Making sure her eight-year-old son, Jose, is a proficient reader is important to Joanne Ibarra, so books are also important. They just might not be coming from Baytown's Sterling Library anymore. "I don't want to see them. I don't want to see any more books, not right now," laughed Ibarra.

Ibarra laughs it off, but it was a serious situation that all started Tuesday when a Baytown officer pulled her over for a traffic violation near Commerce and West Texas Avenue. The officer issued three traffic citations for disregarding a traffic sign, no insurance, and no driver's license. But then he found a warrant and the cuffs came out. Ibarra couldn't believe the reason for her arrest. "I didn't know you could go to jail for not returning a library book," she said. "It's a violation of the city ordinance," explained Baytown Assistant City Manager Kelvin Knauf.

Knauf said both the city attorney and the library sent Ibarra notices about her overdue book and her $118 fine. After months with no response, a warrant was issued for her arrest and the rest is history. Ibarra says she never received the notices because she moved, but she accepts responsibility for her actions, even though she thinks the consequence was extreme.

The futuristic tale tells the story of children who are called "Uglies" until they reach 16 and get surgically transformed into the attractive "Pretties," who move to the glamorous part of town. A precocious teen is threatened with being denied the procedure unless she spies on a pal who skipped the operation and joined a rebellious group.

The studio has bought the three-book series for a potential franchise. The second novel, "Pretties," is near the top of the young adult best-seller lists; Westerfeld's third installment, "Specials," was also released this year. The studio has begun the search for a writer to adapt the book.

More than 2,000 excited youngsters joined colourful characters from the nation's favourite story books to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Alice in Wonderland, Bob the Builder, Wallace and Gromit, Noddy and Tracy Beaker were among the famous fictional faces on show.

From cartoons to classic tales, around 80 costumed characters descended on the Queen's neatly trimmed lawns which stretched over 39 acres. The highlight of the surreal royal party was a live show, featuring more than 30 stars.

"The Queen's Handbag" centred around the search for the monarch's stolen bag which contained her "royal spectacles" and speech for the end of the show. It featured, among others, Jonathan Ross as a portly Fat Controller, Anthony Head as Captain Hook, Amanda Redman as Cruella de Vil, Jerry Hall as Queen of the Pirates, Dani Harmer who plays Tracy Beaker, Nicholas Lyndhurst as Cruella's chauffeur, Joe Pasquale as the White Rabbit and Ronnie Corbett as Mr Tibbs the butler.

The Queen herself played her own starring role in the pantomime. She took to the stage after the finale to be given the missing shiny black leather handbag which had been recovered using a magic Harry Potter spell. To cheers from the audience, she opened it, pulling her glasses from the bag, holding them aloft before putting them on. Then taking out her speech, she told the audience: "I am delighted to have my handbag back, I do like happy endings."

Focus Features is in discussions to take international rights on the pic. Sony will distribute domestically. Shooting is skedded to begin this fall in London. Ruby Films' Alison Owen and BBC Films' David Thompson are producing. Scott Rudin exec produces.

The film was originally developed by the U.K.-based Owen and BBC Films, which optioned the book and made a telefilm based on it. Rudin, who worked with the BBC on "Iris," became involved last summer, ultimately bringing the pic to Sony. Portman recently wrapped Mandate Pictures' Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. She also has a role in Wong Kar Wai's indie My Blueberry Nights, filming this summer.

Bana will next star in Warner Bros.' Lucky You. Chadwick directed Bleak House, the series based on Dickens' novel. The Other Boleyn Girl is his first feature.

"I'm excited to bring such a well known brand into the Wiley fold," said Robert Chiarelli, vice president and publisher at Wiley. "Microsoft is synonymous with quality, integrity and cutting-edge technology. Microsoft Executive Circle books will show how the interaction between business needs and technological innovation impacts all aspects of global business."

The series is expected to generate six to 12 books a year on such topics as communications, security, data integrity, technological and strategic alignment, performance, value, research, and investments in the future. Authors will come from both inside and outside Microsoft. The books are a strong strategic fit with Wiley's successful list of titles for C-level executives in global corporations.

"Senior executives have asked us to help them bridge the gap between business strategy execution and technological capabilities. By working with John Wiley & Sons, the leader in business publishing, we are investing in exciting new resources to help line-of-business and IT executives speak a common language. Ultimately, we hope this insight assists them in their effort to gain greater ROI on technology investments and grow in their ability to innovate," said Jeffrey James, director of Microsoft's Executive Circle program.

At present, there is no common standard used by producers and manufacturers. As a result, customers can't read a Palm e-book on a Microsoft Reader, noted Nick Bogaty, executive director of the IDPF. If companies adopt the new standards, not only will customers be able to read e-books on different devices, but e-books will be cheaper and easier to produce, which should lead to more titles being available, said Bogaty. "We're looking to create the MP3 for e-books," Bogaty said about the goal of attaining file flexibility.

Two working groups have been created to establish the new specifications. The two groups are the Unified OEBPS Container Format Working Group and the OEBPS Working Group

The Container Format working group is set to release a container format to allow publishers to release only a single standard file into their sales and distribution channels instead of the multiple proprietary files that they currently produce. The container format is expected to be submitted to the IDPF for approval in the next several weeks.A draft specification is publicly available here.

In the second specification, the OEBPS Working Group is developing the next generation of OEBPS to improve this XML-based standard as both a production and a final delivery format for digital publications.The effort will focus on detailed control of content rendering, navigation and accessibility, and alignment with other standards efforts. It could be ready by year end.

In a high-six-figure deal, Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures acquired screen rights to the Max Brooks novel "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War." Brad Pitt's Plan B will produce.

Brooks' follow-up to satire "The Zombie Survial Guide" sparked a bidding battle, with Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way on the other side of the table from ParPar and Pitt.

Book is a sober telling of the aftermath of a war fought against a legion of humans who were inflicted with a virus, died and were reanimated into flesh-eating zombies.

"Since I know so much about the Amish I decided to write mysteries about them," says Gaus. "To illuminate as much of their practices and beliefs as I could."

His first mystery, "Blood of the Prodigal," dealt with repentance and forgiveness within the Amish community. His second, "Broken English," addressed pacifism and revenge.

Greed and avarice were examined in "Clouds without Rain," and his fourth book, "Cast a Blue Shadow," exposed child abuse in closed Amish society.

Gaus's newest mystery, "A Prayer for the Night," captures the tensions of an Amish tradition called "Rumspringa," a rite of passage when 16-year-olds are set free from church rules and allowed to experiment with technology, sex, drugs, and alcohol. Large Amish communities like the one in Holmes County are anonymous enough to support a youth subculture where Rumspringa may spawn adolescent gangs, some more rebellious than others.

Moss had decided to write the book following allegations about her drug abuse, culminating in her being photographed in a British newspaper appearing to snort cocaine. However, contactmusic.com report that Kate has now changed her mind, since the police decided not to prosecute her.

Mark Borkowski, a public relations expert, has said: "The book deal was a wise move at the time, but it is a wiser move now to pull out as she has got her career back on track." "She is perceived to have cleaned up her act, so she can save the memoirs for a rainy day when she needs to re-invent herself," he added.

"I'm too old to write new comedy," Cleese, 66, was quoted as saying Monday by The Times newspaper. "I can never do better than Fawlty Towers, whatever I do. Now I very much want to teach young talent some rules of the game."

Cleese, one of the founders of anarchic comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus, told the newspaper that the book would range from "the greats of silent cinema to Ricky Gervais, who is the height of modern entertainment."

Cleese said it would include film comedians such as Harold Lloyd and the Marx Brothers, as well as playwrights including Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett, who created a new comedy-drama hybrid in the 1960s and 70s.

Fawlty Towers, which ran for only 12 episodes in 1975 and 1979, is regarded by many as the funniest sitcom ever made.

But times have changed. This is the age of "Harry Potter," when children's books regularly leap over the million mark, when kids sleep on SpongeBob SquarePants sheets and tote a Dora the Explorer backpack to school.

Where's Waldo fit? Good news for fans -- experts say he'll fit in just fine.

"My guess is there will certainly be children who've never seen Waldo before who will be quite interested by this," says Anita Silvey, author of "100 Best Books for Children" (Houghton Mifflin, $20, 208 pages). For starters, she says, children's books simply never go out of style.

"If you tap into either the fantasy life of children or something that interests them, it really doesn't matter what publication year you come out in."

The Dark Horse comic, tied to Funcom's upcoming massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, developed independently of the game, Dysart said in an interview. "I had absolutely no idea what was going on with the game when I sent my pitch in," Dysart said. "I wasn't in on the development of the game at all. All I knew was that Conan was the king of Aqualonia and that the comic had to depict some sort of life in that world."

The game centers on Conan as king of Aqualonia as he deals with ancient evils and dark forces that are abroad. The game features brutal combat and characters who meet uncertain destinies. For the comic, Dysart had to distill the game experience into a mere 16 pages. "Instead of actually following the narrative of what is essentially a never-ending mmo game, my job, with just 16 pages, was to set up the world so that certain elements of the game are established," he said. "Hopefully I've added some narrative propulsion to the idea."

The Age of Conan comic book, which features supplemental material by Tim Truman and the artwork of Tone Rodriguez and Cary Nord, was a constant challenge for the writer. "The biggest challenge was not really knowing what was going on with the game and then trying to get it all into 16 pages," he said. "I had to constantly keep changing story points. There were a lot of changes in the script and a lot of story mutations. But that's comics in general, especially when you're dealing with a licensed character."

Dysart will use the introductory Conan book as a jumping-off point for an original five-issue story arc titled Conan and the Midnight Gods, which will not be tied to the game. No release date for the series has been set. Funcom's Conan game will have its official launch in the fourth quarter of this year.

The time kids spend reading for fun declines sharply after age 8 and continues to drop off through the teen years, according to a new national study released today by Yankelovich, a leader in consumer trends tracking, and Scholastic, the global children’s publishing and media company. While 40% of kids between the ages of 5-8 years old are high frequency readers (reading for fun every day), only 29% of kids ages 9-11 years old are high frequency readers and the percentage continues to decline through age 17. The Kids and Family Reading Report, a national survey of children ages 5-17 and their parents, also found that parents can have a direct impact on their kids' reading attitudes and behaviors, especially by reading more frequently themselves and by helping kids find books they like.

*****

The importance of parents as reading role models is evidenced by the fact that children of high frequency readers are far more likely to read for fun every day than children whose parents are not high frequency readers. The study found that 53% of children whose parents are high frequency readers are reading books for fun every day; however, among children whose parents are low frequency readers (reading 2-3 times a month or less), only 15% read for fun daily. Parents who are high frequency readers are more likely to see themselves as primarily responsible for encouraging their children to read than parents who are low-frequency readers (60% vs. 46%).

"I'm proud of who I am, and I'm here right now to prove it," the legendary webslinger tells a press conference called in New York's Times Square, before pulling off his mask and standing before the massed ranks of reporters as newspaper photographer Peter Parker.

"Any questions?" Parker asks in the final panel of the issue, amid a barrage of camera flashes.

In a statement, Marvel trumpeted the revelation as "arguably the most shocking event in comic book history."

The seven-issue "Civil War" series, launched in May, sees Marvel's writers taking on the topical issue of civil liberties.

The actress has already planned a plot for her first foray into literature, and can't wait for the work to be in bookshops. She says: "They offered a huge deal and I like the idea of seeing my book on a shelf. The plot's top secret so far but let's just say I have a wild imagination."

Cooper's "Dispatches From the Edge," his hybrid mix of memoir and reportage, will hit the top spot on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list this week. The book displaces "Marley & Me," the phenom about a recalcitrant dog, and leapfrogs Tim Russert's collection "Wisdom of Our Fathers."

Achievement marks the first time in a while that a non-Fox News journo sits atop the list. Two years ago, Tom Brokaw did it with "The Greatest Generation," but that book wasn't a memoir and had the advantage of a glitzy premise.

Part of the reason for Cooper's sales bonanza? He's been flogging the book on "AC360" in the context of news stories related to Katrina. It's a trick Jon Stewart set the stage for when he promoted (with self-deprecating irony, natch) "America (The Book)" on "The Daily Show." Cooper's demeanor is perfect fodder for the book tour, where a dash of the confessional always helps. More than a thousand fans -- many of them wielding cameras -- lined up to see the anchor and have books signed at a Gotham Barnes & Noble last week.

GOOOAAAAL! There you have it, my complete depth of knowledge about World Cup Soccer, or any soccer really. Apparently I missed class the day they taught Franklin Foer's ground-breaking theory of "How Soccer Explains The World." Fortunately, we all get a make-up chance courtesy of Foer's new blog. What good is being the editor of an intellectually high-brow magazine like The New Republic if you can't use its Web site to blog about World Cup Soccer.

Created by Jack Kirby in 1976, the Eternals have always had an…uncomfortable fit in the Marvel Universe. Created in the prehistory of earth by the space-faring busybodies known as the Celestials, the Eternals are a race of super-powered humanoids with a family tree that would make most Mormons sigh with envy.

***

Traits: The Eternals' bodily cells contain cosmic energy, and they maintain constant mental control over every molecule of their bodies. Eternals are virtually immortal, and can be restored to life even if the molecules of their bodies are scattered. All Eternals possess the capacity for superhuman strength, telepathy, flight, teleportation, illusion-casting, transmutation of organic and inorganic matter, and the generation of various forms of energy from their bodies, including force, heat, light, and other electromagnetic radiation. Some Eternals have devoted themselves to specializing in a particular facet of their powers, and can increase their proficiency in one area by decreasing their power in another. The Eternal who serves as Prime Eternal can generate blue flame which will merge anyone who passes through it into a Uni-Mind, a powerful psychic entity which embodies the collective power of every individual who created it. A Uni-Mind requires the participation of at least seven Eternals in order to succeed.

A wickedly savage fictional rendition of Judith Regan — the savagely wicked doyenne of the Harper-Collins imprint ReganBooks — is making the rounds in Hollywood and among gleeful ex-employees of the 52-year-old publishing terror. Rest assured that she won't be publishing former ReganBooks editor Bridie Clark's novel, "Because She Can," which could alternatively be titled "The Devil Wears Pantsuits," though I doubt anyone will take me up on this suggestion.

Instead, Warner Books has scheduled February for the release of Clark's novel, which focuses on Vivian Grant, a wildly abusive, foul-mouthed, pantsuit-wearing publisher who favors down-market best sellers about strippers and pimps, boasts about her sexual escapades to overworked staffers, and carries on an extramarital affair with a New York City public official who — presumably unlike Regan's onetime paramour, former Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik — likes to be photographed wearing lipstick and lingerie.

The novel, a copy of which was provided to me by a Hollywood development exec, also contains a couple of lovely shout-outs to this column, which has toiled diligently over the past couple of years to report on Regan's excellent adventures. In one passage, the protago-nist, Claire Truman, receives an E-mail from a friend: "READ TODAY'S LLOYD GROVE … Then run for cover … I am scared for you." Clark — who, like the long-suffering Ms. Truman, worked for ReganBooks as an editor for about a year — could not be reached for comment yesterday. A ReganBooks publicist told me his boss also was unreachable.

After the show's overwhelming success earlier this year, when nearly 33,000 people attended the event—forcing fire marshals to turn ticket holders and exhibitors away at one point on Saturday because of overcrowding—the organizers of the con have decided to move its location to the more spacious third floor of the Jacob Javits Center, which will double the Con's size and allow more booth space to be rented when the show bows on Feb. 23-25.

"For a first time show, normally the worry is will anyone show up," said Greg Topalian, Group Vice President in charge of Launch Pad for Reed Exhibitions. "It was quite the opposite."

But for the 2007 edition of the show, there will be room for twice as many booths, the aisles will be twice the size and the lobby will be five times the size to make it feel less congested. Also, tickets bought ahead of time will be mailed directly to purchasers to make it easier to enter, and tickets will be cheaper for those who purchase ahead of time, a move strongly suggested by show officials.

"The more that we sell in advance, the easier it is to say to others that we're sold out," said Topalian. "That way they don't come down, park, and waste a day."

"For me, it's great exposure, because the kind of woman who wears DKNY clothes is the kind of woman who's going to like my book," says author Deborah Schoeneman, whose novel, 4% Famous (Shaye Areheart, $21.95), is about the world of gossip columnists in New York. She has been appearing at DKNY stores across the country.

DKNY spokeswoman Aliza Licht says Schoeneman was a perfect partner for DKNY because of the book's content and because "people love a happening. It's nice for customers already there, and it's a vehicle to get new customers." It's happening elsewhere:

Saks stores across the country hosted book signings for authors Jill Kargman and Carrie Karasyov for their novel, Wolves in Chic Clothing.

Ellyn Spragins did events at Eileen Fisher stores in New York and New Jersey for her book, What I Know Now.

Bergdorf Blondes author Plum Sykes appeared at Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Frederic Fekkai, Ferragamo, Neiman Marcus and Oscar de la Renta stores for The Debutante Divorcée.

*****

"It's tough these days, especially in the major markets, to get a big turnout for bookstore events," says Joanna Pinsker of Broadway Books, which published Wolves in Chic Clothing. "There are so many competing events, and unless you are a famous author, it's very hard to draw a lot of people to bookstore events," she says. "At these parties, there's a built-in list of people." Many of these events send invitations to VIP customers. "It hits our target market," says Marleah Stout of Harlequin. "They like hip clothes, cosmetics and shoes, and they may not go to bookstores." Harlequin has had success with such events and plans to do more. Last fall, Leeanne Banks, author of Feet First and Underfoot, did an event at the DSW shoe store in New York. This fall, Harlequin plans to hold an event for her new book, Footloose, during Fashion Week.

The new book is here, and the question devotees of A Simple Plan will want answered is whether or not this book generates anything like Plan's harrowing suspense. The answer is yes. The Ruins is going to be America's literary shock-show this summer, doing for vacations in Mexico what Jaws did for beach weekends on Long Island. Is it as successful and fulfilling as a novel? The answer is not quite, but I can live with that, because it's riskier. There will be reviews of this book by critics who have little liking or understanding for popular fiction who'll dismiss it as nothing but a short story that has been bloated to novel length (I'm thinking of Michiko Kakutani, for instance, who microwaved Smith's first book). These critics, who steadfastly grant pop fiction no virtue but raw plot, will miss the dazzle of Smith's technique; The Ruins is the equivalent of a triple axel that just misses perfection because something's wrong with the final spin.

It's hard to say much about the book without giving away everything, because the thing is as simple and deadly as a leg-hold trap concealed in a drift of leaves…or, in this case, a mass of vines. You've got four young American tourists--Eric, Jeff, Amy, and Stacy--in Cancun. They make friends with a German named Mathias whose brother has gone off into the jungle with some archeologists. These five, plus a cheerful Greek with no English (but a plentiful supply of tequila), head up a jungle trail to find Mathias's brother…the archaeologists…and the ruins.

• Once Upon Stilettos by Shanna Swendson (Ballantine Books), the hilarious and enchanting new urban fairy tale that combines chick-lit, magic and romance.
  
  
• Body Intelligence: Lose Weight, Keep It Off, and Feel Great About Your Body Without Dieting by Edward Abramson, Ph.D. (McGraw Hill), the revolutionary book that will help you lose those unwanted pounds permanently.
  
  
• The Alpine Recluse by Mary Daheim (Ballantine), the fascinating new Emma Lord mystery in which amateur sleuth Emma faces murder and arson in the tiny town of Alpine, Washington.
  
  
• The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni (Warner Books), the exciting new legal thriller about a brilliant trial attorney that is thrust into a whirlwind of danger and adventure.

IGN sought comment on this from the film's writer-director, David Hayter, who confirmed the bad news. Hayter told IGN that after Lionsgate dropped Black Widow, "Marvel and I then spoke to a few other financing entities, but I never felt comfortable that we had found a place that was willing to take the movie, and the character, seriously."

He continued, "I have put it aside until a reputable studio comes along, but in the meantime, I am heartbroken. I love this character, I love the story/world we came up with for her, and I sincerely hope the movie gets done some day. In the meantime, I am creating an original feature to shoot next year."

The 30-year-old London-born author took the £30,000 prize, celebrating female writing, at her third attempt. Her previous two novels, White Teeth and The Autograph Man, were shortlisted in 2001 and 2003 respectively but failed to win.

*****

In her acceptance speech at the ceremony at London's Royal Courts of Justice, Smith said she was "stunned" to win. "I have read everything on the shortlist and I know its quality is incredible," she said. "Every writer has aspects of style I genuinely covet. They are extraordinary women and extraordinary writers."

Media mogul Ted Turner is kicking off the auction for his life story today, and some publishing sources say they expect the Mouth of the South to snag an advance of $7 million - or higher. Turner is the co-founder of CNN, the ex-spouse of actress Jane Fonda and the largest single landholder in the U.S. He's famous for shooting from the hip, for long-running feuds with other media titans, for pledging to donate $1 billion to the United Nations and for pioneering the 24/7 news format in 1980.

Turner at the time of the AOL-Time Warner merger was the single-largest shareholder in the company, thanks to the mid-1990s gobbling up of his Turner Broadcasting System. He OK'd the disastrous Time Warner-AOL deal, but later said it probably cost him $8 billion in personal wealth as the stock price plunged.

*****

There have been several books written about Turner, but his hyperkinetic lifestyle has not lent itself to him writing his own life story. "He's a guy with a tremendous memory - you just have to be able to hit the right buttons to call it up," said Ken Auletta, who turned his New Yorker profile on Turner into a book in 2004. Nearly two decades ago, Turner made a deal to write his life story with Joe Klein - now at Time magazine - as the collaborator and Simon & Schuster as the publisher. But the book was never written.

The result: Updike's most adventurous and accessible novel in decades, and possibly the summer's most rewarding book for readers who want more than escapist fluff.

9/11 is at the heart of Terrorist, but this is not a 9/11 novel. Terrorist centers on an 18-year-old high school senior named Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy. The product of a rebellious Irish-Catholic mother and an Egyptian exchange student, Ahmad is smart, disciplined, handsome, profoundly lonely and appalled by the corrupt, lurid world around him - specifically his hometown of New Prospect, N.J., a manufacturing city that has fallen on hard times. His father abandoned the family when Ahmad was 3. The boy has spent most of his life yearning for a father figure.

The imam of his local mosque, with whom Ahmad has studied the Koran since age 11, fills that role. Despite his excellent SATs and grades, the boy has switched to the vocational track. The imam believes Ahmad should become a truck driver.

And a suicide bomber.

Thirty years after her notoriously fast-living supermodel heyday, the still-stunning 53-year-old finally gets to run her own show, "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency"."You see a lot of blood, sweat and tears," admits Dickinson, who had bustups when she appeared on both "The Surreal Life" and "America's Next Top Model."

*****

Launching simultaneously with her TV show is Dickinson's latest book, "Check, Please!" her guide to "dating, mating and extricating," which, like modeling, is a subject in which she's well versed. "On a date, this guy once said, 'I can't believe I'm making out with somebody who's on the cover of Cosmopolitan.' I just slapped him and left," recalls Dickinson. "My life is a joke! My friends are more successful than me because they don't have to deal with the horrid nature of fame. It'll get you a better table, but it's not fun to have no anonymity."

But ask Dickinson the obvious question as to whether she would prefer to just blend in with the crowd and she backtracks with a loud "No!" "My energy just doesn't blend in," she says, shrugging. Just as well, since a good portion of Dickinson's notoriety stems from her dating exploits with the cream of Hollywood, many of which are scurrilously revisited in her latest tome.

Comic industry veteran Maria Paz Cabardo (Pokemon; Magic: The Gathering; Vertigo comics) helped connect Bungie with artists and writers beyond their own staff. Among them: the famed comic artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud, well-known Japanese manga artist/writer Tsutomu Nihei and writer Jay Faerber, who has worked on several Marvel series.

Once they had the makings of a project, the novel was pitched to publishers, and Marvel won out. "The Halo Graphic Novel is true to the vision, scope and spirit of the Halo universe. It is dynamic, engaging and cinematic," Jayatilleke says.

The plots for the four stories in the novel came from Bungie's "Halo Story Bible," which details the underpinnings for the game universe: a sci-fi epic that involves a Starship Troopers-like Master Chief battling aliens. "The graphic novel was a chance for us to expand outward and fill in some of the fictional gaps and provide insight into events that tie into the more mainstream stories," Jarrard says. "These four were the most interesting to us, and the writers, for this project."

Once the stories were chosen, artists were paired with writers. "The stress was to make the characters look very much as they do in the game. Beyond that point I was given free rein to interpret the script and the action," says Simon Bisley, who illustrates the longest story in the book, the 48-page The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, written by Lee Hammock, a game designer and DC Comics veteran.

Now, Webb is ready to reveal the characters' fate.

"It was quite a while till I could figure out what they did next," he said.

Home School picks up the lives of Braddock and Elaine about 10 years on, living in upstate New York with their two children and trying to keep Mrs. Robinson at bay.

Random House said it planned to publish the book in Britain in June 2007. It has world rights to the novel, but has not announced a U.S. publication date. Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for the U.S. division of Random House, said the publisher was still waiting to see material from the new book before making any decisions.

Paul Sidey, editor at Random House's Hutchinson imprint, said the book was "short, sharp and very funny. And there is a last hurrah for the mother-in-law from hell."

This marks the first time that Costa has entered the sponsorship market; and both Costa and the Book Awards are this year celebrating their 35th anniversary.

Created in 1971, the Whitbread Book Awards were established to celebrate the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK or Ireland, and have successfully developed into one of the foremost and most prestigious literary awards in the UK.

The Costa Book Awards will take place in late January 2007 at a central London location. Costa will continue with the same format as in previous years with five categories: First Novel, Novel, Biography, Children’s Book and Poetry.

The 15 category judges - three judges per category - have been appointed and include author and broadcaster, Kate Adie and author, Sophie Kinsella. Entry forms have this month been distributed via the Booksellers Association who will continue to undertake the administration of the Costa Book Awards with the book trade. Closing date for publishers to submit entries is Wednesday 28th June 2006.

"The buzz has spread like wildfire," says Algonquin's Michael Taeckens, who sent out "tons of galleys" to independents.

Gruen has published two other novels: paperback originals Riding Lessons (2004; about an accident that derails a promising horse rider) and Flying Changes (2005; a sequel).

Water for Elephants, her first hardcover, takes place during the early 1930s. The main character is Jacob Jankowski, a college dropout who winds up working as a circus veterinarian. The novel flashes between a nursing home where Jankowski, 93, lives and his circus days.

There's love, danger, cruelty (to people and animals), raunchiness, lawlessness, even murder.