Book News, In Brief

Via Chron.com: "Author Douglas Brinkley says he's giving back the $100,000 advance he received from Penguin, for failing to promptly deliver a biography on writer Jack Kerouac. Penguin had sued Brinkley because he failed to finish the book in time to publish it on the 50th anniversary Kerouac's autobiographical novel On the Road."
Does anyone know if Brinkley tried to use the ol' 'Happy Belated Birthday Biography' line before returning the cash?

Via Xboxsolution.com:The newest installment in the Halo video game series was released this week, breaking all entertainment industry records (video games, music, movies and, yes, books) with a take of $170 million on the opening day alone. What does this have to do with bookstores, you ask? The next book in the spin-off/tie-in/cash-in series Halo: Contact Harvest hits stores on October 30th. This is the perfect book to push on lazy grandparents whose only knowledge of their kin is, 'Well, I know he/she likes video games.'

Via GuardianUK: "The mobile phone has changed the way Japanese teens read. Our media will be morphing soon, too. The latest of a new best-selling type of story, the keitai shosetsu, literally 'portable (phone) novel,' is read not on a page but on your phone screen. Of Japan's top 10 bestselling fiction works in the first half of this year, five began life as keitai shosetsu. Moved from pixel to page, their average sale is 400,000."