One title headed for the top of bestseller lists this season is Malcolm Gladwell’s forthcoming OUTLIERS, written in the same style as his previous works but with a more earnest focus. As he puts it: “This is very specifically not a self-help book. It’s a book that’s very much about collective and social organized change. I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be. […]
Authors
Sister Sues Sister over Novel
Author of GILDING LILY Tatiana Boncompagni Hoover has sued her sister Natasha, alleging copyright infringement in charging that she secretly copied portions of the forthcoming novel HEDGE FUND WIVES. But the suit is also designed to invalidate claims by Natasha of rights in the work. Reuters says there are two filings for the book with the US Copyright Office–a joint copyright for both sisters submitted by Natasha, and a subsequent one from Hoover. The suit acknowledges that Natasha at the least “occasionally provided ideas relating” to the book. It claims that Natasha “shocked” her sister in asking for co-author credit […]
Appeals Court Says Trump Sources Can be Protected
A New Jersey court of appeals overturned a lower court verdict against author Timothy O’Brien and Hachette Book Group, ruling that he does not have to reveal the sources for his claim in the book TrumpNation that Donald Trump was worth between $150 million and $250 million a fraction of what he claims. The court said the details of Trump’s life are a matter of public interest.AP
Canseco Expresses Regret
After two books worth of milking his steroid accusations (one successful; the second, less so), former baseball player Jose Canseco now says in an A&E documentary he “regrets mentioning players [as steroid users]. I never realized this was going to blow up and hurt so many people.” Oddly, in this ESPN write-up, Canseco says he would “apologize” to the baseball players named in his first book (Mark McGwire and others)–most of whom continue to be suspected or confirmed as one-time steroid users–but there’s no mention of players like Alex Rodriguez, accused in the more thinly-grounded second book JUICED. More to […]
King Deadline Comes with No Apparent Delivery
Penguin had said they would cancel their contract for an autobiography based on taped conversations with the late Coretta Scott King if “promised photos, personal writings and intimate letters” were not delivered by today. Attorney for King Inc. Nicole Wade indicates to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the delivery deadline had already been postponed several times. “These papers were originally supposed to be provided in July. They’ve been rather patient.” The AJC says “last week a judge ordered Bernice King, executor of her mother’s estate, and Martin Luther King III to turn over their mother’s papers to an auditor or ‘special […]
Gore Vidal Fractures Spine
The 83-year-old author was injured in a fall and cancelled an appearance at an Ohio library, but is recuperating at home. He tells the AP he’s working on a new novel about the U.S.-Mexican war in the 1840s. “I have every intention of completing it,” he said. “I am just sorry that I couldn’t come to Ohio during such a historic election. It was very hard to keep me away.”AP