the scandal, that was his defense: that the line between the two is a fine one. That's not such a bad argument; memory, after all, is fallible (although Frey lied not because his memory was flawed or incomplete but because he thought that it was not enough).

But whatever his intent, "A Million Little Pieces" clearly moved many readers — Oprah included — or it wouldn't have been as successful as it was. Why did it elicit such an emotional response, and is that response rendered invalid if its source is revealed to be a lie? I'm not sure that this is territory we, as a culture, want the courts to enter because it has serious implications for how we interact with art.

Creativity, after all, is a matter of illusion. We take raw materials (ink, paper, memory, point of view) and fashion something that, no matter how faithful to our experience, is a contrivance, an invention, an elaborate shadow play. That's the miracle — that we can believe it at all, that these tools, imperfect as they are, can stir us into trusting something that is, on the most basic level, not actually there. We accept this when it comes to fiction but have other expectations of the memoir, which we seem to believe ought to be held to higher standards, as if memory had any objectivity.

I don't mean to defend Frey, whose betrayal has everything to do with breaching just this trust. Still, I can't help coming back to the original reaction of his readers, which was nothing if not real.

Istanbul's second criminal court of first instance ruled yesterday that an article defending the rights of a conscientious objector amounted to "heavy criticism conveyed within the scope of freedom of expression" and did not constitute a crime.

In her column, published in the weekly Yeni Aktuel magazine last December, Magden defended conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan who was sentenced to a record four-year term in a military prison for disobedience after refusing to wear his military uniform. She argued that Turkey needed to establish a civilian service as an alternative to compulsory military conscription.

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Magden is one of a string of writers and journalists to stand trial for expressing opinions. Earlier this month the case against the bestselling author Elif Shafak, charged under Article 301 for "insulting Turkishness" in her latest novel, was reopened.

The novelist Orhan Pamuk faced similar charges for commenting on the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of the first world war. The charges against Pamuk were dropped for technical reasons late last year amid intense international pressure.

Valerie Plame Wilson, the Central Intelligence Agency covert officer whose name was publicly disclosed three years ago, is shopping a book proposal among a small group of publishers, according to two people familiar with the project. Both people were granted anonymity because their publishing companies have signed nondisclosure agreements about the content of the proposal.

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Ms. Wilson has remained virtually silent throughout the leak investigation, though she did pose with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair. No details were available about the contents of her proposed book.

Towelie's Memoirs are chosen for Oprah's Book Club in an all-new episode of South Park premiering Wednesday, April 19 at 10:00 P.M. on Comedy Central. Towelie’s book is the next big pick in Oprah’s Book Club in an all-new episode of South Park titled A Million Little Fibers premiering Wednesday, April 19 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Towelie gets over his drug addition and writes a moving book about his experiences. Thanks to Oprah’s support, the book becomes a best seller and his story inspires millions to turn their lives around. However, when he’s caught in a lie by the grand dame of daytime television, Towelie’s old habits start to look might appealing.

Hoping to cash in on the current domestic tragedy of the moment making headlines--that of Mary Winkler, the southern preacher's wife who, for still-inexplicable reasons, killed her husband and then fled the scene with their kids--St. Martin's Press has signed a book on the seemingly demure, down-home housewife. Winkler's story, which has been picked up by papers across the country and appeared in last week's People magazine, will be written by Diane Fanning (author of the similar-themed 2006 Edgar-nominated Written in Blood, about another spousal murder case in 2001); the work is tentatively titled (what else?) The Preacher's Wife.

The true crime title is being crashed by the house which hopes to, as publicist John Karle put it, "publish the book as soon as possible." Winkler is currently sitting in a Tennessee prison.

The suit, filed in Chicago on Monday, alleges that Levitt defamed researcher John Lott with comments about his research on gun control. Levitt writes in Freakonomics that no one has been able to replicate Lott’s research, which claims to have found that the right to carry guns leads to lower crime rates. The assertion that those findings have not been backed up with outside research, the lawsuit charges, implies that Lott falsified his results.

Freakonomics, which was published last May by Harper imprint Morrow, "damages Lott’s reputation in the eyes of the academic community in which he works, and in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of academics, college students, graduate students and members of the general public who read Freakonomics," the suit contends. As tracked by Nielsen BookScan, Freakonomics has sold more than 909,000 units since its release.

Lott, recently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is seeking unspecified damages, a stop in sales of Freakonomics and a retraction printed in future editions of the book. Levitt’s co-author, Stephen J. Dubner, was not named in the suit.