Vanessa Manko (left), Susan Minot (center), and Salman Rushdie (right)

Vanessa Manko and Judy Chicurel, two authors featured in a recent issue of Granta, have signed book deals with Penguin. To toast these two authors, the literary magazine threw a party.

The celebration took place at Granta editor John Freeman‘s Manhattan loft on Wednesday night, and brought together a community of writers and editors including: Salman Rushdie, Sean McDonald, Alex Gilvarry, Mohsin Hamid, Nadeem Aslam, and Peter Carey, to name a few.

Manko, whose novel was excerpted in Granta 118: Exit Strategies, sold her novel The Un-American to Penguin through her agent Caroline Michel. The title is slated for publication in spring 2014. Manko, who works as Rushdie’s assistant, spent seven years working on the book. In a toast to the author, Rushdie quipped that she’s going to need to speed things up in the future. Over drinks, Manko explained that her background in dance helped inform her writing as she looked for the cadence in her language. Read more

Penguin Books will publish a new book from the British television presenter/model Alexa Chung in the U.S. in November.

In the book, Chung will will share her tips on style and things like how to decide what to wear. Titled, It, the book will include writing, drawings, and photos from the Fuse News anchor. The author will also share personal photos in the book. To get a feel for the types of photos Chung likes to take, you can check out her Instagram and Tumblr pages.

Here is more about Chung from the press release: “She is the recipient of numerous style awards, including the British Style Award, voted for by the public, which she has won three years in a row. She was recently appointed Young Style Ambassador for the British Fashion Council.”

The iconic actress Marilyn Monroe may have played the role of a ditzy blonde in many films, but she was actually quite the bookworm whose reading preferences included books by James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Open Culture has more: “Once married to playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe stocked about 400 books on her shelves, many of which were later catalogued and auctioned off by Christie’s in New York City.”

Library Thing has made a list of 261 titles that were a part of Monroe’s personal library. Books on the list include: Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein; Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; as well as poetry collections from Robert Frost, John Milton, and Edgar Allan Poe, among others. (Via Gothamist).

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post misspelled Edgar Allan Poe’s name.

Former chief evangelist of Apple Guy Kawasaki has joined Writer.ly a Seattle startup and online marketplace for writers. He will serve as a new board advisor to the firm, which lets writers create profiles and search for biddable job requests for projects writing, copy editing, book designing, book marketing and so forth.

To celebrate, Writer.ly is offering Kawasaki’s latest book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish Your Book as a free download to all new users who sign up by today.

Kawasaki will be one of the speakers at Mediabistro’s new online course to help independent authors publish on a budget, a class taught by indie publishing pros and writers who have topped our Self-Published Bestsellers List.

Vintage Books is releasing a new writer’s guide from E L James‘ in which she reveals the inspiration behind her provocative erotica series as well as tips for aspiring writers. In The Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal), Grey will include share excerpts from her novels alongside writing tips for aspiring writers, and even the playlists that she listens to while writing.

The book, which will include 125,000 copies in the first printing, will be available in May. The pressing boasts a foil-embossed leather cover and a red-ribbon bookmark.

“As E L James traveled and met with her readers, there was a great curiosity about how she got started writing,” explained Vintage/Anchor’s Anne Messitte, the acquiring publisher of the Fifty Shades series, in a statement. “Her personal story as a writer is inspirational to many women, and journaling has been an important part of her creative process from the start.”

We’ve heard of sock puppet reviews, but what do you call it when characters from a novel review the book on Amazon?

This has been happening for This Is Your Captain Speaking, a novel about an airplane crash in in the Hudson River in New York City. Here is an example, one of the reviews from “Passenger 12B”:

Far be it for me to point out that I almost died on that plane. There I was, pinned to the fuselage’s ceiling, wondering if I would ever see my kids again. Then we all discovered it was a ruse, and there was much rejoicing. Then we discovered Mr. Methven, who dreamed up our hellish descent and was writing a crap novel about it. He and I spent sleepless nights working and reworking my characters’ dialogue. And even though I didn’t think he had an inkling of how I would really react, I approved it because I thought he was my ticket to getting a foot in the door with the Hollywood crowd.  Read more

Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group has plans for a new romance imprint which will invite the crowd to participate in what gets published.

The imprint which will go by the name of Swoon Reads.  AppNewser has more about how it will work: “Writers are invited to submit manuscripts to the site where readers can read, rate and comment on submissions. The highest rated manuscripts will be picked up for publication in both print and eBook formats.”

3DIssue.com has created an infographic called, “The Digital Publishing Explosion,” that explores the rise of eBooks.

According to the graph, the average eBook reader reads 24 books a year, compared to the 15 books read by the average print book reader. We’ve embedded the entire image after the jump for you to explore further.

Check it out: “The Digital Publishing Explosion | Infographic from 3D Issue 11 OCT 2012 0 inShare ‘The Digital Publishing Explosion’ infographic highlights some of the key trends and predictions in digital publishing. It’s been a fast changing environment in recent years with many developments and this looks set to continue.” Read more

Want to lend a copy of a book you love to your friend, but you only bought the eBook? Check out Ownshelf, a new service that will let you share ePUB titles with your friends across devices. The tool, which is currently in beta, lets you show friends your digital book shelves and look at your friends’ bookshelves, and borrow and loan titles from these digital bookshelves.

You can access the tool through Facebook. Like other apps, you have to give Facebook apps to login in. Using the shelf you can upload ePUB titles for lending to a select group of your personal friends. (It is not clear if you can only lend your digital copy to one person at a time, as with other eBook lending tools). Then you can see which of your friends is using Ownshelf and you can browse the digital books that they have uploaded.  Read more

Authors and musicians are coming together for a benefit that will raise money to rebuild Red Hook, a water-front community in Brooklyn that was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

Novelist/journalist Kurt Andersen will host the event, which is called “Defiance: A Literary Benefit to Rebuild Red Hook,” and will take place on November 14th at Littlefield at 7pm. Musicians Steve Earle and Stew will perform and novelists Joseph O’Neill, Sam Lipsyte, and Rivka Galchen will do readings, as will non-fiction writers Phillip Lopate, Chuck Klosterman, Philip Gourevitch, Meghan O’Rourke, Deborah Baker, and Robert Sullivan will also participate.

Tickets for the event cost $50, and can be purchased at this link. All proceeds from the event will be split between two charities who are helping to rebuild Red Hook post-Sandy — Red Hook Initiative and Restore Red Hook.