Bottom line is there are two types of writers: those who believe in writer’s block and those who don’t. Neither will deny the magic and energy that possesses an author when inspiration rears its mysterious head, but where their approach to writing differs is how the time is spent between those moments of inspiration.

Environmentally friendly and guilt free, book swapping sites are hugely popular. Aside from the obvious benefits for the trees, book swapping introduces readers to authors they normally wouldn’t have chanced. Not actually purchasing the book apparently lends freedom to the process of choosing the next read. But some authors, such as Jeanette Winterson, are not so keen on the idea.

Good news in the book reviews department:

National Public Radio has expanded the book coverage on its website, adding weekly book reviews, and has hired six new book reviewers—including a graphic novel reviewer—and added more features to an already existing lineup of author podcasts, critics' lists and other book-focused content.

Vladimir Nabokov declared that “Don Quixote” was “cruel and crude” and that “Death in Venice” was “asinine” His onetime friend Edmund Wilson, on the basis of “The Trial” and “The Castle,” said he found it “impossible” to take Kafka seriously as a “major writer.”

What book gets your vote for being the most overrated?

So, who says drugs and alcohol aren't useful? For one thing, they're responsible for some of the world's greatest literature. Here are 5 classics written under the influence.

Bonus Feature: Writers Are the Craziest People – odd but true facts about some famous names in literature.

Writers have long lamented that television and video are killing reading and book. But video now offers a great way to get the word out about your book. It’s relatively inexpensive to create a great looking book trailer that can be distributed across the Internet for free.

The gloves are off as Derek Walcott viciously attacks fellow Nobel Prize winner VS Naipaul in his recently premiered poem, Mongoose. The piece is “a fast-paced, savagely humorous demolition of Naipaul's work and personality that begins with the opening salvo: 'I have been bitten, I must avoid infection/Or else I'll be as dead as Naipaul's fiction.' Ouch! And it gets better.

We're not saying sex is something to be ashamed of, and far be it from us to declare any activity between consenting adults to be unnatural. It's just that some types of sex are weird and even terrifying to us.

But, if you're going to do something that would make a dominatrix flinch, you might as well do it right. Thus we offer these sex guides that you'll either find helpful or nightmarish.

At lunch with editors, on the phone with writers, on the editorial page of Publishers Weekly, the news is all the same: the only news this fall will be political. The “deciders” in New York have concluded that we’ll all be so consumed with who goes to Washington that everything else will be pushed aside.

Phooey. I’m already sick of it. Who gorges on political books anyway? Fess up.

In light of the rash of fake memoir confessions these days, it’s a fair question. The answer? 1) It’s not economically feasible—unless you feel like paying $100 for a book. 2) They don’t have to. Publishers aren’t legally responsible for the accuracy of the books they publish. 3) The author as a contractor makes representations and warranties that the material is original.