Nora Roberts' Secret to Success: 'Ass in the Chair'

Author claims assistant stole $2.7M

(NEWSER) - A long-time assistant has pleaded guilty to embezzling $400,000 from best-selling romance queen Danielle Steel. Kristy Watts admitted depositing checks for Steel into her own bank account and using the author's credit card points to obtain gifts and airline tickets. Steel, who has written 76 best-selling novels, claims Watts defrauded her of $2.7 million and has filed a civil suit against her. More»

You can look smart, but still get your fill of juicy sex

(NEWSER) - Paulina Porizkova “quit school at 15 to live off of my looks,” but she’s also a lifelong bookworm, she writes for Modelinia. Because she feels “the need to constantly prove I’m not some dumb model,” she offers up her “summer reading for folks who want to seem kinda smart”:

• A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth: Not only is this 1,488-page tome full of “good ol’ sex and drama,” you’ll learn all about India’s customs, politics, and religion.

Publishers roll dice on shocking French work by Yank Jonathan Littell

(NEWSER) - A novel about a Nazi officer with a taste for sodomy and incest might not scream “bestseller”—especially at nearly 1,000 pages long and translated from French. Yet Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones topped charts in France and precipitated a bidding war among US publishers. HarperCollins paid a reported $1 million, but early reviews have been deeply polarized, the New York Times notes. More»

In Pale King , deceased writer 'didn't want to do the old tricks'

(NEWSER) - David Foster Wallace fans can get a glimpse of the deceased writer’s unfinished novel tomorrow, when the New Yorker publishes an excerpt from The Pale King, the Washington Post reports. Wallace, who killed himself last fall, had been working on the book for years. The magazine will also run an article tracing The Pale King’s saga. More»

Yet another occupation for busy actor

(NEWSER) - Jack-of-multiple-trades James Franco is about to peddle his latest endeavor on Amazon. The actor's first novel, Actors Anonymous, has been acquired by Amazon's new fiction editor and the tome will head directly to the company's online store. The work is supposed to be a barely-fictionalized version of Franco's own experiences, reports the New York Observer . Franco's first book of short stories, Palo Alto, won less-than-stellar reviews from Gawker , which is also less than thrilled about the upcoming book. More»