Category: Books

British novelist writes new James Bond book
British novelist Sebastian Faulks has written a new James Bond novel to mark the centenary of creator Ian Fleming’s birth, Fleming’s family announced Wednesday.
The new 007 adventure, Devil May Care, will be published May 28, 2008, on what would have been Fleming’s 100th birthday. The Fleming estate said the novel is set during the Cold War and involves espionage across two continents in “several of the world’s most thrilling cities.”
The family announced last year that it had commissioned a “well known and highly respected” writer to create a new adventure for the suave superspy, but had kept the author’s identity secret.
Speculation had centred on thriller writers including John LeCarre and Frederick Forsyth.
Faulks, 54, is best known for a trilogy of novels set in France ó The Girl at the Lion d’Or, the First World War saga Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, a Second World War Resistance story that was made into a movie starring Cate Blanchett.
Faulks said he was surprised but flattered to have been chosen.
Rereading Fleming’s novels, he said, “I was surprised by how well the books stood up.”
“I put this down to three things: the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style that hasn’t dated,” Faulks said.
Faulks said his book’s style was “about 80 per cent Fleming.”
“I didn’t go the final distance for fear of straying into pastiche, but I strictly observed his rules of chapter and sentence construction. My novel is meant to stand in the line of Fleming’s own books, where the story is everything.
“I hope people will enjoy reading it and that Ian Fleming would consider it to be in the cavalier spirit of his own novels and therefore an acceptable addition to the line,” he added.
First introduced in 1953
Fleming, a journalist and wartime intelligence officer, introduced James Bond in Casino Royale in 1953.
The stylish, womanizing spy went on to appear in 13 more books, the last of which, Octopussy and the Living Daylights, was published in 1966, two years after Fleming’s death.
Other writers have since written Bond books, including Kingsley Amis ó who published Colonel Sun in 1968 under the pseudonym Robert Markham ó and Charlie Higson, who imagines the spy as a teenager in his series of Young Bond novels.
Corinne Turner, managing director of the family-owned Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., said the family was delighted with Faulks’s manuscript and that Barbara Broccoli, producer of the Bond films, had been impressed by its verisimilitude.
There was no word on whether Devil May Care would be filmed. All Fleming’s original Bond novels have been turned into movies, most recently last year’s Casino Royale.
Devil May Care will be published in Britain by Penguin and in the United States by Doubleday.

Rowling on 8th Potter Book: “Never Say Never”
Author J.K. Rowling has apparently left the door ajar for an eighth Harry Potter novel.
Asked during a BBC interview Friday night about the possibility of reviving the series in the future, Rowling reiterated that her seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to be published on July 21, will be the last, but she added that her motto has always been “never say never.”
A spokesman for Rowling said Sunday: “It’s not saying that she definitely is [going to write another Potter book], and it’s not saying that she definitely isn’t. I cannot comment further.”
Meanwhile, the British bookstore chain Waterstone’s launched an online petition Sunday that begins with the words, “We, the undersigned, petition J. K. Rowling to write more new adventures for Harry Potter and his friends no matter what happens at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
And what if Rowling kills off Harry in the final book?
Well, the bookstore observed, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in 1893 in The Adventure of the Final Problem but brought him back to life after a public outcry.

Borat, the book, coming this fall
NEW YORK – Glorious booksellers of America: Please welcome the esteemed Borat Sagdiyev.
The ever eloquent ambassador from Kazakhstan has a book, with two titles, coming out this fall: “Borat: Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and A.” and “Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
“There is one and only Borat and we are honored to have him join our pantheon of international writers,” Suzanne Herz, publisher of Flying Dolphin Press, an imprint of Random House, Inc.’s Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, said in a statement Wednesday.
“There is no doubt he will deliver a brilliant book.”
According to Flying Dolphin Press, “one half will be a guide to America for Kazakhs and the other half … a guide to Kazakhstan for Westerners.” It will feature Borat’s timeless wisdom, plus illustrations and photographs.

Potter author pleads: Don’t spoil plot
NEW YORK – J.K. Rowling has a request for those with inside dirt on her seventh and final Harry Potter book: Please keep it to yourself.
“We’re a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon,” Rowling wrote on her Web site Monday.
“I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are they going.”
The author’s comments came in response to an April 28 editorial by a leading Potter fan site, http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, which noted that it had been receiving “spoiler” e-mails ó and expected many more ó alleging advance knowledge of the book’s contents.
Rowling has said two major characters will die in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which comes out July 21. Although the Potter books are released under tight security, copies often are obtained before the publication date.
“If Harry dies, we don’t want to know about it until J.K. Rowling decides to tell us,” Leaky Cauldron webmaster Melissa Anelli wrote. “And if you decide to tell us before that, you’ll incur the wrath of a staff of almost 200, most of whom have been waiting almost 10 years for these final revelations and can NEVER get back the moment you rob by spoiling them.
“That’s some wrath right there. We own pitchforks, hot wax and feathers. And we’re not afraid to use them.”
On Monday, Rowling seconded the fan site’s plea.
“Some, perhaps, will read this and take the view that all publicity is good publicity, that spoilers are part of hype, and that I am trying to protect sales rather than my readership,” Rowling wrote on http://www.jkrowling.com. “However, spoilers won’t stop people buying the book, they never have – all it will do is diminish their pleasure in the book.”
More than 300 million copies have sold of the previous six Potter books. “Deathly Hallows” has more than 1 million pre-orders on Amazon.com alone.

Lyrics by Sting coming out in book form
NEW YORK – The lyrics of Sting, almost every word he wrote, from his solo records to his years with the Police, will come out in book form this fall.
“Lyrics by Sting” will include the words of such hits as “Roxanne,” “Every Breath You Take” and “Spirits in the Material World,” along with commentary by Sting.
“Over time, the meaning of a song can continue to reveal itself,” Sting, the bassist and lead vocalist for the Police, said Monday in a statement released by The Dial Press, an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group.
“In putting this book together, I have relished the opportunity to revisit my songs, the times in which they were written and pay tribute to those with whom I’ve shared my creative life.”
The Police, which includes Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland, broke up in 1986, but have reunited and will tour North America and Europe this summer and fall.
Sting has also written a memoir, “Broken Music,” which came out in 2003.

After 50 years, a tip of the hat to one cool ‘Cat’
He’s still the fanciest feline in literature and and it’s still a classic “home alone” story.
A brazen cat strolls uninvited into the home of a boy and girl whose mother is out. To the children’s horror, he proceeds to trash the house ó he calls it “lots of good fun that is funny!” Miraculously (with the help of Thing One and Thing Two), he manages to tidy up before Mom comes home.
He’s the Cat in the Hat, and he turns 50 on Thursday.
The Cat in the Hat was published jointly by Houghton Mifflin and Random House on March 1, 1957. It was the 13th children’s book by Theodor Seuss Geisel, who came to be known as Dr. Seuss. It made him a household name and his trickster furball a pop-culture icon.
Random House (now the sole U.S. publisher) estimates it has sold 10.5 million copies. Millions more ó no one knows how many ó have been sold by mail-order book clubs.
The Cat in the Hat was a product of the postwar baby boom. In 1957, 29 million children were in kindergarten and elementary school. The “Dick and Jane” primers used to teach reading were considered dull and uninspiring.
Challenged by a Houghton Mifflin executive to write a story that “first-graders wouldn’t be able to put down,” Geisel created The Cat in the Hat. The rest is publishing history.
“Teaching children how to read with The Cat in the Hat was a real breath of fresh air,” says Philip Nel, whose The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats (Random House, $30) was recently published. “The rhymes just propel the reader along.”
Geisel was asked to use only 223 words from a list of 348 words for beginning readers. He ended up using 236. Even though it has been around for half a century, Cat is still popular with kids (and parents) and sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year.
It became a much-maligned movie starring Mike Myers as the cat in 2003.
“Reading it is like listening to a great song,” says Nancy Karpyk, who teaches kindergarten in Weirton, W.Va. “When I read it to my students, the rhythm of it makes them feel good. They love the rhymes, and they love the way the cat struts in the illustrations.”
But it’s what the cat gets away with that may have clinched his legacy.
“He’s a rebel, and Americans identify with rebels,” Nel says. “He’s a con artist who creates a sense of possibility like the Wizard of Oz or Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.”
Some Cat facts:
ïGeisel thought he could write the book in a week, but it took him a year and a half.
ïThe cat’s face is said to have been inspired by that of a Houghton Mifflin elevator operator who Geisel thought had “a secret smile” and who wore gloves.

Canadian publisher interested in O.J.’s If I Did It
A Canadian publisher has expressed interest in releasing O.J. Simpson’s book, If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened.
Montreal-based Barclay Road Inc. issued a statement Monday saying that it “would be prepared to look at and possibly publish” the cancelled title from the former football star and actor.
In the book, Simpson was to have discussed how, hypothetically, he could have killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman.
“Although those at Barclay Road were disgusted by the initial information surrounding the book, representatives decided that in order to do justice to the name of free speech, giving the manuscript a read might just prove that the press did not have all the facts,” the statement read.
Barclay Road said it has been in contact with Simpson’s representatives and that, if a deal occurred, it would “look at re-titling and creating a new cover for the book.”
The company has previously published books by motivational writer Og Mandino and former Hearst Newspaper Group chief Robert Danzig.
In 1994, Barclay Road imprint Lifetime Books met controversy with its book All the Secrets of Magic Revealed: The Tricks and Illusions of the World’s Greatest Magicians. Magician David Copperfield tried to block publication of the book, which was eventually released in 1995.
Simpson’s book ó and a corresponding Fox TV special ó were called off in November by News Corp. after an outcry from critics and the families of the victims. HarperCollins, the News Corp. subsidiary that was scheduled to publish the book, said at the time all copies of the book would be destroyed, including some that had already been shipped to stores.
Simpson was acquitted on criminal charges of murder in 1995, but later lost a civil suit for “wrongful death” in the killings. He was ordered to pay the Goldman family $33.5 million US.

Final Harry Potter book due out in July
LONDON – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the last of seven installments of the boy wizard’s adventures, will be published July 21, author J.K. Rowling said Thursday.
Rowling announced the publication date on her Web site.
Bloomsbury, her British publisher, said it would publish a children’s hardback edition, an adult hardback, a special gift edition and an audio book on the same day.
Scholastic Children’s Books, the U.S. publisher, said it would offer a hardback edition at a suggested retail price of $34.99, a deluxe edition at $65.00 and a reinforced library edition at $39.99.
Bloomsbury noted that this year is the 10th anniversary of the publication of the first “Harry Potter” book in the phenomenally successful series.
The “Potter” books have sold 325 million copies worldwide and been translated into 64 languages, Bloomsbury said.
The last book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” sold 2,009,574 copies in Britain on the first day of its release, Bloomsbury said.
The Potter franchise is so important to the company’s earnings that it announced the publication to the London Stock Exchange.
Bloomsbury shares were up 2.2 percent to $4.40 after the announcement.

…Rowling names last book in Potter saga
LONDON – J.K Rowling announced on Thursday that the seventh and final book in her teenage wizard saga will be called “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”.
No publication date has yet been set.
The British author confessed on her website this week that Potter, the creation that has turned her into one of the world’s most popular and successful authors, had now entered her dreams.
“For years now, people have asked me whether I ever dream that I am ‘in’ Harry’s world,” she wrote. “The answer was ‘no’ until a few nights ago when I had an epic dream in which I was, simultaneously, Harry and the narrator.”
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‘Grinch’ poised to ring in the big 5-0
He may have been about as “cuddly as a cactus and as charming as an eel,” but the Grinch definitely has enduring appeal.
The book that introduced the grumpy, green Dr. Seuss creation who tried to thwart Christmas turns 50 next year.
To get a jump on the event, Warner Home Video last month released a 50th Birthday Deluxe Edition DVD of the animated special Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the first time it has been remastered.
“If yuletide comes, so comes the Grinch,” says Audrey Geisel, 85, widow of Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, who died in 1991 at age 87. “Year after year after year The Grinch came out, and that rather surprised me as the years went by, but then I finally said it’s going to be there every single season.”
The book, which Seuss biographer Kathleen Krull says in a DVD interview took him “a week” to write (although the ending took “months”), is a perennial favorite. The animated special over the past five years has averaged 6.4 million viewers each airing. And the DVD, says Dorinda Marticorena of Warner Home Video, “every holiday season sells so well.”
The appeal, Geisel says, is the Grinch’s message, of course:
Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas Ö perhaps Ö means a little bit more.
“Ted liked the Grinch particularly because it went against the normal way of looking at Christmas,” says Geisel in a phone interview from her home on a hilltop in La Jolla, Calif. (Parked outside is her beloved gray 1984 Cadillac with the GRINCH plates.)
The holiday had become too materialistic, she says, and “Ted wanted to bring back the ho, ho without all the dough, dough. Making a heart grow three times is a nice thought.”
The craziness of Christmas was something Dr. Seuss felt even before he wrote about the Grinch, says Bill Dreyer, curator of the Seuss art collection.
“I just reviewed an artwork that Ted created in 1938 called Xmas Chaos,” Dreyer says. “This has never been seen. It’s been in a private collection for 70 years. It talks about in this artwork 20 years before Grinch, the treadmill or whirlpool of the holiday. You jump on and get thrown off. It’s interesting that the Grinch is the medium through which Ted delivers his philosophical idea about the holiday (being) hijacked by commercialization.”