When Judge Robert Patterson barred publication of RDR Books’ THE HARRY POTTER LEXICON, his ruling made it clear that the biggest problem was the lifting of JK Rowling’s words and the “almost wholesale” incorporation of information in the two minor charity companion books, Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages. The publisher and author have done the sensible thing–rewrite the book, using Judge Patterson’s decision as “rule book.” They will issue the revised Lexicon in January, with the new subtitle, An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials. RDR has withdrawn its appeal of the court’s ruling, a […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
Vintage Has Government Book on WMDs & Terrorism
Tomorrow the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, chaired by Senator Bob Graham, will report its findings to President Bush and Congress and Vintage will release the authorized version as a trade paperback, WORLD AT RISK: The Report of the Commission of the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism. The report is designed as “a measure for the next Administration’s national security strategy,” analyzing the current threat of WMD’s and our government’s ability to respond to them. Graham says “my own assessment at this point is the more likely form of attack is going to be […]
Buckely's Forthcoming Family Memoir
Christopher Buckley discusses his forthcoming book LOSING MOM AND POP, due for release in May. Discussing it in VF’s January issue, Buckley says: “I honestly had no intention of writing about them [his parents]. But I’m a writer, and when the universe hands you material like this, it would seem an act of conscious omission not to do something about it. It spilled out of me. I wrote it in 40 days – no biblical associations intended.” He notes, “This book is going to land hard in some quarters . . . It’s a book about two very complex people. […]
More on Nabokov's LAURA
Dmitri Nabokov “has finally broken his silence about the contents” of the late Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, which is set for publication rather than the burning originally called for by the author. And he shows the index cards on which it has written–which have been stored in a Swiss bank vault–to the BBC’s cameras. He told the BBC, “My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn’t name a book one intends to destroy. He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he […]
Huckabee's Campaign Begins with A Book
Has the 2012 election season started? Mike Huckabee’s book DO THE RIGHT THING: Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America lands today, and most media interprets the book as the first part of an effort to build an Obama-esque movement among young conservatives for the next election. Time magazine leads: “in terms of payback, it will not disappoint. At once a memoir of his campaign, a treatise on the ills of the Republican Party and a blueprint for his own political future, Do the Right Thing is filled with sharp words for his fellow Republicans who frustrated […]
On Kitty on Oprah
December’s Chicago Magazine will carry a story called Bagging the Media Queen, looking at Kitty Kelley’s research and forthcoming book on Oprah Winfrey. The Sun-Times says the article “makes it pretty clear Kelley’s long-anticipated book about the TV queen will not be a puff piece. Kelley told all of the people she’s interviewed that her Oprah project will not be a hatchet job…. Yet the Chicago mag story points out that even after spending a hour or two listening to glowing tales about Oprah, Kelley eventually gets around to questions about sex, drugs and old boyfriends.”Sun-Times