The EU launches Thursday its Europeana digital library, an online digest of Europe`s cultural heritage that aims to draw together millions of books and other items.

WELLINGTON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - New Zealand author Lloyd Jones, the bookmakers' favourite to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction, said he was disappointed to lose to Anne Enright but saw benefits in not winning.

'I'm a little bit disappointed but I'm not crushed,' Jones told Radio New Zealand from London's Guildhall where the Booker judges opted for Enright's 'The Gathering' over his 'Mister Pip.'

'It was always going to be a bit of lottery.'

LONDON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Irishwoman Anne Enright was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, one of the literary world's most prestigious awards, for her family epic 'The Gathering' on Tuesday.

The 45-year-old beat favourites Ian McEwan, who won the award in 1998, and Lloyd Jones to the 50,000-pound (72,000-euro, 102,000-dollar) prize, awarded to the best work of fiction by an author from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Key books by British writer Doris Lessing, who on Thursday was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature:

- 1950: 'The Grass is Singing'

- 1952 to 1969: The five-volume 'Children of Violence' series: 'Martha Quest' (1952), 'A Proper Marriage' (1954), 'A Ripple from the Storm' (1958), 'Landlocked' (1965) and 'The Four-Gated City' (1969)

- 1962: 'The Golden Notebook'

- 1964: 'African Stories'

- 1971: 'Briefing for a Descent into Hell'

- 1973: 'The Summer Before the Dark'

JAKARTA, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - An apparent explosion has levelled high-rise buildings in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, triggering a security alert. It's the work of an Islamic superhero, a giant, confused teenager who sneezed.

Jabbar the Powerful, the alter-ego of teenager Nawaf Al-Bilali, is the first of 99 superhero characters in an Islamic culture-based comic book series called 'The 99' just launched in Indonesia.

THE HAGUE, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Amsterdam officials granted a reprieve on Wednesday to a condemned tree that was fondly described by Anne Frank in her diary about life in hiding under Nazi occupation.

Although a licence to fell the diseased tree has already been granted, the Amsterdam municipality has now given opponents of the move until January to come up with a rescue plan, officials said.

SYDNEY, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - A London-based Palestinian editor who alleged Australian immigration officials discriminated against him by delaying his visa application has been cleared to enter the country.

Abdel Bari Atwan, who once interviewed Osama bin Laden, had claimed his application was deliberately delayed so he would be unable to attend the Brisbane Writers Festival.

SYDNEY, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - A London-based Palestinian journalist who once interviewed Osama Bin Laden accused Australian authorities of racism Wednesday for failing to issue him a visa to attend a literary festival.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper in London, said lengthy, unexplained visa delays were preventing him from attending the Brisbane Writers Festival in Queensland state.

NEW YORK, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - An upcoming book that challenges whether diplomatic and military support for Israel is in the United States' best interests is set to spark fresh debate on Washington's role in the Middle East.

'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,' written by two of the United States' most influential political science professors, is set to hit the bookshelves next Tuesday and promises to break the taboo on the subject.

MADRID, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - The director of Spain's national library, 74-year-old prize-winning author Rosa Regas, resigned from her post on Monday, saying she did not have the confidence of the nation's new culture minister.

Regas said that during a meeting on Friday, Culture Minister Cesar Antonio Molina 'told me I have not done anything, I was speechless.'

'My career is not administrative and I am not going to continue at a place without the confidence of the minister,' she told radio Cadena Ser.

STOCKHOLM, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - Judicial authorities in Sweden have rejected an attempt by a Swede of Congolese origin to slap a ban on 'Tintin in the Congo' on racist grounds, the plaintiff said Thursday.

Jean-Dadou Monya, 42, had lodged a legal action against Bonnier Carlsen, publisher of the Swedish translation of the Herge comic book, demanding that it be pulled from bookshops and libraries.

UTRECHT, The Netherlands, Aug 22, 2007 (AFP) - The Netherlands on Thursday will mark the 80th birthday of a favorite son, illustrator Dick Bruna whose iconic white rabbit 'Miffy' has charmed children worldwide, particularly in Japan.

The eponymous museum in Bruna's hometown of Utrecht, a popular destination for Japanese tourists to the Netherlands, will round off a month of celebrations for the man whose 1955 creation has since sold some 85 million books worldwide translated into 40 languages.

NEW YORK, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - When 'On The Road' came out in 1957, Jack Kerouac became the voice of the Beat Generation almost overnight. 'Jack went to bed obscure and woke up famous,' was how his girlfriend Joyce Johnson put it. Now, 50 years on, the tale of disaffected youth struggling to find a place in post-war America is to be re-released in its original form, unedited, cruder and more erotic, and with the real names of Kerouac's traveling companions restored.

NEW YORK, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - A small New York firm is to publish 'If I Did It,' former American football star O.J. Simpson's account of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife and one of her friends, the company said Wednesday.

Beaufort Books was aiming for an October 3 release of the book, in which Simpson describes how he would have killed Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman.

SYDNEY, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - Best-selling author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal as he horrified an Australian outback bookstore, local media reported Thursday.

A customer at the store in remote Alice Springs raised the alarm after noticing a man walk in off the street and begin writing in several books, manager Bev Ellis told national radio.

'As the owner of a bookshop, when you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey (touchy),' Ellis said.

NEW YORK, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - A New York publisher is to go ahead with the release of 'If I Did It,' O.J. Simpson's hypothetical account of the murders of his ex-wife and one of her friends, the agent handling the deal said Monday.

A spokesman for literary agent Sharlene Martin did not identify the publishing house involved in the deal or specify when the book would come out, saying only that further details would be released on Tuesday.

PARIS, Aug 11, 2007 (AFP) - A French high-school student who posted a rogue French-language translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the Internet will not be sued, the French publisher involved said Saturday.

The decision to not seek compensation from the 16-year-old boy was made in agreement with author J.K. Rowling, the company, Gallimard, said.

The unnamed teenager, from the southern city of Aix en Provence, had told police after being arrested and briefly detained a week ago that he had not sought to make money off his unauthorised translation.

NEW YORK, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - US First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna are writing a children's book about a mischievous schoolboy, due to be published later this year, publisher HarperCollins announced Thursday.

The picture book, which is so far without a title, is set in a school and tells the story of a young boy who doesn't like to read but ends up delving into books with the help and encouragement of his teacher.

MARSEILLE, France, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - A French high-school student has been held for questioning after he posted a rogue translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the Internet, a judicial official said on Wednesday.

The 16-year-old, from the southern city of Aix en Provence, was detained overnight Monday over the unauthorised version of J.K. Rowling's seventh and final Potter book, which has yet to be released in French.

LONDON, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling Tuesday lost a court fight in London to ban publication of a photograph of her young son.

Rowling, whose seventh and final Potter book was released worldwide last month to a frenzy of excitement and record sales, had argued at the High Court that her son David's right to privacy was invaded by the picture.

The photograph, showing Rowling and her husband Neil Murray with the child in a buggy, was taken by a picture agency photographer using a long-range lens in a street in her home city of Edinburgh in 2004.

BRUSSELS, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - A Congolese student has launched a court case denouncing the cartoon book 'Tintin in the Congo' as racist, calling for its withdrawal from sale, the Brussels prosecutor's office said Tuesday.

It is not the first time that the book, featuring late Belgian author and illustrator Herge's popular red-headed boy journalist Tintin and his faithful dog Snowy, has raised hackles over its content.

NEW YORK, July 22, 2007 (AFP) - 'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows,' J.K. Rowlings`s seventh and final book about the boy wizard, sold an estimated 8.3 million copies within 24 hours of its release, its US publisher said Sunday.

The publisher, Scholastic, said it printed a record 12 million copies in anticipation of the 12:01 am release on Saturday.

The book was magic for retailers, as well, chalking up records for bookshops in New York and other US cities.