Hunter Biden’s memoir ‘Beautiful Things’ out in April
NEW YORK — Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden and an ongoing target for conservatives, has a memoir coming out April 6. The book is called “Beautiful Things” and will center on the younger Biden’s well publicized struggles with substance abuse, according to Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon...
Plum elementary student writes his 1st horror book, hopes to make a series
A national writing contest and love of horror has inspired a Holiday Park Elementary student to pen his first book. Josh Ingram, 11, of Plum recently released “Light: A Forgotten Monster.” The self-published book tells a story about a group of juveniles at a sleepover. A friend of the main...
Wilkinsburg author Deesha Philyaw in running for 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Wilkinsburg author Deesha Philyaw is continuing to rack up literary accolades. Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” was named to the longlist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, America’s largest peer-juried literary prize, on Tuesday. In October, Philyaw’s story collection was named a finalist in the fiction category...
Merriam-Webster adds more than 520 new words to dictionary, including ‘COVID-19,’ ‘second gentleman’ and ‘sapiosexual’
Merriam-Webster, the United States’ leading language provider announced it was adding over 520 new words and definitions to the publisher’s website. These new words include “covid-19,” “second gentleman,” “long-hauler,” “flex,” “ASMR” and “sapiosexual.” Before the pandemic, “long-hauler” was defined as a person or vehicle that travels long distances, but it...
Interest continues to grow in inaugural poet Amanda Gorman
Within hours of Amanda Gorman’s reading of the inaugural poem last week, bookstores were hearing from their customers. “Hopefully this will be a bridge that brings a lot of people to poetry,” says Mike Wysock, who manages The Book Stall in Winnetka, Illinois. Interest in the 22-year-old Gorman and demand...
Munhall comic book creator Ed Piskor launching horror title ‘Red Room’Video
Munhall’s Ed Piskor knows his new comic book series “Red Room” isn’t for everybody. The gore-soaked, sci-fi/horror monthly series launches in May. Here’s the synopsis of “Red Room”: “In Red Room, criminals livestream murders on the dark web for fun and profit. The series will be told through a series...
Michaela Goade becomes 1st Native American to win Caldecott Medal
NEW YORK — Illustrator Michaela Goade became the first Native American to win the prestigious Randolph Caldecott Medal for best children’s picture story, cited for “We Are Water Protectors,” a celebration of nature and condemnation of the “black snake” Dakota Access Pipeline. “I am really honored and proud,” the 30-year-old...
Review: George Saunders offers a prolonged exercise in kindness
Have you ever wondered what makes a story great? George Saunders has, and at Syracuse University, where he has taught for more than 20 years, he takes his students under the hood of great fiction to show them how it works. Now, for the price of his latest book —...
Publisher drops book by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley
NEW YORK — A planned book by Sen. Josh Hawley, who objected to President-elect Joe Biden’s win and backed baseless claims that the election was stolen, has been canceled by its publisher in the wake a Capitol siege in Washington by a mob of pro-Trump supporters, a decision the Missouri...
Harrison native’s book encourages readers to climb to new heights
Paola Corso recalled a walk through her late father’s neighborhood in Brackenridge. “Luckily, it was windy that day, and I spotted a pair of concrete steps under some leaves,” said Corso, a poet, photographer, literary activist and Harrison native. “I thought about the days my father and grandfather walked those...
Agent: Master spy writer John le Carre dies at 89
LONDON — John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89, Le Carre’s literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday that he died in Cornwall, southwest England on Saturday...
Jerry Seinfeld digs into 45 years of his jokes for new book
LOS ANGELES — Forget the high-performance sports cars, the luxury Rolls-Royces and all those other classic automobiles in which Jerry Seinfeld ushers his fellow comics to the diner on television’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” The most valuable things Seinfeld owns are the thousands of pieces of paper — yellow,...
Penguin snaps up Simon & Schuster, creating mega publisher
BERLIN — German media giant Bertelsmann said Wednesday that its Penguin Random House division is buying rival Simon & Schuster, in a mega deal that will likely reshape the U.S. publishing industry. Penguin Random House, already the number one American publisher, will buy the New York-based firm, whose authors include...
Hampton woman’s debut dark-fantasy novel takes readers on journey to magical world
Mayté Losada has always had a dark side yearning to break free from the confines of life in the modern world. Enthralled as a child by the vivid “other” worlds depicted in Greek mythology, the Harry Potter novels and later, Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, the Hampton Township woman...
Obama memoir sells a record 1.7 million copies in first week
Former President Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” sold more than 1.7 million copies in North America in its first week, roughly equal to the combined first week sales of memoirs by his two immediate predecessors and among the highest ever for a nonfiction book. Crown announced Tuesday that it had...
Pope Francis’ book explores George Floyd, virus skeptics
ROME — Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of the U.S. police killing of George Floyd and is blasting covid-19 skeptics and the media that spread their conspiracies in a new book penned during the Vatican’s coronavirus lockdown. In “Let Us Dream,” Francis also criticizes...
Yusef Salaam of Central Park Five penning memoir on his wrongful imprisonment
NEW YORK — One of the five teens wrongly imprisoned for the assault on a Central Park jogger has a memoir coming out in the spring. Grand Central Publishing announced Monday that it had acquired Yusef Salaam’s “Better, Not Bitter: Living On Purpose in The Pursuit of Racial Justice.” The...
Barack Obama memoir off to record-setting start in sales
NEW YORK — Former President Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” sold nearly 890,000 copies in the U.S. and Canada in its first 24 hours, putting it on track to be the best selling presidential memoir in modern history. The first-day sales, a record for Penguin Random House, includes pre-orders, e-books...
North Allegheny girls pen book, create website about personal finance for kids
Most people with questions about a topic they know little or nothing about seek out experts who can give them the answers. But North Allegheny High School juniors Alina Zaidi and Angela Wu decided that it wasn’t enough to simply teach themselves about personal finances. They wanted to make sure...
Kamala Harris books surge in popularity after election
Books by and about Kamala Harris proved to be a popular purchase following the election. The vice president-elect was the subject or author of four books on Amazon’s top 10 Sunday. They included her own children’s book “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” her memoir “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” a...
Chef Marcus Samuelsson celebrates the variety of Black food
If anyone asks chef Marcus Samuelsson what African food taste like, he has a ready answer: Have you ever had barbeque? Rice? Collard greens? Okra? Coffee? “All of that food comes from Africa, has its roots in Africa,” says the Ethiopian Swedish writer and restaurateur. “Everyone has had African American...
Final ‘Miss Peregrine’ novel to be published in February
We’ll soon be saying farewell to peculiars, non-peculiars and ymbrynes: Ransom Riggs has written his final tale of “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children.” Penguin Young Readers announced Tuesday that “The Desolations of Devil’s Acre” will come out Feb. 23, again featuring young Jacob Portman and the pipe-smoking headmistress Alma LeFay Peregrine....
Time magazine replaces logo on cover for 1st time in nearly 100 years
The cover of Time magazine’s double issue that hits newsstands Friday will bear an important message in lieu of its famed logo — marking its first absence from the cover in nearly 100 years. The giant letters at the top of the cover instead read: “VOTE.” Edward Felsenthal, Time’s editor...
Founded in Wilkinsburg, Scholastic magazine celebrates 100 years of educating children
The first issue of Scholastic was born in Wilkinsburg on Oct. 22, 1920. Maurice R. “Robbie” Robinson started the publication as a four-page magazine about high school sports called The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic. The Wilkinsburg resident had just graduated from Dartmouth College, after spending more than a year in the...
Review: Cary Grant bio a perceptive look at captivating star
Self-trained English actor Archie Leach pulled off the role of a lifetime: becoming Hollywood legend Cary Grant. Why the child of a broken family hid behind the silver screen’s definition of easy charm and handsome masculinity is another story entirely. In “Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise,” the most entertaining and...
