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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's a good thing that you can't judge a book by its sleeve art, because Carrie Underwood's fourth album, "Blown Away," arrives this week bearing one of the tackiest country music album covers of all time - a ludicrously airbrushed portrait that dares you not to focus on Underwood's gleaming, …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Spanking, sex and submission are raking in profits for erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey", reinvigorating marriages and sparking anguished debates among feminists, but there has been one unintended result of the novel - laughter. The best-selling book by British writer E.L. James that has taken …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert Caro has spent almost 40 years writing his monumental prize-winning biography of President Lyndon Johnson, but says it is not the 1960s leader that held his fascination for so long, but how political power works in America. With the long-awaited fourth volume of his Johnson biography "The Passage …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Pirates are right up there with vampires, werewolves and people saying "LOL" out loud on the list of Played-Out Pop Culture Phenomena, but leave it to the folks at Aardman Animation to find the remaining reservoirs of fun in a bunch of seafaring scalawags. Whether you're besotted with peglegs …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Author and journalist Paul Ingrassia is a passionate car buff who covered the automobile industry for more than 25 years, working for the Wall Street Journal and winning both a Pulitzer Prize and Gerald Loeb Award with Joseph B. White in 1993. In his new book, "Engines of Change: A History of the American …

TOKYO (Reuters) - What with romance and suave, sensitive characters, vampires weren't scary enough for author David Wellington anymore. So he decided to see if he could bring some terror back to tales about the centuries-old undead creatures. The result was five books starring policewoman Laura Caxton and Justinia Malvern, …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Baldacci's latest novel, "The Innocent," shot to the top of Publishers Weekly best-sellers list on Thursday. The list is compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "The Innocent" by David Baldacci …

LONDON (Reuters) - "Escape From Camp 14" makes for grim reading. Journalist Blaine Harden's account of a young man's life in and escape from a labor camp in secretive North Korea has drawn parallels with the Soviet gulags and Nazi Holocaust. One big difference is that North Korea's political prison camps, holding an estimated …

(Reuters) - Fans of "The Hunger Games" will soon have a chance to channel the survivalist spirit of the novel's heroine by zip-lining through a North Carolina forest and taking classes in camouflage, archery, making fire and shelter-building. The woodsy, adrenalin-pumping experiences move beyond traditional tourism for …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Chimpanzees eat monkeys. That's one of the big takeaways from "Chimpanzee," the latest in the DisneyNature series of documentaries. We don't get to see this happen in a way that would jeopardize the movie's G rating, of course, but between description (by narrator Tim Allen) and implication, …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Nicholas Sparks is a brand name. He's the author of mawkish, bestselling romantic novels that Hollywood keeps turning into even worse mawkish, romantic films, several of which have scored at the box office. The list includes "The Notebook," by far the best and most successful of the lot, as well …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Were you aware that comedian and radio personality Steve Harvey had written a self-help book for women entitled "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man"? By the end of the new movie "Think Like a Man," you will have no doubt in your mind that Steve Harvey has written a book entitled "Act Like a Lady, …

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A scriptwriter living with his girlfriend in Mumbai is put on the spot when the disapproving parents turn up. A doomed call centre worker lives in a cloud of numbing drug addiction financed by his high salary. These are just a few of the lives chronicled by author Palash Krishna Mehrotra in his non-fictional …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bursting into the U.S. national baseball consciousness in the summer of 1973, a rookie named Joe Castle endears himself to spectators and opposing teams as he smashes records while maintaining his own small town sense of wonder with the game. "Calico Joe" is the 25th novel from prolific author John …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - John Grisham's new novel, "Calico Joe" debuted at the top of the Publishers Weekly best-sellers list on Thursday. The list is compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide. Hardcover Fiction Last Week 1. "Calico Joe" by John Grisham …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Disappointed book lovers and the publishing world lashed out on Tuesday at the refusal to declare a Pulitzer fiction winner, saying it would hurt sales and gave the impression that 2011 was a bad year for novels. Monday's lack of a decision by the Pulitzer board could also hurt an industry accused of …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Marcel Beyer's latest novel takes place in postwar Dresden, but the award-winning German author didn't actually set foot there until the mid-1990s. When he did, he knew "from the very first day" that he had a book to write. That book is "Kaltenburg." Originally published in Germany several years ago, …

LOS ANGELES, April 15 - Following are the top 10 movies at North American box offices for the three days starting April 13, led by "The Hunger Games" at No. 1, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters. 1 (1) The Hunger Games .....................$ 21.5 million 2 (*) The Three Stooges ....................$ 17.1 …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York literary agent Bill Clegg's first memoir counted down two months spent blowing $70,000 on a binge of crack cocaine and male escorts in New York's boutique hotels while avoiding loved ones and the publishing agency he built and owned. His newest book begins where the first left off with a new …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - J.K. Rowling's first book for adults will be a "blackly comic" novel set in an idyllic English town where all is not what it seems, its publisher said on Thursday. The title of the closely guarded 480-page novel by the prolific "Harry Potter" author will be "The Casual Vacancy." It and will be available …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Let's face it — nobody was particularly enthusiastic about the idea of "The Three Stooges." For purists and fans of the original short films, nobody could step into the shoes (and on the toes) of Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard. And anyone who never liked the Stooges in the first place …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - A never-fail joke is to add the words "between the sheets" after reading out the message in a fortune cookie, as in, "You will find happiness — between the sheets." Movie producers must think the same is true for the words "in space." Take the most tired, hackneyed plot, one that has been recycled …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Not since "The Crying Game" have film critics tied themselves into as many knots trying to recommend a movie without giving away plot details as with "The Cabin in the Woods," a clever and spooky new thriller co-written and produced by Joss Whedon, a guy who knows a thing or two about turning …