Plot Rumors Leak on Fourth Stieg Larsson Novel

After dozens of attempts, artist arrived at distinctive design

(NEWSER) - It's everywhere you look—at the beach, on the subway, in the waiting room. Americans are devouring The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and the bestselling novel's distinctive cover has a pretty good story of its own, reports the Wall Street Journal . Designer Peter Mendelsund went through dozens of possibilities, and the fact that the title had to be changed—in the original Swedish, it's Men Who Hate Women—didn't make the process easier. More»

Stephen King, Christopher Hitchens make the cut

(NEWSER) - If you need a book recommendation for holiday reading, look no further than the New York Times ' list of the 10 best books of the year. Five are fiction and five non-fiction:

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King: A time portal sends an English teacher back to 1958 to try and stop Lee Harvey Oswald. King reflects "on questions of memory, fate, and free will as he richly evokes midcentury America."
• Swamplandia! By Karen Russell: "Exuberantly inventive language" marks this story of "a heroine who is wise beyond her years" as she tries to preserve her family's way of life. Also, an alligator theme park is involved.

'News of a Kidnapping' selling out after Mousavi comment

(NEWSER) - Want to know what it’s like to be an Iranian opposition leader under house arrest? Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of a Kidnapping. Ever since Mir Hossein Mousavi told his daughters the Colombian novel describes “my situation in captivity,” it’s been flying off the shelves in Iran, reports the Guardian . Mousavi’s comment to his daughters became an online sensation among Iran’s wired opposition; now, people are “queuing up to buy the book as if they were queuing up to buy a new Harry Potter,” said a Tehran journalist. More»

Eva Gabrielsson's memoir goes after his brother, father

(NEWSER) - The lifelong girlfriend of late Swedish author Stieg Larsson—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, et al—is staking her claim to the books' legacy in a new memoir, writes Sasha Watson in Slate . "It was from our lives and our 32 years side by side that the books were formed," writes Eva Gabrielsson. "They're the fruit of Stieg's experience, but also of mine." (Watson read the French version of the memoir and provided translation; the English version is due in June.) In true Lisbeth-Salander-like fashion, Gabrielsson is out to exact revenge on Larsson's brother and father, who she says are exploiting the series to make a buck. More»

Lead character based on man who later killed his mother

(NEWSER) - A Florida man confessed to killing his mother in the same fashion as a recently published novel describes: by beating her, cutting her open, and removing her inner organs. And the author of the novel admits that he based his main character partially on his friend, Beau Bruneau, 29—the man now accused of murdering his mother on Oct. 30. "It was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence," Patrick Quéré tells the Miami Herald . "It took me a while to really believe it." More»