Allison Pearson reveals agonies in writing her latest book

I Dont Know How She Does It;The Film

        A new trailer has been released for I Don’t Know How She Does It starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan.The film is based on the book by Allison Pearson about a finance executive who is the breadwinner of her household, but can’t handle the basics including baking a pie for her daughter’s school.The comedy will be released in theaters on September 16.

Best-selling author tells of how she was engulfed by 'bad clinical

Depression.

"I think something I do have in common with [her fiction's teenage protagonist] Petra's life is that, like a lot of little girls, when I was young I wanted to be perfect, and I worked really hard to be good at everything. So I thought I'd be able to put my foot on the accelerator and get myself out of a depression but it doesn't work."

            Allison Pearson, the journalist-turned-bestselling author, yesterday spoke of the depression that engulfed her while writing her second novel and the anger she felt at her book being branded as "superior chick-lit".

  

             She told the Independent columnist Christina Patterson on the final day of the Woodstock Literary Festival, that she "fell into a bad clinical depression" while writing I Think I Love You, about a teenager's obsessive crush on the 1970s pop star and pin-up, David Cassidy.

Book Title: I Dont Know How She Does It


Allison Pearson's debut novel, I Don't Know How She Does It, is a rare and beautiful hybrid: a devastatingly funny novel that's also a compelling fictional world. You want to climb inside this book and inhabit it. However, you might find it pretty messy once you're in there. Narrator Kate Reddy is the manager of a hedge fund and mother of two small children.

'Priceless' Nicole Richie's 30th birthday

September 22, 2011 |  2:11 pm                                                                                                            Nicole Richie turned 30 on Wednesday, celebrating a new decade with her better half, friends and family in Beverly Hills.

Richie and her party took over the Royal Suite at the swanky Beverly Wilshire for a grown-and-sexy fete with no particular theme. 

"To me, this most important thing is that my friends just come and have a good time, nothing too forced," Richie told us while getting ready, husband Joel Madden at her side. 

In sparkly vintage red mini and spiked Louboutins, Richie received pals including Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, father Lionel Richie, Mindy Kalling, Samantha Ronson and Quincy Jones.

We pointed out that the Regent was quite an adult venue for someone just crossing the threshhold into her 30s, and she agreed: "I am so classy! Classy with a K, but classy. I'm almost there with the C."

Jokes aside, Richie opened up about her journey from reality-show wild child to married mother of two. 

"If life was about one lesson, we'd all be perfect. But it's not," she said. "I try to learn lessons every day. Life is about waking up and going out there and being the best version of you."

Her morning and afternoon were spent with daughter Harlow, 3, and son Sparrow, who celebrated his second birthday Sept. 9.

"Their life doesn't stop when it's my birthday. They have school and ballet and this and that. I was just a mom, which I'm totally happy being," she said, "My son just had his birthday, and they just don't care. They're birthdayed out! We just had the cake and the song and the whole bit." 

Richie did enjoy some tiny spoils, however, such as a tiered birthday cake with gold detail, a dance-off in the suite led by emcee Ronson and the obligatory playing of her dad's hit "All Night Long."

A video montage was projected starring her kids and close ones, and the Winter Kate designer did land one exclusive gift — the unreleased Samsung Galaxy SII, which she used to snap pics of her guests throughout the evening.

"I'm so excited about this new chapter in my life and so ready for something new," Richie said. "So many of my girlfriends say that your 30s are the best. I couldn't be more ready."

Book Title: Priceless
By: Nicole Richie


Meet Charlotte Williams… Rich, gorgeous, blonde and a talented singer, she has everything going for her. Spoiled and indulged, her life has always revolved around fashion, gossip, partying and men. When Charlotte’s father – her only family since her mother’s tragic death years ago – is arrested on fraud charges, her glittering world shatters around her. Alone and penniless, she must make her own way for the very first time. Harassed by paparazzi and the outraged victims of her father’s crimes, Charlotte flees to New Orleans to escape the scandal. But what happens when a Park Avenue Princess is forced to fend for herself? How will she adapt to the Big Easy’s bohemian lifestyle? And in the face of anonymous death threats, can she keep herself out of danger? From the stylish avenues of Manhattan and dark clubs of the French Quarter to the bright lights of Los Angeles, Nicole Richie’s scintillating tale shows that the very life you run from is the one that won’t let you hide.

Chapter 1

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         "Hello, Davis, how nice to see a familiar face so soon." She shook his hand."Miss Charlotte, it's a pleasure to have you back in New York. The city has been very quiet without you."She laughed. "I doubt that, Davis, but thanks. Is the car very far? My shoes are killing me. 

Haruki Murakami wins this year’s ‘Premi Internacional Catalunya’

Book Title: Norwegian Wood  
By : Haruki Murakami
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before.
Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.

        Barcelona (ACN).The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has won this year’s prestigious international prize, the ‘Premi Internacional Catalunya’. It is awarded annually by the Catalan Government to individuals who have contributed decisively with their work to develop cultural, scientific and human values around the world. Last year, former US President Jimmy Carter received the award. Other winners have been: the leader of Myanmar’s opposition Aung San Suu Kyi, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, American writer Harold Bloom, French oceanographer Jacques Yves Cousteau,British philosopher Karl Popper,Indian economist Amartya Sen, former Czech Republic President and writer Václav Havel, or former European Commission President Jacques Delors, among others. Murakami was awarded by the jury because “his work transcends its cultural environment and he has become a reference for the literary world”. The author of ‘Norwegian Wood’,‘Kafka on the Shore’ and ‘After Dark’ has an individual universe, which switches between dreams and reality. According to the prize’s jury, “he has built a literary bridge between East and West”. The Premi Internacional Catalunya includes a prize of  80,000 euros and a sculpture from Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies.

One Day Bestseller In Asia

Book Title: One Day

Author: David Nicholls

‘I can imagine you at forty,’ she said, a hint of malice in her voice. ‘I can picture it right now.’

He smiled without opening his eyes. ‘Go on then.’

15th July 1988. Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways.

So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year which follows?

One Day is a funny/sad love story spanning twenty years, a book about growing up – how we change, how we stay the same.

‘One Day is a wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate and often unbearably sad. It’s also, with its subtly political focus on changing habits and mores, the best British social novel since Jonathan Coe’s What A Carve Up. – John O’Connell, The Times.

‘The funniest, loveliest book I’ve read in ages. Most of all it is horribly, cringingly, absolutely 100% honest and true to life. I lived every page.’ – Jenny Colgan.

‘A brilliant book about the heartbreaking gap between the way we were and the way we are…the best weird love story since The Time Traveller’s Wife’ – Tony Parsons.

In June, July and August of 2010 we travelled between London, Paris, Edinburgh and Brittany, making our film version of One Day. Lone Scherfig directed, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess played Emma and Dexter, and a wonderful cast, including Jodie Whittaker, Romola Garai, Rafe Spall, Ken Stott, and Patricia Clarkson, played the other roles.

At time of writing, the movie is still in the final stages of post-production, but will be released in July 2011 in the US, August and September elsewhere . It's not a slavishly faithful adaptation - the eight-hour version of One Day will have to wait - but I hope we've stayed true to the tone and spirit of the book, and I hope you enjoy the movie.

Levi Johnston’s inimitable prose — worthy of a William Shatner reading

                                                                                                                                                                              

        Book Title: Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin' Crosshairs

        Say what you will about Levi Johnston (and I’ve said my bit of it), you can’t deny that he has a — frankly in­cred­ible prose style. Just read one excerpt from hissoon-to-be-classic memoir, “Deer in the Headlights.”

          “I sucked in the smell of her perfume, Viva La Juicy, and was swept away. La Juicy was part of my oxygen supply, even for the year and a half we were apart. ”