Tom Wolfe

Fresh from selling film rights to Scott Rudin and signing a $2m publishing deal in the US, the novelist Garth Risk Hallberg has struck a "substantial" six-figure deal with Jonathan Cape in the UK for his 900-page debut novel, City on Fire.

As the scramble for rights continues around the world, publishers are lining up to salute a book which his lucky UK editor described as "the best American novel I've ever read on submission". But the 34-year-old Hallberg is no literary ingenue.

We know that Barnes & Noble has the technology to process ebook transactions in its stores, and with a new holiday promotion the company announced Thursday, we’re seeing more ways that technology can work. Between December 20 and 24, customers who go to a Barnes & Noble physical store and buy an ebook from a list of 20 qualifying ebooks — including The Hobbit, Life of Pi and the entire Hunger Games trilogy – can “instant-gift” another ebook on that list for free.

Has J K Rowling has been "snubbed" by a rather dubious literary award? Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy" is not on the shortlist for the Literary Review's Bad Sex award. The "prize" is given to “draw attention to the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it."

As per The Bookseller:

The judges said that after a “flood” of nominations they had considered Rowling’s book, but: “ultimately concluded that the book’s sins were venal compared with the competition."

—Brian Howard

The National Book Awards ceremony is getting the Oscars treatment, reports the New York Times. In addition to adding a red carpet, hiring a DJ and inviting celebs like, ahem, Molly Ringwald, the awards board appears to be making a push toward higher-profile nominees, noting, as per the report: “Fame or obscurity, small press or large, should have no bearing on your deliberations."

In addition, as per the Times' Leslie Kaufman, the finalists (Junot Díaz, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Ben Fountain and Kevin Powers) were announced on Morning Joe. —Brian Howard

The list reads like a Whos Who at an exclusive book party: Junot Diaz, Ian McEwan, , Zadie Smith and Tom Wolfe. All are superstar authors who are releasing hugely anticipated books this fall, colliding in one of the most crowded literary traffic jams in...