News: Book Prizes, Publishing Perils, and Roth Retires

Jerome Ferrari won France's top book prize, the Prix Goncourt, for Le Sermon de la Chute de Rome ("The Sermon of the Fall of Rome"), a novel set in Corsica. But not everyone's picking up prizes.

Spanish author Javier Marías turns down state-sponsored book award worth €20,000. He was one of a few who refused book awards this year for various reasons, mostly political.

One reason why book prizes should have no strings attached.

Elsewhere:

• Phillip Roth not writing any more novels. Quitting while he's ahead? Panio Gianopoulos eulogises Roth's career. Some might feel this is premature, especially when he still hasn't scored the Nobel lit prize...
• Britishisms may be the least of US worries as Jamie magazine comes to 'merica. Lubbly jubbly!
• In the wake of the Penguin House merger: If capitalism is killing culture, is government intervention for the arts necessary?
• Ten conversations about books that should be laid to rest. Uh, amen?
• A publisher's year in the e-book age.
• A call for an open access model for publishing academia.
• Book piracy is not harmless, as book bootleggers in Zimbabwe demonstrate.
• Fairy tales as social and cultural commentary - and how Disney turned it into feel-good dope.
• Is a crackdown on "highly-structured", "test-focused" textbooks looming in the UK?
• Another 'threat' to literature: NaNoWriMo? Must we keep feeding the "Is _____ a threat to literature" mill?
• When a little neighbourhood bookstore came to John Grisham's rescue.
• Why we enjoy stories featuring female detectives.

And Happy Deepavali.