Shiny Morning No New Dawn for Frey

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.

Author says he was 'ambushed' in 2006 interview

(NEWSER) - Oprah Winfrey is using two of The Oprah Winfrey Show's final eight episodes to revisit what she says is the biggest controversy of the show's 25-year history. Author James Frey was back on the show yesterday, five years after Oprah gave him a very public dressing-down for having invented large parts of his "memoir"—and Oprah's book club pick—A Million Little Pieces, reports the Los Angeles Times . More»

Critics divided over Bossypants as autobiography

(NEWSER) - It’s no surprise that Tina Fey’s autobiography, Bossypants, is hilarious; on that much critics agree. But there’s some dissent over whether it does its job as a memoir:

• “The most successful autobiographies demand a certain amount of psychic heavy lifting, risk taking, and interrogation of one’s ideas; Fey will have none of it,” writes Anna Holmes in Newsweek . “Edging up to difficult truths and skipping away may make for sophisticated sitcoms, but it doesn’t make for satisfying memoir writing.”

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»

Controversial author hires writers to churn out novels on the cheap

(NEWSER) - James Frey, infamous for angering Oprah with his "fake memoir" A Million Little Pieces, idolizes Vonnegut, Hemingway, and Henry Miller. He's the kind of writer who talks about wanting to "change the game" and "move the paradigm." Yet he's also the head of Full Fathom Five, a young-adult novel factory that pays writers nearly nothing to churn out highly commercial books for Frey—who hopes to eventually stumble upon the next Twilight or Harry Potter. Suzanne Mozes, who briefly aspired to join the program after hearing Frey pitch it during one of her Columbia graduate writing seminars, discloses the controversial inner workings in a lengthy New York article. More»