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Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, dissident, and first president of the Czech Republic, has passed away; the Christian Science Monitor asks, "Is Slate's Amazon-defending blogger really a 'moron'?"; Author Robert McCrum lists the fifty things he's learned about the literary life; and other news.
Essayist Christopher Hitchens died last night at age sixty-two; the best independent bookstores on Twitter; great gift ideas for readers; and other news.
George Whitman, famed American bookseller in Paris, has passed away at 98; Courtney Maum writes of what she's learned after attending over two hundred readings less than a year; the New York Observer examines the trend of agents trawling popular blogs for potential books; and other news.
Novelist Sabina Murray writes about the female characters in Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot and Jonathan Franzen's Freedom; a centuries-old mystery was uncovered at West Virginia University—a love poem found pasted inside a 1561 edition of Chaucer; twenty-five things writers should know about rejection; and other news.
Author Richard Russo weighs in on Amazon's new Price Check app; Bill Clinton helped an independent bookstore have one of its biggest one-day sales in recent history; novelist Vanessa Veselka writes of her attempts to unionize her co-workers; and other news.
The future of poet Carl Sandburg's boyhood home is uncertain; ICM talent agency is in the process of a major restucturing; why television is supplanting film as the ideal venue for literary adaptions; and other news.
Poet Charles Bernstein discusses the Occupy Wall Street protests; New York City's Department of Health has ordered that Matilda, the Algonquin Hotel's famous lobby cat, be confined; hand-crafted dolls of famous writers; and other news.
The Department of Justice has confirmed it's looking into possible collusion over e-book pricing; poet Charles Simic reflects on his youth and age; Marilynne Robinson on American writing; and other news.
St. Martin’s Press answers plagiarism accusations over a book about Edgar Allan Poe's young bride; the Rumpus has some choice words for Amazon; Salon lists the top five books of fiction for 2011; and other news.
The New York Times details the international financing behind one of the adaptations of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; holiday gifts for writers they will actually use; a possible Jane Austen portrait has been discovered; and other news.
