From Romantic Lemons, Literary Lemonade

Author of Blindness deals with death in new novel

(NEWSER) - The premise of Jose Saramago’s Death With Interruptions seems a bit cutesy at first, with a Buffy-esque Grim Reaper deciding to take some time off her job, writes Shannon McBeen in Radar. But as Saramago explores the ramifications of universal immortality, he manages to transform “the admittedly weak premise into a wry, smart, absurd, original novel” by dint of sheer “effing good writing.” More»

Cheaper books lose 'second-best' reputation

(NEWSER) - With customers watching their wallets, publishers are pinning their hopes this year on trade paperback books—not super-cheap mass-market paperbacks, but not hardcovers either, USA Today reports. And critics and authors who once disdained the format are warming to it. “I realized that I really want as many people to read the book as possible,” said one first-time novelist. More»

(NEWSER) - The follow-up to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code should finally see the light of day later this year, the New York Observer reports. Publisher Doubleday says The Lost Symbol will hit shelves Sept.15, 4 years after originally hoped. The first print run will be 5 million copies, the publisher’s largest ever. “This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history, and it was well worth the wait,” said a Doubleday exec. More»

Niffenegger wrote surprise 2003 hit The Time Traveler's Wife

(NEWSER) - Defying reports that publishers are in the poorhouse, Audrey Niffenegger, author of the huge bestseller, The Time Traveler’s Wife, has received a nearly $5 million advance for a new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, the New York Times reports. Her agent said the whopping payout from Scribner, a unit of Simon & Schuster, is for a manuscript that's already complete. More»

One-star reviews offer relief from literary anxiety

(NEWSER) - Anne Enright's The Gathering won the prestigious Booker Prize and dozens of adulatory reviews, but Cynthia Crossen of the Wall Street Journal didn't find much to admire in the bleak story of a dysfunctional family. Luckily, there's a place to vent such disappointment, she writes: amid Amazon's readers' reviews, where best-sellers and classics alike come in for bitter complaint and bad-mannered invective. More»