What would Gertrude Stein write if she started drinking and texting? In a series of drawings, The Paris Review‘s Jessica Gaynor imagined what famous artists would drunk text.

Here is an imaginary drunk text from Stein: “I am wasted or have been drinking since 3 or have wasted since this drinking 3 one wasted since drinking. Srsly, I’m messed up. Can you come get me?”

Follow this link to check out her whole series, which includes the imagine drunk texts of William Wordsworth, John Cheever and Dan Brown.

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The John Updike Society has finalized a contract to purchase John Updike‘s home for $200,000.

Located in the Pennsylvania town of Shillington, Updike lived in the home for thirteen years as a child. John Updike Society president James Plath announced that the organization plans to make the house a historic site and convert it into an operational museum.

Here’s more from Reading Eagle: “Out of respect for the residential neighborhood, Plath said, he expects the historic site to be open only by appointment and not list regular hours. Plath said he has researched the operations of similar historic sites that were once authors’ homes, including the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians in Columbus, Ga., and the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Ala.”

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Journalist Edward Klein has a new unauthorized book out about president Barack Obama in which he claims that former president Bill Clinton called Obama an ‘amateur.’

The book, which is called Amateur, claims that Bill thinks so little of the current president that he encouraged Hillary to run against Obama in this year’s presidential election. The New York Post reports:

according to the book, Bill Clinton unloaded on Obama and pressed Hillary to run against her boss during a gathering in the ex-president’s home office in Chappaqua last August that included longtime friends, Klein said. ‘The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does,’ Bill said. (Via Mediate).

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Percy Jackson series author Rick Riordan plans to work on a new series inspired by Norse mythology, but his fans will have to wait for the series.

According to Courier Press, Riordan will be spending next year working exclusively on book four of The Heroes of Olympus series. The third installment, The Mark of Athena, will be released in October. Here’s more from the article:

Writing about Norse mythology “represents a return to my roots as a reader,” he added, noting that his eighth-grade teacher got him interested in mythology by pointing out that the “Lord of the Rings” books — Riordan’s favorites at the time — were based on Norse mythology.”

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Author Michele Rosenthal recently published her memoir, Before the World Intruded: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future. The book recounts the twenty-four years she spent struggling with undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and her subsequent healing. In celebration of the book release, Rosenthal (pictured, via) has launched Project Give Back.

Those who buy Rosenthal’s book before May 31st can sign up to receive free gifts from Project Give Back. She sought out trauma counselors and other professionals to donate $1,900 worth of free gifts including eBooks, videos, counseling sessions, therapeutic memberships and more. She will also be raffling off nearly $6,500 in special gifts.

Here’s more about Project Give Back: “The driving principle behind everything I do is the idea that we don’t heal in isolation; we heal in community…As a post-trauma coach, host of a radio talk show and the founder of www.healmyptsd.com, I hear from survivors of all types of traumas, from combat to domestic violence to sexual assault, child abuse, accidents and illnesses. I often hear that treatment costs more than they can afford. PROJECT GIVE BACK was born as a way to unify the professional trauma community and allow survivors to access products and experiences that may help them move toward recovery.”

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Bestselling novelist Paulo Coelho has convinced HarperCollins to sell many of his eBooks for 99-cents in the United States and Canada. The sale prices are now in effect at Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble.

The author could not predict how long the sale would last, but hopes to set the industry standard. In a blog post, Coelho explained that he hoped to make his digital books cost as much as a song in iTunes. The author helpfully did the book-buying math for his readers, revealing that purchasing all his discounted books will cost $10.89 versus $74.19 at regular prices.  Check it out:

One of my US publishers, HarperCollins, following a conversation with my agent Monica Antunes at the London Book Fair 2012, have decided to reduce the price of all my ebook titles (except The Alchemist) to 0.99 USD. Which means a book now costs less than a cup of coffee! This is a crucial decision for me. For years I have been advocating that free content is not a threat to the book business. In lowering the price of a book and equaling it to the price of a song in iTunes, the reader will be encouraged to pay for it, instead of downloading it for free. The email sent by Harper does not specify for how long the promotion will last.

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Nothing makes an author happier than scoring a book deal. But before you sign on the dotted line, it’s important to read through a book contract with a fine-toothed comb.

While it’s a good idea to shell out some money to have a lawyer read the contract, it also helps to educate yourself about these contracts. As a resource guide, Mediabistro’s AvantGuild page has created a list of “The 7 Biggest Red Flags in Book Contracts.”

One red flag to look out for is the “second option clause.” Here is more from AvantGuild: “A ‘second option’ can sound like a dream. After all, that’s the publisher saying it wants a first peek at your next work of art, which is nice to hear when you haven’t started your first project yet. But this can also be a red flag, especially for authors working with smaller publishers. Why? Well, what if a bigger publisher wanted to offer you a more generous advance for that next title? If you sign over your second book option rights, you could miss out.”

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In an expletive filled essay at The Daily Beast, novelist Stephen King warned wealthy Americans to pay their “fair share” of taxes before civil unrest deepens in the United States.

Do you agree with King’s bombastic essay? His essay also took aim at Presidential candidate, author and fellow wealthy person Mitt Romney. Check it out:

Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullsh** persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fu**ing-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

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Blogger Tiana Smith wrote a post judging American book covers. After comparing the American covers of several popular YA books with their foreign editions, Smith concluded: “American versions are slightly more … generic than some of their counterparts.”

Explore the cover pictures on her site–what do you think? Here’s more from Smith’s post: “Usually us Americans are cool with it if you just throw a girl on the cover. We also tend to go for the slightly more feminine, I’ve found.” Many publishing executives agree that book covers are the number one marketing tool in their arsenal.

Several commenters agreed with Smith (pictured, via). Shadow Watchers author Morgan Shamy pointed out that American book covers tend to be “more commercial.” Bibliophile L.T. Elliot slammed them because she feels they don’t convey enough emotion. Writer DL Hammons observed that “our book covers are more conservative and less likely to take chances.”

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Just as Rupert Murdoch has taken the stand in the scandalous News of the World phone hacking trial in Britain, a new book is out that claims to tell the story of the inner workings of Murdoch’s News Corporation.

Dial M for Murdoch by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman, reporters for the Independent. According to Penguin UK, the book’s publisher, the book includes new details, ”which have never been disclosed before in public, including the smears and threats against politicians, journalists and lawyers. It reveals the existence of brave insiders who pointed those pursuing the investigation towards pieces of secret information that cracked open the case.”

openDemocracy.net has a review of the book by author Bruce Page. Page writes: “Dial is our best-to-date account of the snoopers, bully-boys, bully-girls and pseudo-hacks sicced lavishly by Newscorp onto anyone whose alleged turpitude might somehow advance its ambitions. And so they are found chasing — as illicit lovers —  a couple actually established as man and wife; assuming that an MI5 officer’s tip has bared orgiastic Nazism to their censorious gaze; discovering rent boys, but without transactional evidence; and generally barking up factitious trees, or ones long since chopped down.”

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