Dave Eggers

National Book Awards celebrate New York stories as honorees ponder the future of literature. The 60th annual National Book Awards was a night to celebrate literature and to wonder about its future.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A novel about life in New York City in the 1970s and a biography of U.S. tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt were among the winners at the United States 60th annual National Book Awards on Wednesday.

Haitian-born Canadian writer Dany Laferriere and American novelist Dave Eggers on Wednesday were awarded France's Medicis literary prize celebrating original writing.

Haitian-born Canadian writer Dany Laferriere and American novelist Dave Eggers on Wednesday were awarded France's Medicis literary prize celebrating original writing.

Haitian-born Canadian writer Dany Laferriere and American novelist Dave Eggers on Wednesday were awarded France's Medicis literary prize celebrating original writing.

Let's dispense with the preliminaries: What do the experts think of ``Where the Wild Things Are''? As the end credits rolled, my 12-year-old daughter and her bestest friend turned to me with faces like the twin masks of comedy and tragedy on a Broadway playbill. One girl's eyes were wet with tears of sadness and profound joy; ``I loved it,'' she sighed. The other looked as if someone had stuck an egg-beater in her ear and scrambled her brains. ``That is not a children's movie,'' she growled. They're both right. In adapting Maurice Sendak's slender 1963 picture-book classic, director Spike Jonze and writer Dave Eggers have teased out the melancholy along with the magic. While this much-awaited, long-in-the-works film has more than its share of wild rumpuses, its big, shaggy heart is in what happens after the rumpus dies down: insecurities, misunderstandings, fears. ``Where the Wild Things Are'' isn't for little kids so much as it's about them, and parents and tykes expecting the next ``

Tycoon stories and Darwin books get National Book Award nominations. The subjects of this year's National Book Award nominees were better known than the authors.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Turning a classic children's book into a Hollywood movie takes courage.

Maurice Sendak, ever-untamed, sees his `Wild Things' adapted into a film. About the hoopla surrounding the film adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are," Maurice Sendak is characteristically gruff.

The long-awaited movie of the children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" finally arrives in cinemas this week after a three-year journey every bit as arduous as the imaginary voyage of its hero.

Danger ahead: Spike Jonze emphasizes the wild in adaptation of Sendak's `Wild Things'. Spike Jonze recalls how Maurice Sendak urged him to make the movie version of "Where the Wild Things Are" as dangerous as the book was when the children's classic came out in 1963.

Gore Vidal, Dave Eggers to receive honorary National Book Awards. Congratulations, Gore Vidal.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST-SELLERS. HARDCOVER FICTION

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST-SELLERS. HARDCOVER FICTION

WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST-SELLERS. FICTION

N ot so long ago, high schoolers had to lug heavy beach bags brimming with tomes by Bronte, Steinbeck, and Tolstoy. These days, they're more likely to carry sprightly fare by contemporary authors like Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, and Bill Bryson. With apologies to Kafka, the summer reading list is undergoing a metamorphosis. While area schools constantly tweak their lists and debate what deserves a spot, a consensus is growing that students should be enticed to read, even if that leads them to books that haven't yet stood the test of time. So instead of reading about Heathcliff's romantic misfortune at Wuthering Heights circa 1800, students can laugh over Bryson's present-day attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail, while riffing on his hiking buddy's more annoying habits. ``I'm concerned about turning reading into work,'' said Donna Johns, a library teacher at Newton North High School. ``Sometimes you do read for work, for information, for class, but sometimes you really should just be re

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Thanks to hit television show "The Office," John Krasinski has become one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood -- in demand for TV and movies.

Movie Review: Krasinski, Rudolph lovely together in touching trip to parenthood `Away We Go'. Movies about pregnancy all too often feature mad dashes to the maternity ward, delivery-room histrionics and bumbling, hovering relatives.