Helen Fielding, the godmother of chick lit, has written a new Bridget Jones novel, which will be published in November by Knopf. Title TBD.
An Idaho state senator has introduced legislation would require high school students to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, “a novel touted by conservatives like Rep. Paul Ryan and Rush Limbaugh.”
Regan Arthur has been named the publisher and senior vice-presidentof Little, Brown, officially taking the position left open when Michael Pietsch became the CEO of Hachette in September of last year. Arthur, who has worked for Little, Brown since 2001, has edited books by Tina Fey, Joshua Ferris, George Pelecanos, and others.
In an ongoing series for Paper Monument that asks writers to “choose and describe a single image,” Emily Witt considers the cover of a 1978 Pocket Books edition of Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays.
The New Statesman and Goldsmiths, University of London, are teaming up to launch a new literary prize designed to reward fiction that is “genuinely novel,” and “embodies the spirit of invention.” The award—which has not yet been named—grew out of a response to the judges of the Man Booker, who in the past have resisted awarding the Booker to writers like Hari Kunzru or Edward St. Aubyn on the grounds that their novels might not “appeal to the average intelligent reader.” The deadline for submissions to the new New Statesman prize is the end of March, and will be awarded in October.
For the second year in a row, Washington D.C. has been named thecountry’s most literate city, with Seattle, WA., and Minneapolis, MN., holding tight in the second and third spots. New York came in at number 21.
