Franz Kafka

The mystery grows: What's in J.D. Salinger's safe?. So what about the safe?

For Joseph Calleja, tenor from Malta with voice `like sunshine,' a star-making role at Met?. There's something about the honeyed sweetness of Joseph Calleja's voice that seems to evoke memories of a golden age, as if this young tenor carried within his vocal cords a secret passed down from bygone generations.

Culture clash in Iran as government tries to rein in artists protesting political turmoil. Iran's greatest master of traditional music, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, always avoided open clashes with his country's ruling hard-line clerics.

Culture clash in Iran as government tries to rein in artists protesting political turmoil. Iran's greatest master of traditional music, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, always avoided open clashes with his country's ruling hard-line clerics.

Vladimir Nabokov wanted it burned on his death, but "The Original of Laura" survived and now, 32 years later, the unfinished novel is about to be published for the first time.

CHICAGO/LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Deciphering William Shakespeare plays in school essays apparently was not enough for two university students who have written a book of Twitter entries that summarize and satirize works of literature.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - An Israeli court has stepped into a battle over a legacy that may include lost manuscripts of the great 20th century writer Franz Kafka, ordering an elderly heiress to open up a secret hoard of papers, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Friday.

Crowds _ and pope's rhetoric _ were contained, but Vatican calls Czech pilgrimage a success. Pope Benedict XVI wrapped up a low-key pilgrimage to the fiercely secular Czech Republic on Monday, reaching out to nonbelievers and calling on an increasingly diverse Europe to embrace Christian teachings.

It was revealed earlier this month that Paul Giamatti would be playing Larry Howard, of Three Stooges fame, in the Farrelly brothers' upcoming biopic about the comedy team. Giamatti won an Emmy last year for playing the second president of the United States in the HBO miniseries ``John Adams.'' Talk about range! Does Giamatti do windows, too? Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Yet impressive as Giamatti's stretch from Stooge to Founding Father might be, it's only the most recent instance of a film actor adding wildly different real-life figures to his or her resume. Mary Pickford, that queen of the silent screen, managed to play both Charles II's mistress, Nell Gwyn (``Mistress Nell,'' 1915), and the Virgin Mary (``The Gaucho,'' 1927). And the Adams-Howard pair might not even be the most incongruous one-two punch in Hollywood casting history. How about Judy Davis playing Israeli premier Golda Meir (in ``A Woman Named Golda,'' 1982) and Judy Garland (in ``Life With Judy Garland,'' 2001)? These fact/fict

Hospitals and physicians should move swiftly to adopt electronic medical records. AmericaÕs health care system can do a terrific job of diagnosing ailments by using state-of-the-art medical equipment. Many surgical procedures unheard of a decade ago are routine today because of advances in computers, laser technology and robotics.

In a modern twist on the Kafka stories he loves, Guatemalan could get prison for a tweet. Jean Anleu was so fed up with corruption in his country that he decided to vent on the Internet, sending a 96-character message on the social-networking site Twitter.