Syrian wins 'writer of courage' prize

Samar Yazbek was named by British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy as international "writer of courage" with whom she will share the Pen/Pinter prize.

Pink Lantern gets the green light

After 72 years of tackling supervillains as a straight man, DC Comics' Green Lantern, one of the oldest characters, is to be reintroduced as gay.

King of horror returns to old-school publishing

Stephen King's digital publication of "Riding the Bullet" in 2000 made him one of the pioneers of the e-book movement.

'Let's have Bateman kill David Beckham in a lift'

Brett Easton Ellis is mulling a sequel to American Psycho in which Patrick Bateman murders David Beckham and analyses Whitney Houston's oeuvre.

Spoken from the walls

It's not quite at Harry Potter levels, but Laura Bush's memoir, Spoken from the Heart, has sold around 150 000 copies in its first week.

Of dildos and bad sex

The story of the seduction of a lesbian by an ageing actor has won novelist Philip Roth a place on the shortlist for the bad sex in fiction awards.