Book News, In Brief

Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has announced the topic of his next novel: The life of Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter.


Most professor's lectures only feel like they last forever. Some actually do. Fifty years after Strunk & White's The Elements of Style was published, and a little over a year after Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture hit the bestseller lists, both books are still selling strong.


The ancient Roman book trade and the publishing world of today have more in common than just a predilection for toga parties. According to The NYTimes, both share an unhealthy obsession with bestsellers, countless exploited and impoverished authors, and a fondness for celebrity book launches.


Within hours of Hugo Chavez handing Barack Obama a copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, the decades-old political/history book rocketed to bestseller status. This make it official: Obama has officially joined J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer as the third godhead in the '00's literary bestseller trinity.


It's a never-ending alimony for Tessa B. Dick! Ms. Dick, the last of Philip K. Dick's five divorced wives, has filed suit against two of Dick's daughters. Tessa claims that, "under the terms of her divorce agreement with the author," she is owed money for the film adaptations of Ubik and A Scanner Darkly. This, only two months after announcing her plans to 'rework' and self-publish The Owl in Daylight, the novel P.K. Dick was working on at the time of his death.