Books

By BOB HOOVER
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
After 33 years of channeling his paranoia into nearly 50 books, a score of them best sellers, Stephen King is now taking his bows as one of America's greatest writers.

The obvious question is: Has King gotten that much better as a writer or have our literary standards fallen that far?

Hailed in reviews last week for his latest novel, "Lisey's Story," complete with comparisons to James Joyce, King extended his three-year ascension that began in 2003 with the National Book Award for distinguished contribution to American letters, recognition from Poets and Writers magazine for his efforts to aid other writers and now an interview in the fall issue of Paris Review, the august literary magazine.

In the article, King confronts the frequent criticism that his work is not to be taken seriously as literature with the same argument he made in accepting his National Book Award:

It's a bunch of snobs who decide what "serious fiction" is, and they don't want to let "the rabble" like me in, he claims.

"The keepers of the idea of serious literature have a short list of authors who are going to be let inside, and too often that list is drawn from people who know people, who go to certain schools, who come up through certain channels of literature.

By BOB HOOVER
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
As the choices for this year's National Book Award in fiction show, the fallout from Sept. 11 is beginning to find its way into print.

Two of the fiction finalists _ "A Disorder Peculiar to the Country" and "The Zero" _ confront terrorism, while a handful of other novels published recently use 9/11 for their starting point.

As a fiction writer, Todd James Pierce felt pressure to consider the milestone event.

By ANDREW A. SMITH
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
"No more happily ever after."

That appeared on a wall, scrawled in blood, in the first issue of "Fables" in 2002, a monthly comic-book series starring characters from folklore.

By PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Hardcover best-sellers compiled from data from large-city bookstores, bookstore chains and local best-seller lists across the United States. The first number to the right of the author's name is the book's previous week's ranking; the second is the number of weeks the book has been on the best-seller list.

Fiction Hardcover

1.

By KAREN MacPHERSON
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A new crop of picture books offers some great reading choices:

_ Author/artist Denise Fleming tells a delightful, gorgeously illustrated tale of bovine confusion in "The Cow Who Clucked" (Henry Holt, $16.95).

By REBECCA YOUNG
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Store windows and front porches might be decked out with ghosts, black cats and witches, but high school juniors and seniors face a far more terrifying specter this season:

The SAT test.

By PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Hardcover best-sellers compiled from data from large-city bookstores, bookstore chains and local best-seller lists across the United States. The first number to the right of the author's name is the book's previous week's ranking; the second is the number of weeks the book has been on the best-seller list.

Fiction Hardcover

1.

By MELISSA DAHL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Shh! If parents and teachers figure this out, it'll all be over. But more and more teens are reading _ for fun, that is.

You can blame a certain bespectacled British wizard for the phenomenon _ since 1999, young-adult book sales have increased 23 percent.

By KAREN MACPHERSON
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Celebrate the season of witches, ghosts and goblins with some of these great new Halloween books for kids of all ages:

_ Best-selling children's author/illustrator Karen Katz offers the littlest readers a Halloween book full of flash and dazzle in "Where Is Baby's Pumpkin?" (Little Simon, $6.99).

By DAN VIERRIA
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Exercise junkie. Auto accident. Lengthy recovery. Book idea. That was the trail of crumbs that led to "The Fit Traveler," a fitness book co-written by Kari Eide and Lissa Mueller.

"The Fit Traveler" (Publishers Design Group, $17.95, 52 pages) was released in May.