In books news this week: Sarah Palin’s actual memoirs may be due for release next month but so is a fake memoir. According to the Independent:
“With a nearly identical cover photo and similar typeface on the title and subheadings, “Going Rouge: An American Nightmare” looks remarkably similar to the planned cover of the Alaska governor’s “Going Rogue: An American Life.”Both are set for release on November 17. “Going Rouge” is compiled by a pair of editors at the left-leaning Nation magazine, and is to be published by OR books which launched earlier this year.”

Meanwhile in the UK, a woman named Ms Marmite who was planning to host a Harry Potter themed end of year party had to change her plans after Warner Brothers told her that her get-together would constitute copyright infringement. According to the Telegraph: “The not-for-profit event, which has been renamed “Generic Wizard Night”, was to have a menu of dandelion wine, pumpkin soup and Dumbledore’s favourite – mint humbugs. Guests would have been led down ‘Diagon Alley’ by the side of the house and been met by a portrait of the “Fat Lady” who would have demanded a password before they could be let in.”

Philip Roth is back on the interview circuit this month with the release of his new novel The Humbling, and he’s already finished the sequel too. He told the Guardian that he thinks that the novel will be a minority cult in 25 years time thanks to the rise of digital publishing and electronic devices such as the Kindle. He said: “The book can’t compete with the screen. It couldn’t compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn’t compete with the television screen, and it can’t compete with the computer screen.”

John Keats was famously sick for a large part of his short life, especially in the period leading up to his death but a new biography claims that Keats’ suffering may have been made worse by the misdiagnoses of his doctor.

John Le Carre has announced that after 38 years with publishers Hodder & Stoughton he’s going to change to Penguin who will be releasing his back catalogue as part of their Modern Classic’s series. According to the Bookseller Magazine:  “Le Carré, whose real name is David Cornwell, said he was “sadden[ed]” to be leaving Hodder, and applauded the “inimitable” team’s “good fellowship, unfailing support and sales energy”.
However, he added: “The opportunity to see my life’s work presented by a classic paperback house with a unique backlist is at this stage in my career unmissable.”

Related posts:

1. Two New Philip Roth Books Announced
2. Indignation: Philip Roth at 75
3. Book News: Sequels, Lesbians, T.S. Eliot’s Post-Wasteland Exhaustion and the Battle for Jack Kerouac’s Estate
4. NYT – Video: An Interview with Andre Agassi, Podcast: Stephen King on Raymond Carver and the Sarah Palin Roadshow
5. Frankfurt Book Fair – Bidding War for Book on Mandela’s Private Archive