Books

The University of Texas, Austin nabbed the rights to preserve and present the late Nobel winner's collected writings. Also: HBO takes on Scientology, and Aretha Franklin decries her new biography.

Even as public schools in the area closed amid protests, the Ferguson Public Library stayed open for local students and readers. Onlookers have responded with an outpouring of donations.

"His historical context, unlike my own, came from a place of ignorance," writes the National Book Award-winning Woodson, responding to racially charged comments delivered after she won her prize.

The son of an officer who investigated the murders central to Truman Capote's true-crime classic just won a bid in court to publish his father's findings, which he says contradict Capote's account.

The 2014 Bad Sex in Fiction award has picked its winner: Okri's novel The Age of Magic, which not so subtly features a skyrocket in flight. Also: Raymond Chandler's lost comic opera is discovered.

The novel, Morrison's 11th, will be titled God Help the Child. J.K. Also: Rowling has plans for a new book of her own. And a book has been returned to a Washington state library — 65 years overdue.

A two-year partnership in the bookseller's troubled e-reader has ended, as Barnes & Noble buys out Microsoft's share. Also: Upset brews in India over the president's exclusive deal with Amazon.

More than 3,000 books from the British Nobel laureate's collection have been donated to a library in Zimbabwe, where Lessing lived for 25 years. Also: J.K. Rowling promises 12 days of Harry Potter.

In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham accuses a man she identifies as Barry of sexual assault. Yet "Barry" is a pseudonym — and the ensuing confusion has prompted her publisher to clarify matters.

Not much is known about the acclaimed Italian novelist besides her pen name and her books. But she sat for a recent interview — conducted in writing, with her publisher as intermediary.