Custom outlets – US publishing’s new holy grail
· Bookshops out of favour in the bid for bigger sales · Racetracks and hardware stores outstrip websites
Gordimer’s sorrow for men who robbed her
Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer sees the men who attacked her in her home as symbolic of the challenges facing South Africa.
Book-burning threat over town’s portrayal in Booker-winning novel
When she won the Booker prize, Kiran Desai lifted the town of Kalimpong into the glare of the media spotlight. But few in the town are now thanking her for setting her novel, The Inheritance of Loss, there. Internet forums hum with indignation about the book's "condescending statements", while others threaten public book-burnings.
Reid plan to stop wages of sin is doomed
Marcel Berlins: John Reid becomes the umpteenth home secretary to promise to try to stop offenders benefiting financially from books about their life and crimes. Like all the others, he will fail.
Atheists top book charts by deconstructing God
In the wake of one religious sensation, The Da Vinci Code, publishers are scoring a second success with sceptics.
Drink, drugs, Eton and the world’s wildest party
Tom Sykes has shocked America with his fearlessly frank book about alcoholism.
Harold the greatest
Gioconda Belli: Through his plays and political protests, Harold Pinter has long been an inspiration to many people around the world.
Literature classes help maligned Mexican police to go by the book
Officers go to school for reading, chess and PE as crime-ridden city broadens minds to win hearts.
Literature classes help maligned Mexican police to go by the book
In an unusual experiment in enlightened police training, officers are going back to school for reading, chess and PE, reports Jo Tuckman in Mexico City.