Scholastic on Twitter: "Have you re-read any of your favorite childhood #books as an adult? via @buzzfeed. What 17 Adults Learned From Rereading Their Favorite Childhood Books. Booker prize. Novelist proposes to girlfriend in print. It's one way to ensure your debut novel starts life with a bang: 28-year-old author Christopher Currie included a marriage proposal in the acknowledgements of his upcoming new mystery The Ottoman Motel.
After variously thanking his publisher, his friends, his bosses and his local coffee shop "for letting me occupy a table and nurse one of your brilliant coffees for almost the entire rewriting process", Currie finally moved onto his girlfriend, Leesa Wockner. "If it's possible to fall more in love with someone every day, then that's what I do," the Brisbane-based author wrote. "To my favourite, to the reason I live my life, Leesa Wockner, who, if she reads this, I hope will agree to marry me, despite the number of commas in this sentence. " Happily for Currie, Wockner was able to overlook the commas and her answer was yes. Currie, 28, has previously published the novella Dearly Departed but The Ottoman Motel is his first novel.
Is Samantha Shannon the new JK Rowling? Oxford student lands six figure book deal. By Rob Preece Published: 12:20 GMT, 6 May 2012 | Updated: 06:58 GMT, 7 May 2012 An Oxford undergraduate is following in the footsteps of best-selling author JK Rowling - after landing a six-figure book deal with the Harry Potter writer's publisher. English undergraduate Samantha Shannon, 20, has signed a contract with publishing powerhouse Bloomsbury for the release of her novel, The Bone Season, and two sequels. But she doesn't plan to stop there. Just like Rowling did with her Harry Potter series, Miss Shannon has mapped out an entire adventure to be spread over seven books.
In the money: Samantha Shannon, right, has signed a six-figure book deal with the same publishing house as Harry Potter author JK Rowling, right Bloomsbury, which is due to announce the deal later this week, will be delighted if her novels repeat Rowling's success - the Potter series has sold more than 400million copies worldwide. She says details for the books are either in her head or written in notebooks. The Book Depository Live. Can a fictional character take you over? What unrealistic expectations of romance are held by Jane Austen fans?
Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Feature Good lord above! If this is really true then I dread to think what havoc is wreaked by people who've just finished reading A Clockwork Orange; what unrealistic expectations of romance are held by fans of Jane Austen; what heights of passion are reached by Wuthering Heights aficionados on a daily basis. Because, according to a new study from researchers at Ohio State University, "when you 'lose yourself' inside the world of a fictional character while reading a story, you may actually end up changing your own behaviour and thoughts to match that of the character". Just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the study gave undergraduates various stories to read and observed their reactions. In another, 70 male, heterosexual students were given different versions of a story about a day in the life of another undergraduate.