
Cannes: James Franco builds a bookish filmography
James Franco's filmography is starting to look like a book shelf — and a very respectable one, at that. The 35-year-old American has already played ...

Piers Morgan writing book about life at CNN
Piers Morgan is going behind the scenes. The host of CNN's "Piers Morgan Live" has a deal with Gallery Books for "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God, ...

Harry Potter book with author notes sold for $228K
For fans of the boy wizard, this could be the most coveted copy of all the "Harry Potter" books in the world. A first edition copy of "Harry Potter ...

Annotated 'Harry Potter' 1st edition on auction
A first edition copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" that contains author J.K. Rowling's notes and original illustrations is going on ...

Filipino director takes new look at Bataan march
A film that weaves together stories of the anguish and desperation of American and Filipino soldiers during the notorious Bataan Death March could ...

1969 Hendrix telegram: Can Paul come to play?
Miles and Jimi. Jimi and Miles. Fans of the late trumpet and guitar masters have long known that Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix had been making plans ...
British director Bryan Forbes dies at age 86
British film director Bryan Forbes, whose work includes the original 1970s horror classic "The Stepford Wives," has died at age 86 after a long ...
Prizes awarded for translated fiction, poetry
An experimental Hungarian novel and a collection of Romanian poetry have won prizes for best English language translations. Laszlo Krasznahorkai's ...

Rushdie relives magic of 'Midnight's Children'
Thanks to the printed word and the moving image, Salman Rushdie has recaptured the worst part of his life and relived one of the best. Last fall, the ...

Book of interviews with future pope out April 30
A book of interviews with the future Pope Francis will be coming out in English at the end of the month. "Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge ...

Zadie Smith on Granta best young novelists list
Newcomer Taiye Selasi and established best-seller Zadie Smith have been named to Granta magazine's list of best young British novelists — a ...

Pope taps cardinals to advise on governing, reform
Pope Francis named eight cardinals from around the globe Saturday to advise him on running the Catholic Church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, ...

Pope faces tough decisions as Vatican reforms loom
Pope Francis has spent much of his first month as pope charming ordinary Catholics with his ordinary yet extraordinary papal ways and making clear he ...
Cecil hits out at contents of biography
Esteemed British racecourse trainer Henry Cecil has hit out at a soon-to-be-published biography that contains "unhappy and difficult phases" of his ...
Nominees announced for English translation prize
A novel by Romanian-born German Nobel laureate Herta Muller is among the finalists for prizes given for best English language translations of fiction ...

Thatcher had troubled relations with UK sports
Margaret Thatcher barely concealed her distaste for sports while serving as prime minister of Britain. Instead, she tried to use the athletic arena ...
Cuba culture official demoted after NY Times op-ed
A leading Cuban cultural official said Friday that he has been demoted nearly two weeks after he published an opinion piece in the New York Times that ...

Pope Francis still has most of his right lung
Does the pope have only one lung? Despite erroneous reports that Pope Francis has lived most of his life with just one lung, the surgery actually only ...
Argentine illustrator wins child literature prize
Argentine illustrator and writer Marisol Misenta, better known as Isol, won the 5 million kronor ($780,000) Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for ...

British horror author James Herbert dies at 69
He was a "Grand Master" of horror and rats were one of his specialties. British horror writer James Herbert, whose best-selling spine-tinglers ...
Poet Ponsot, 91, wins lifetime achievement award
Poet, teacher and translator Marie Ponsot has won a $100,000 lifetime achievement award. The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation announced Monday the ...

Argentine publisher reissues book on Pope Francis
The naming of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis has inspired the enthusiasm not only of many Roman Catholics, but also of a publisher planning to ...

Malaysia's Tan Twan Eng wins Man Asia book prize
Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng's novel "The Garden of Evening Mists" has won the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize. Tan's novel is set in the traumatic ...
New Folio Prize to reward English-language fiction
A new literary prize is hoping to beat the Booker to the title of Britain's most prestigious fiction award — in part by including Americans.
Hilary Mantel up for 3rd major literary award
Hilary Mantel is homing in on a clean sweep of Britain's three top literary prizes with a nomination for the Women's Prize for fiction. The novelist ...