J.K. Rowling has updated her official site this morning by addressing the recent news that she would be writing a prequel to the "Harry Potter" series.

from London Review of Books Volume 30 issue 11

Author J.K. Rowling has penned an 800-word "Harry Potter" prequel with all proceeds from an auction on June 10th going to English PEN, the writers' association, and Dyslexia Action. Copies of the cards will be put into a book and

In a survey of 1,000 business leaders "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling was voted the third most influential woman in the UK. Ms. Rowling followed the Queen and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

which runs from today through the 1st, and tempting though it is (okay, not so much ...) we're passing this year.

Sebastian Faulks got to play at being Ian Fleming, so The Independent 'asked five writers to do the same for their favourite novelists', in If I could bring an author back to life .... So D.J.Taylor does Anthony Powell, Suzi

This sounds like a poem for the anthologies, as one Nobel laureate takes on another in verse, Derek Walcott skewering V.S.Naipaul at considerable length, beginning with: "I have been bitten. I must avoid infection, / Or else I'll be as

The French-American Foundation and The Florence Gould Foundation handed out their Annual Translation Prizes for the 21st time yesterday. Linda Coverdale took the fiction prize for her translation of Jean Echenoz's Ravel, while in non-fiction Linda Asher won for her

Bowker Reports U.S. Book Production Flat in 2007 -- but that's not counting: "a staggering rise in the reported number of "On Demand" and short-run books". And fiction is thriving -- and someone has to explain to us why, with

A New Illustrated History