Look out bookworms, popstar/actress Hilary Duff is coming for YOU! Hilary, who is happily engaged to be wed to hockey player Mike Comrie, is releasing her debut novel called Elixir this Fall. Simon & Schuster, her publisher, reveals that Elixir will be the first book in a series aimed at young adults. Here is our first look at the cover artwork for Hil D‘s first tome:

Hilary Duff has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers to publish a young adult fiction series. The first novel in the series, Elixir, will be published in hardcover in October 2010. Simon & Schuster also secured world rights for a nonfiction title to be published in spring 2012. The nonfiction book will be about the challenges faced by children of divorce, an issue that has touched Hilary’s own life. Simon & Schuster says Hilary Duff’s Elixir series “combines the overpowering allure of a dangerous love triangle with thrilling international adventure.” Here is a description of the book from the Simon & Schuster press release.

Clea Raymond is a talented young photojournalist who has spent her entire life in the spotlight as the daughter of a Washington politician and a renowned surgeon. Haunted by the strange appearance of a mysterious young man in her photographs, Clea travels the globe with her best friends, Rayna and Ben, in a race against time to unravel a centuries-old mystery that could unlock the key to her soulmate’s true identity and the secret of her father’s disappearance–and ultimately save all their lives.

Hilary Duff says, “I’ve always loved the escape of a great book, especially one that features a strong, inspiring female character you feel you really understand, someone who could be you, but living a more fascinating life. I’m hoping Elixir will be that kind of book–a novel that will transport readers and open new worlds for them.”

I suppose if Lauren LC Conrad, of The Hills fame, can be an author why can’t Hilary Duff? In all honesty, I can’t say that Duff‘s foray into the world of young adult fiction seems all that interesting to me. But I might be willing to spend some time reading the nonfiction book she is planning to write. I’m always very curious to read things written by celebs. If, in fact, her book is not ghostwritten by someone else, I would be very interested to find out what her writing is like. I’m not sure if either of these literary offerings seem attractive to you but if either of these books get young adults to read, then I can’t really hate on them at all.

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As you may recall, I passed along last month the news that my fave contemporary author Neil Gaiman would be appearing at UCLA for a UCLA Live event in February and last night was the night. I was lucky enough to attend Gaiman‘s reading last night and had an absolutely amazing time:

Charming as ever, Neil delighted the sold out Royce Hall last night … telling stories and reading from his amazing body of work. He read a chapter from his last book The Graveyard Book and also read a chapter from his current book Odd and the Frost Giants. The highlight for me, tho, was a poem he read titled Instructions that will be included in a new book that is due out later this year. It is an absolute pleasure hearing this man read his work aloud … I hope Gaiman will be coming to your city in the near future because, I’m telling you, he is utterly fantastic.

His reading last night reminded me that I had yet to read his latest release Odd and the Frost Giants, much to my chagrin:

So I managed to read it in full last night. It’s a fantastic read … about a crippled boy who helps the Norse gods save the city of Asgard from the Frost Giants. It’s a short book, a quick read and utterly charming through and through. Neil Gaiman is such a talent, we are very lucky to have his stories.

Also last night, David’s oldest sister Lara arrived for the weekend … his brother Aram arrives this evening … and then the weekend officially gets underway. Rain or shine, this weekend is gonna rock. Have a good one, y’all!!

Sad news to pass along today … it is being reported that iconic author J.D. Salinger passed away yesterday in his New Hampshire home of natural causes. He was 91:

J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose “The Catcher in the Rye” shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91. Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author’s son said in a statement from Salinger’s literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H. “The Catcher in the Rye,” with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made “Catcher” a featured selection, advised that for “anyone who has ever brought up a son” the novel will be “a source of wonder and delight — and concern.” Enraged by all the “phonies” who make “me so depressed I go crazy,” Holden soon became American literature’s most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel’s sales are astonishing — more than 60 million copies worldwide — and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams — to never grow up. Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel’s themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. “Catcher” presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap. Novels from Evan Hunter’s “The Blackboard Jungle” to Curtis Sittenfeld’s “Prep,” movies from “Rebel Without a Cause” to “The Breakfast Club,” and countless rock ‘n’ roll songs echoed Salinger’s message of kids under siege. One of the great anti-heroes of the 1960s, Benjamin Braddock of “The Graduate,” was but a blander version of Salinger’s narrator … By the 21st century, Holden himself seemed relatively mild, but Salinger’s book remained a standard in school curriculums and was discussed on countless Web sites and a fan page on Facebook. Salinger’s other books don’t equal the influence or sales of “Catcher,” but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever. The collection “Nine Stories” features the classic “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” the deadpan account of a suicidal Army veteran and the little girl he hopes, in vain, will save him. The novel “Franny and Zooey,” like “Catcher,” is a youthful, obsessively articulated quest for redemption, featuring a memorable argument between Zooey and his mother as he attempts to read in the bathtub. “Catcher,” narrated from a mental facility, begins with Holden recalling his expulsion from a Pennsylvania boarding school for failing four classes and for general apathy. He returns home to Manhattan, where his wanderings take him everywhere from a Times Square hotel to a rainy carousel ride with his kid sister, Phoebe, in Central Park. He decides he wants to escape to a cabin out West, but scorns questions about his future as just so much phoniness. “I mean how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it?” he reasons. “The answer is, you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.” “The Catcher in the Rye” became both required and restricted reading, periodically banned by a school board or challenged by parents worried by its frank language and the irresistible chip on Holden’s shoulder. “I’m aware that a number of my friends will be saddened, or shocked, or shocked-saddened, over some of the chapters of `The Catcher in the Rye.’ Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children,” Salinger wrote in 1955, in a short note for “20th Century Authors.” “It’s almost unbearable to me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach,” he added … In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home. “I love to write and I assure you I write regularly,” Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. “But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.” Jerome David Salinger was born Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City.

It remains to be seen if this treasure trove of unpublished materials will ever make it to print now that he has died but the mind boggles at what work might come to light in the wake of his death. Catcher has to be one of my favorite books … it is a book that can be read over and over and never lose its luster (I just re-read Cather in the Rye last Summer for the umpteenth time and loved it just as much as I did the first time I read it). J.D. Salinger‘s influence will live on forever and his presence here in Earth will be sorely missed. A great literary legend has been lost to us … may he rest in eternal peace. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family.

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Neil Gaiman, who recently announced to the world that he and girlfriend/artist/musician Amanda Palmer have are engaged to be wed (I understand he proposed to her on New Year’s Eve by drawing a ring on her finger with a Sharpie marker!!!), is featured in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. For some strange reason, The New Yorker finally decided to feature Gaiman and his “beloved text” Coraline 8 years after it was published and about a year after it was made into a movie. Trust me, tho, as an active reader and subscriber of The New Yorker, I am not complaining … it is amazing to see one of my favorite authors featured in their pages. Here is an excerpt:

Gaiman, who is forty-nine and English, with a pale face and a wild, corkscrewed mop of black-and-gray hair, is unusually prolific. In addition to horror, he writes fantasy, fairy tales, science fiction, and apocalyptic romps, in the form of novels, comics, picture books, short stories, poems, and screenplays. Now and then, he writes a song. Gaiman’s books are genre pieces that refuse to remain true to their genres, and his audience is broader than any purist’s: he defines his readership as “bipeds.” His mode is syncretic, with sources ranging from English folktales to glam rock and the Midrash, and enchantment is his major theme: life as we know it, only prone to visitations by Norse gods, trolls, Arthurian knights, and kindergarten-age zombies. “Neil’s writing is kind of fey in the best sense of the word,” the comic-book writer Alan Moore told me. “His best effects come out of people or characters or situations in the real world being starkly juxtaposed with this misty fantasy world.” The model for Gaiman’s eclecticism is G. K. Chesterton; his work, Gaiman says, “left me with an idea of London as this wonderful, mythical, magical place, which became the way I saw the world.” Chesterton’s career also serves as a warning. “He would have been a better writer if he’d written less,” Gaiman says. “There’s always that fear of writing too much if you’re a reasonably facile writer, and I’m a reasonably facile writer.” Gaiman’s two most recent novels, “Anansi Boys” (2005) and “The Graveyard Book” (2008)—a retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book,” set in a graveyard—débuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in their respective categories, adult and children’s literature. Yet Gaiman remains somewhat marginal. The Times of London recently referred to him as “the most famous writer you’ve never heard of.” The New York Times waited to review “The Graveyard Book” for several months after its publication, by which time it had won the 2009 Newbery Medal, one of the highest honors in children’s fiction, and been on the best-seller list for eighteen weeks. “I have at this point a critic-proof career,” Gaiman said. “The fans already knew about the book.”

If anything, I’m hoping THIS New Yorker piece will enlighten others as to the talent and genius of Neil Gaiman and will inspire new fans to seek out his work and fall in love. As I mentioned above, the piece begins its focus on the theme of children’s Gothic literature, and in particular, Gaiman‘s novella Coraline but it then goes on to discuss Gaiman‘s long history as a writer. The full article/interview can be read online HERE or in the pages of this week’s issue of The New Yorker. It’s a fabulous read, almost as fabulous as Gaiman‘s own work. If you are not familiar, I urge y’all to seek him out and see for yourselves why I am such a big fan :)

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Happy congratulations are in order today for my fave contemporary author, Neil Gaiman, and the love of his life, singer/artist Amanda Palmer, who got themselves engaged to be wed this week. It’s unclear when exactly the couple got themselves engaged but Neil broke the news on his official website last night! Here is the photo and full text of Neil‘s happy (but brief) announcement … They’re gettin’ hitched, y’all!!

Dear The World,

we are going to get married,

signed,

Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman

I am completely and utterly thrilled by this news. It is plainly obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with Neil and Amanda that they are truly, madly and DEEPLY crazy in love with one another … news that they’ve decided to make things official and become a happily married couple is not surprising in the least. I hope you’ll join me in wishing them all the happiness in the world as they embark on this matrimonial journey together and that the couple will, truly, live happily ever after. Congrats!!!

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Amazing news for SoCal fans of author Neil Gaiman (who just released his first short film titled Statuesque) … UCLA is hosting an evening with Gaiman at on campus at Royce Hall as part of their UCLA Live series next month. Having been lucky enough to attend one of Gaiman‘s speaking engagements in the past, I can assure you that it would be WELL worth your time to check him out in person. Here are some deets about his appearance at UCLA on February 4:

After years as the most famous writer you’d never heard of, Neil Gaiman’s recent Hollywood successes have propelled him into celebrity orbit. After co-writing the films “Beowulf” and “Stardust,” the animated version of his novella, “Coraline,” was released in 2009 to unanimous rave reviews. But Gaiman has been a prominent and prolific creator of comics, novels, film, journalism and poetry for more than two decades. He created the best-selling DC Comics series “Sandman,” which was the first comic ever to receive a major literary award. “The Graveyard Book,” published in 2008, received the Newbery Medal, the top prize for children’s literature. At the podium, Gaiman shares stories of imagination and urges audiences to take note of the creative ideas that linger in each of us.

Since this info has newly come to my attention, I can assure you that I will do everything I can to attend. Not only is Neil Gaiman a masterful writer but he is an equally adept public speaker and I cannot *wait* to hear him live again. If you are in the area, I really suggest you get your tickets to see him at UCLA next month. Click HERE (UCLA students can buy their tix HERE) to procure your tickets and hopefully I’ll see you there :)

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OUCH! In a new interview with USA Today, Stephen King was asked about his thoughts on the writing talents of J.K. Rowling (who created the amazing Harry Potter series of books) and Stephenie Meyer (who created the Twilight Saga that is all the rage with the tweens these days) and he had some very nice things to say about Rowling. When he gave his opinion of Meyer, well, I think it’s best if I just let him speak for himself:

Stephen King’s opinion may drive a stake through the heart of “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer. In an interview with USA Weekend, the bestselling author compared Meyer with J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. According to Stephen, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” Meeooww! While Stephen may not be a fan of Stephenie’s writing, he understands the appeal of the series. “People are attracted by the stories, by the pace, and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it’s not particularly threatening because it’s not overtly sexual.” He further explains, “A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like, the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.”

To be fair, King also states that author Dean Koontz is “sometimes … just awful” and that author James Patterson “is a terrible writer” … so it’s not just Stephenie Meyer that he is not too fond of. To be completely honest, I see his point. Having read the entire Twilight Saga, I also do not feel that Meyer is a particularly good writer … even tho she is able to capture the imagination of millions. Rowling, on the other hand, is an absolute master storyteller and is, IMHO, a brilliant author. They’re just very different … and both very entertaining writers. I have always respected Stephen King for his brutal honesty … he may not always have the most popular thing to say but, at least you know he’s being honest. If I can interject my own opinion on Stephen King‘s writing … over all, I’m a fan. I’ve enjoyed way more books of his than I’ve not enjoyed — but there have been those books of his that are absolutely terrible. They can’t all be gems … and to each their own. I’m sure some Meyer fans are bound to give King flak for his comments but I ain’t mad at him. He’s merely giving his opinion … which may resonate with some and clash with others.

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