Expected to be one of the buzz words for 2006, E-ink works by charging thousands of capsules to display certain information. Charged capsules turn black while uncharged ones turn white. After the initial charge the capsules are locked into place and give a flicker-free and crisp image equal to that of a newspaper. Because of the lack of power needed after the first charge, the battery consumption is very low.

Due to cumbersome Digital Rights Management (DRM) Sony’s Libre device has so far failed to take off in Japan, however all that is rumoured to change when Sony launches its new e-Book with .PDF support next week. The move means that anybody will be able to create and access .PDF files on the new reader to read on the go.

Tied-in into the launch is the news that Sony is also expected to offer an e-Books download store similar to Apple’s iTunes and music tracks.

Hershey Co. on Wednesday said that Simon & Schuster Inc. agreed to add a statement to a book about the company's founder expressing that the book is not authorized by The Hershey Co.

Hershey said it had filed a civil action on Dec. 16, 2005, alleging that use of its trademarks and trade dress on the cover of "Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams" infringed on its rights and would create public confusion.

The cover of the book looks like the wrapper from a Hershey's chocolate bar and has a section that resembles the paper tab from Hershey's Kisses.

"Writing is agony," he grimaces. "I hate it."

*****

"Let's put it this way. When I'm writing, I spend a lot of time thinking, 'My, doesn't the top of the fridge look dirty'. It takes for ever. People think writing is easy, but just ask them to sit down and write a thank you note to their aunt, or something, and they turn purple. I like thinking about writing. I like having written. But actually sitting down and doing it...."

*****

What surprises him is that writing hasn't got any easier. "Sure, I can look at some of my old pieces and see lapses of taste or clumsinesses of construction and think, 'wouldn't do it that way now', but that doesn't mean the process has become plainer to me. The thing is, when you get right down to it, and it's painful to say this, but, well, few writers get better as they get older. In fact, it's hard to think of one.... On the other hand, maybe it's just laziness. I mean, I only read English in college because I already spoke the language."

The researchers looked at the weekends of Saturday, 21 June, 2003 and Saturday, 16 July this year - the launch dates of the two most recent Harry Potter books, The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince. The authors of the study suggested that encouraging more book reading might be a useful way to combat childhood accidents. "It may.. be hypothesised that there is a place for a committee of safety conscious, talented writers who could produce high quality books for the purpose of injury prevention," they wrote in the British Medical Journal.

However they acknowledged there could be a downside to a strategy that seeks to turn active children into bookworms. Potential problems could include "an unpredictable increase in childhood obesity, rickets and loss of cardiovascular fitness".

Sex (1992) by Madonna — The pop icon’s first book, featuring erotic photos and more.

Sisters (1981) by Lynne Cheney — Frontier lesbian romance in 19th century Wyoming.

The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (1981) by Felicitas D. Goodman — An account of the case that inspired the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Where Troy Once Stood (1991) by Iman Wilkens — Posits that the Trojan War took place in England, and that The Iliad and The Odyssey are based on oral histories of a major war between Celtic peoples circa 1160 BCE.

The Principles of Knitting (1988) by June Hemmons Hiatt — Methods and techniques of hand knitting, the ultimate resource>

General Printing (1963) by Glen Cleeton — Everything you ever wanted to know about letterpress printing, but were afraid to ask

The New Soldier (1971) edited by John Kerry — Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s account of a mismanaged war

The Lion’s Paw (1946) by Robb White — An enduring children’s adventure story

Dear and Glorious Physician (1959) by Taylor Caldwell — A novel based on the life of Saint Luke, patron saint of painters, physicians, and healers

The Book of Counted Sorrows (2003) by Dean Koontz — The suspense novelist brings to life the fictional book of poetry he’s been referring to in all his novels.

The fictional tale of the loves, dreams and disappointments of four young women in the capital has, not surprisingly, drawn criticism in a country where women are not supposed to date or, until married, have a love life. More striking, however, is the degree of support being voiced for 24-year-old author Rajaa al-Sanie and her first novel.

*****

"The Girls of Riyadh" was published in September in Lebanon, the most liberal of Arab countries, and is going into its third printing. In Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are strictly segregated, authorities haven't decided whether to approve its sale, but pirated editions are circulating in photocopy form. It isn't available in English.



*****

The book, told in the form of weekly e-mails from a female narrator to Internet subscribers in Saudi Arabia, portrays four women. Their stories are based on true ones Sanie says she has heard at weddings, in school and at women's gatherings. Many in the Arab world are comparing it to "Sex and the City," the HBO series about four young women in New York City, though there is no sex in "The Girls of Riyadh," only emotions.

Sanie says she wrote the book to highlight issues that society denies. "I didn't distort the country's reputation. I wrote about humanity here," she said. "I wanted to show that both men and women are victims of society." Sanie says that among many readers who have e-mailed her is a man who got the book from his divorced daughter. "He told me it made him cry and made him realize what women go through," she said. "He decided that his daughter will not live the traditional life of a divorcée."

Hershey spokeswoman Stephanie Moritz said Monday the company is concerned that consumers may think it's "authorized, sponsored or approved" the book. It wants to prevent Simon & Schuster from distributing the dust jacket.

"Hershey does not object to the content of defendant's book, or to the mere use of the word 'Hershey' in the title of the book," according to the lawsuit that was made public Monday. "However, defendant has designed and adopted a dust jacket for the book which extensively uses Hershey's well-known marks and trade dress beyond any manner permissible under law." The jacket also depicts a Hershey's Kiss, a subtitle in a font similar to the paper wrapper inside a Kiss, and two older Hershey advertising images.

Simon & Schuster filed a document Monday opposing Hershey's request for an injunction and restraining order, saying the Hershey symbols on the cover are "artistically relevant" to the book's subject and not expressly misleading.

"Trademark laws are designed to protect the public from likelihood of confusion, not to protect the monopolistic goals of a company that for whatever reason appears not to like the fact that a book has been published about its founder without its imprimatur," the publisher said.

Baldwin and Basinger have been fighting over their 10-year-old daughter Ireland.

Baldwin told NBC's "Today" show Friday that, "It's been horrible." He said his book would be about parents' rights. Baldwin said the way the system is now, it prolongs custody battles instead of settling them.

In the latest salvo in the fight over the future of books on the Internet, one of the country's biggest publishers said it intends to produce digital copies of its books and then make them available to search services offered by such companies as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com., while maintaining physical possession of the digital files. News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers Inc. hopes to head off the prospect of these big Internet companies taking charge of books that it has purchased, edited and published.

*****

"Now is the time to build a digital infrastructure that will allow us to protect our rights and the rights of our authors," said Jane Friedman, chief executive of News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers. "We will make all of our books available digitally, but we will store the digital copies and license them out to those who want to use them." "We didn't like being seen as Luddites," she added. "We see what's going on, and we get it. We want to be the best collaborator, but we also want to take charge of our future."

Instead of sending copies of its books to various Internet companies for digitizing, as it does now, HarperCollins will create a digital file of books in its own digital warehouse. Search companies such as Google will then be allowed to create an index of each book's content so that when consumers do a search, they'll be pointed to a page view. However, that view will be hosted by a server in the HarperCollins digital warehouse. "The difference is that the digital files will be on our servers," said Brian Murray, group president of HarperCollins Publishers. "The search companies will be allowed to come, crawl our Web site, and create an index that they can take away, but not the image of the page."

Technology, often declared the enemy of literacy, has been called upon to save it. With hints of optimism and anxiety, publishers are counting on the digital text and digital channels to win over a public drawn to other media.

"There has been a lot of tension among publishers about technology. But if you ask me if I'd rather have someone watching television or someone surfing the Internet, I'd prefer the Internet because it requires some form of reading," says Richard Sarnoff, president of the Random House, Inc. corporate development group.

Bookstores and paper are only part of the market. If plans succeed, books will also be read on cell phones, promoted via blogs, e-mails and even videos, and purchased online by the page. If necessary, publishers will do the selling themselves. In 2005, Random House and Simon & Schuster joined Penguin Group (USA), Scholastic, Inc. and others who offer books directly off their Web sites.

The series, which is not yet named, will be based on Reichl’s own life, according to Women’s Wear Daily. Reichl’s two books—both memoirs—tell the story of her food-critic gigs at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and Comfort Me with Apples gives steamy details about a romance she had with her first boss, Colman Andrews (author of Catalan Cuisine and Flavors of the Riviera, and editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine).

According to WWD, Reichl and her co-producers would be pleased to see their new show pitched as Sex and the City’s successor. "Certainly, the thought has flown around the room," Reichl told WWD.

With "Next Man Up," Feinstein uses a technique employed by many sports journalists before him - spending a season immersed in the atmosphere of one team - in this case, the Baltimore Ravens. His theme is also nothing imbued with special insight - that football is a violent, injury-filled sport, so that little-known players will become the next men up when the stars go down.

Like Feinstein's other books, however, "Next Man Up" is easy and pleasant to read. Even those who are not fanatical football fans will find that, beyond the information provided on players and coaches, there are two other engaging topics in the book: Feinstein's ruminations on how reporting and writing about football are different from reporting and writing about other sports, and his portrayal of the business side of the game through conversations with Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti.

Feinstein explains to readers his approach to this book: "One way was to use an approach I had enjoyed in writing about the pro golf tour, the pro tennis tours and Major League Baseball -- just follow the sport for one season, from the draft through the Super Bowl. Certainly it would have been interesting to watch different teams, players and coaches at critical times during the course of a season. But I knew doing such a book on the NFL wouldn't be at all like golf or tennis, because those sports are covered year-round by only a handful of people and are in the consciousness of most of the public only during those few weeks a year when their major championships are played. Baseball is covered like a blanket, but unlike football, there is constant access to the players, coaches and managers, allowing someone like me to develop relationships and follow stories. I knew I wouldn't get that opportunity in football, writing with nothing more than a media credential."

One of the literary world’s most prestigious prizes is looking for a sponsor after Whitbread pulled out of the awards it has funded since 1971. The company, once Britain’s best-known brewer, has decided literature does not fit with its status as a wide-ranging leisure conglomerate.

The decision is a blow to the literary world as the Whitbread is rivalled only by the Booker in terms of prestige and influence.

A spokeswoman for Whitbread said the decision would officially be announced this week. "We no longer sell products or services that carry the Whitbread brand, so it is no longer appropriate to fund an award to promote the Whitbread name," she said. The company now operates through brands such as Beefeater restaurants, Costa Coffee and David Lloyd leisure centres.

Just in time for his 80th birthday, Winnie-the-Pooh is getting an extreme makeover. The Disney Channel announced Thursday that it was working on a new animated series called My Friends Tigger and Pooh. The show is slated to debut in 2007 and seeks to update the geriatric characters, which were created by British author A.A. Milne in 1926 for his young son, Christopher Robin.

The most controversial part: the character of longtime bear buddy Christopher Robin will be banished from the Hundred Acre Wood and replaced by a six-year-old tomboyish girl. The kid-friendly cable network said they hope to attract an older audience by adding the unnamed tyke. The series also will change the look of the rest of the gang, including Piglet, Rabbit and Eeyore, by using brighter colors and 3-D computer animation.

"We got raised eyebrows even in house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," Disney Channel spokeswoman Nancy Kanter told USA Today.

The news has sparked outrage in Milne's native England, where fans have taken umbrage at the change. "This is a betrayal of Milne's stories, because he wrote them specifically for Christopher Robin," one purist grouses in Britain's Independent newspaper.

Stephen Fry: Is it really true that you've got it [the end of the story] all planned out?

JK Rowling: Yes, I do know what's going to happen in the end. And occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses at something that's very close, and then I panic and I think "Oh, is it very obvious?" and then someone says something that's so off the wall that I think "No, it's clearly not that obvious!"

So much that happens in [book] six relates to what happens in [book] seven. In six, although there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue. It's an odd feeling, for the first time I'm very aware that I'm finishing.

*****

Stephen Fry: You've not held back from the difficult and the frightening [in your fiction].

JK Rowling: I feel very strongly that there is a move to sanitise literature because we're trying to protect children not from, necessarily, the grisly facts of life but from their own imaginations... And the child that has been protected from Dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much more likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality.

Trump is "the best publicist I could have ever hoped for," says O’Brien, who expresses doubt that he’s being tailed and suggests that Trump, whom he covered for fifteen years, has manufactured the P.I. story to intimidate him. "He can dig all he wants—he’s not going to find anything," O’Brien says with a laugh. Trump, asked flat-out whether the story is true, responds thus: "He’ll find out soon enough if I hired a private investigator." He also calls O’Brien "a stone-cold loser" and notes that "the whole beauty of this thing is that his book is a resounding failure." Warner Books estimates that it’s sold about 4,000 copies so far (BookScan recorded 2,200 in the first month). O’Brien says, "If I’m such a terrible writer and my book is so bad, why is Donald so obsessed with it?"

The Denver-based multibillionaire, who made a fortune in oil, natural gas, railroads, telecommunications and real estate, has spent $90 million — half the film's $180-million budget — to produce the screen adaptation of the children's classic "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

But whether the movie, which opens Friday, will produce the lucrative family-oriented franchise that Anschutz hopes for depends on how skillfully he and his partners at Walt Disney Co. have tapped the well.

Anschutz's independent production company, Walden Media, and Disney, which cofinanced the film, are banking on religious moviegoers and secular fans alike to make "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" — adapted from the beloved book by British theologian and literary scholar C.S. Lewis — a giant hit.

Such a windfall would give the 65-year-old Anschutz, whose vast assets include Staples Center, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, the San Francisco Examiner and Regal Entertainment Group, the world's largest operator of movie theaters, something he needs more than money: credibility as a savvy investor in the movie business.

"They said for my age I had a nice brain," says Cornwell, before adding with a smirk: "They didn't see any gross abnormalities, which shows you they probably need more sophisticated equipment."

*****

"Let's face it: This forensics stuff has been beaten to death on television," she says. "Why waste a chapter explaining an electron microscope when we can watch it on TV? I'm afraid to say, if you're realistic, you've got to change with the times." While discussing her literary predicament with her publisher, Cornwell hit upon her next step. "It's going to be the brain. It's got to be - it's the last frontier," she says during an interview in her sprawling Upper West Side apartment overlooking Central Park.

"To tell you the truth, forensic science, for all its bells and whistles and as much as I do with it, is a clean-up crew. You come in after the fact when it's really too late to do anything to stop what's happened. What we don't really explore is the why."

This time, readers get to hear the voices inside a serial killer's head, listen as he tortures his victims and eavesdrop on his fantasies. Cornwell - who also came up with a pretty gruesome way to truss up victims with wire coat hangers - had a painful time writing those scenes.

"It is disturbing because you think, 'How can I think of things like this? How am I capable?'" she says. "It's disturbing that you can imagine these things. What it tells you is that we're all capable of almost anything."

Late Monday, a copyright-infringement lawsuit was filed in United States District Court in New York City, according to Manhattan-based attorney Howard Gotbetter. He told E&P that the plaintiff is artist Ed Miracle, whose painting was on the original cover of "The World is Flat," and that defendants include Friedman; the book's publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG); and others.

The original cover of Friedman's book featured Miracle's 1976 painting of two old-fashioned ships about to sail off the edge of a flat earth. "I was walking down the street in Washington, D.C., eight or nine years ago and saw the poster in a map store," said Friedman, when reached by E&P. "It came with a caption: 'I told you so.' It made me laugh. I bought it and framed it on my office wall."

When it came time to choose a cover for "The World is Flat," The New York Times columnist suggested Miracle's painting to FSG. The publishing company tracked down the Paradise Cay firm selling the poster, and got permission to use it for a reported $750.

But Miracle's agent, Rose von Perbandt, told E&P that Paradise Cay did not have the right to grant that permission. "The only person that had authorization to sell 'I told you so' posters during the 1990s was Dan Machut. It expired in 1996. Miracle has never had a relationship with Paradise Cay and all of their activities occurred without his knowledge or consent."