LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Someone passed along a link to a video interview with the author of The Library Diaries.

It’s 30 minutes long. For those who don’t want to sit through it, here are some highlights.

Salman Rushdie received an apology in the high court this morning for lies in a book about his time under police protection.

Ron Evans, a former police officer who was part of the team protecting Rushdie while he was under a fatwa, made an apology through his solicitor on 11 counts of falsehoods in his book On Her Majesty's Service. Publisher John Blake also apologised.

Now well into his nineties, author Herman Wouk will be awarded the first Library of Congress Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction next month. His major works have been The Caine Mutiny, Marjorie Morningstar, Youngblood Hawke, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance and Don't Stop the Carnival.

Librarian of Congress James Billington says of the Pulitzer prize-winning author, "Herman Wouk's work epitomizes the historical novel and its ability to transcend its time and place to achieve universality in character and themes. (He) is a longtime supporter of the Library who has honored us with his presence on many occasions, and he was among the first group of recipients, during our bicentennial in 2000, of our Living Legend Award." More from bookweb.

More authors reject children's book age bands: The debate over moves to brand children's books with age bands has arisen once again, this time at the Edinburgh Book Festival, with authors saying that it is a marketing ploy that "oversteps the mark".

Franz Kafka's dying wish were that his papers be burned; thanks to his friend and fellow author Max Brod, we now can read "The Trial" and other works that were not published during his lifetime.

Brod's secretary, Esther Hoffe died last month at 101 years of age, and her 74 year old daughter, Hava, who inherited the Kafka papers, will make a decision in the next few months when and how they will be published. According to this San Francisco Chronicle article, Hava Hoffe is keeping scholars and archivists up at night wondering about the condition of what they believe are letters, diaries, photographs and perhaps unpublished works of the two Czech Jewish authors, with Kafka one of the best-known authors of the 20th century.

U.S. court was wrong to award rights to some of John Steinbeck's best-known novels, including "The Grapes of Wrath," to his son and granddaughter, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The appeals court decision overturns a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen in New York that had granted the rights to about 10 books to Steinbeck's son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter, Blake Smyle.

Vladimir Nabokov wanted his wife to burn the draft of his final novel...she didn't.

Now his son Dimitri, 74, has decided to publish the work entitled "The Original Laura."

A Publishing Primer Don't know your French flaps from your headbands? Here's a guide to the arcane terminology of the book world...

Investors can pay $2,000 (£1,000) in return for a 10 per cent share of the royalties of Tao Lin’s as-yet-unfinished second novel.

Tao posted details of his “initial public offering” on his popular literary blog last week and claims to have already lined up buyers for five of the six shares.

Writers' rooms: Here's a neat series from The Guardian that takes a look inside Famous Writers' rooms. Jane Austen, Charles Darwin and many, many more.