From the New York Times article:

Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90.

Rohan de Silva, an aide to Mr. Clarke, said the author died after suffering from breathing problems, The Associated Press reported.

From his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945, more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight, to his co-creation, with the director Stanley Kubrick, of the classic science fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Mr. Clarke was both prophet and promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth.

Full story here.

From Times Online:

A unique volume of fairytales handwritten and illustrated by J.K. Rowling fetched nearly £2 million at auction today, far surpassing Sotheby’s estimated selling price of a mere £50,000. Following the auction, an astonished Miss Rowling said: “I am stunned and ecstatic. This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help. It means Christmas has come early for me.”

Read the full article here. View J.K. Rowlings website here.

This is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

New Nobel laureate Doris Lessing has used her acceptance speech to rail against the internet, saying it has “seduced a whole generation into its inanities” and created a world where people know nothing.

Similarly, author Andrew Keen argued in his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, that the internet was killing culture and assaulting economics.

Read the full article here on Sydney Morning Herald online.

From The Canadian Press:

A group of crusading intellectual property lawyers at Stanford Law School say they will help defend a small publishing house being sued by author J.K. Rowling over its plan to print an unauthorized companion guide to her Harry Potter series.

Full story on Google News; you can find the online version of the Harry Potter Lexicon at hp-lexicon.org or visit the publisher here.

The bestselling author of children’s and adults’ fiction explains how not being able to get to the library got her started and now she has no choice

The interview is available on Guardian Unlimited Books - or, take a look at Anne Fine’s official site.

The best-selling author of children’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials has been made an honorary professor at Bangor University.

Philip Pullman, who was educated at Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech, is already an honorary fellow of the university.

The writer will take seminars for Bangor students and host discussions on literature and narrative structures.

Full story on BBC News.

The Observer asked 74 writers and “other cultural figures” what books they enjoyed most this year. View the article here - and don’t forget that there’s a second page.

Full list of writers and cultural figures who contributed:

(more…)

The Guardian reports:

The British author Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel prize for literature. Lessing, who is only the 11th woman to win literature’s most prestigious prize in its 106-year history, is best known for her 1962 postmodern feminist masterpiece, The Golden Notebook.

Announcing the award, the Swedish Academy described Lessing as an “epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”. It singled out The Golden Notebook for praise, calling it “a pioneering work” that “belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship.”

Lessing, who was shopping at the time of the Nobel announcement, was typically irreverent in her response to the news. “I’ve won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I’m delighted to win them all, the whole lot,” she said to the reporters gathered outside her home in north London. “It’s a royal flush.”