EXCLUSIVE: It’s like a scene from a John Grisham movie: $800-per-hour attorneys for O’Melveny & Myers in posh Century City law offices trash-picking for used soda cans, torn candy wrappers, and dirty paper napkins. But this is a real-life legal case abou

What do Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) Kindle, Barnes & Noble's (NYSE: BKS) Nook and Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad have in common? What about authors like Stephen King, Barbara Freethy, C.J. Lyons, Amanda Hocking and Michael Prescott? If you said they represent t

The Associated Press, None | HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "Home Front" by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's) 2. "Private: Number 1 Suspect" by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) 3. "Defending Jacob" by William Landay (Delacorte) 4. "Taken" by Robert Cr

When I review a book, I check the publisher’s description online and on the back cover to make sure I don’t inadvertently divulge plot twists and other surprises that readers won’t know when they start reading. I was a bit surprised to find a blurb on Pa

By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg Debut novelist Chris Pavone used Facebook to keep in touch with his pals when he lived in Luxembourg, which became the setting of his coming novel "The Expats." Now his publisher is counting on Facebook and other social-media s

As reviewing everything that comes along is part of the territory, critics are steeped in mediocrity. We wonder why the publishers accept the manuscripts and turn them into books. Perhaps because they think critics are perverse enough to like them, the p