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Ask the half-Syrian debut novelist Robin Yassin-Kassab to sum up western misconceptions of the Middle East, and he tells a story. In 1996 Yassin-Kassab moved from England, where he grew up with his English mother, to Damascus. The move was an attempt to get in touch with a part of himself that had long been missing: his Arabic heritage. "In Damascus I lived at the end of a short alley," says Yassin-Kassab. "Each morning I'd walk down this alley, and as I passed every door someone would say, 'Hey, Robin! Come in for tea!' It took me half an hour...

WAREHAM, MA -- “Left Behind denies what Bible-readers have believed for centuries," says David A. Reed, author of LEFT BEHIND Answered Verse by Verse. "I'm just giving the preachers of the Reformation an opportunity to reply."   Reed's new book features Martin Luther and John Calvin on the cover, along with illustrious preachers Jonathan Edwards, William Tyndale, John Wesley, John Wycliffe and Charles Haddon Spurgeon – all pointing fingers of condemnation at Tim LaHaye's blockbuster novel Left Behind. "The founders of the Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Congregationalist traditions all testify against the teachings of LaHaye's novels," Reed explained.  ...

Potter Author JK Rowling Equates Christians Who Avoid Potter with Islamic Fundamentalists Says "fundamentalists across all the major religions, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common! They hate all the same things" By John-Henry Westen EDINBURGH, March 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The newly released edition of the Edinburgh University Student newspaper, the oldest student newspaper in the UK, includes an interview with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  In the interview Rowling claims to have received death threats from Christians opposed to her novels, calling Christian 'fundamentalists' "dangerous" and comparing them by inference to Islamic fundamentalists....

Like John O'Sullivan, I'm currently traveling in Europe and spent [Wednesday, Feb. 28]being asked wherever I went about Bill Buckley. He is an heroic figure to many because he was right about the great question of the second half of the 20th century at a time when far too many in the West thought it boorish and vulgar to be: As a character in one of his last novels tells a self-regarding liberal, "The kind of people who have offended you since you were at college are the people who won the Cold War." Bill was not a shrill man...

Tokyo:Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, "The Tale of Genji," a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it. Of last year's 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging...

Best-selling writer Ira Levin, whose novels included the occult-horror classic "Rosemary's Baby," the Nazi thriller "The Boys From Brazil" and the satirical fantasy "The Stepford Wives," has died, his agent said Tuesday. He was 78. Levin suffered a fatal heart attack in his Manhattan apartment on Monday, said agent Phyllis Westberg. The native New Yorker, whose father was in the toy business and had hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps, decided at age 15 that he wanted a career in writing and finished second in a screenplay writing competition held by NBC while a senior at New...

What a difference a day makes. Jo Rowling came out of the closet this week—or at least her creation, Albus Dumbledore, did. Take note, Potter fans everywhere, that Rowling—in her great wisdom—has revealed to the world that the wisest, kindest, most powerful (and famous) senior wizard in literary history is gay. The Headmaster of Hogwarts prefers men. According to Rowling, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. . . . Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald [a bad wizard he defeated long ago], and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.” [1] Exactly...

Folks, CNN, along with numerous other news streams, has been busy reporting "author J.K. Rowling's revelation that master wizard Albus Dumbledore is gay." Unless you are just waking up from a deep coma, you should know already that J.K. Rowling is the creator of the runaway "Harry Potter" bestselling book series and movie hits, and also recognize Dumbledore as the magician character who is the kind headmaster of the school Harry attends, as well as Harry's father-figure and principal mentor. Much has been written against the Harry Potter series in the Christian googlesphere. Of note to Catholics, Father Gabriel Amorth,...

Recently, J.K. Rowling announced to the world that one of her characters, the heroic mentor of Harry Potter, Dumbledore was gay. Nonsense. There is no evidence of it in the books and the books (at this point) are all that matter. I have always thought the books deeply Christian not because Rowling told me so (which she recently confirmed), but because the text is full of Christian images and ideas. She had a chance to give Dumbledore a boyfriend, but she muffed it. I refuse to denigrate friendship by reading every close one as sexual . . . and she...

Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling's revelation that Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is actually a gay wizard has shocked many Potter fans, but hardcore readers have always been attuned to his latent homosexuality. For starters, Dumbledore is repeatedly described by Rowling as having a "twinkle" in his blue eyes—coincidentally, the same eye color as bathroom patrolman and fellow friend of Dorothy Sen. Larry Craig. Dumbledore is also a flamboyant dresser, fond of flowing, colorful robes, and expresses a particular zest for decorating the Great Hall before feasts. His weapon of choice—fire—is literally flaming, and...

MOVE over Da Vinci, here comes Mary Magdalene. In the latest twist to the seemingly endless literary debate over the roots of Christianity, a controversy is looming over a novel by an author who claims to be descended from Jesus Christ. It may sound familiar to readers of Dan Brown’s blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, but Kathleen McGowan, an American who began her career as a journalist in Belfast, has persuaded publishers that her claims that Magdalene married Jesus and bore his children should be taken seriously. “I don’t want people to think I’m claiming to be some elitist figure...

Confined to her bed in Atlanta by a broken ankle and arthritis, she was given a stack of blank paper by her husband, who said, "Write a book." Did she ever. The novel's first title became its last words, "Tomorrow is another day," and at first she named the protagonist Pansy. But Pansy became Scarlett, and the title of the book published 70 years ago this week became "Gone With the Wind." You might think that John Steinbeck, not Margaret Mitchell, was the emblematic novelist of the 1930s, and that the publishing event in American fiction in that difficult decade...

Those terrorists are really just misunderstood. The New York Times recently conducted an interview with author John Updike about his newest novel. This interview was revealing of why liberals will never understand this age in which we live. It is indicative of how they just don’t understand the evil we face in Islamofacism. (See story - Click here) Updike, as obsessed with fallen Christianity as he is with prurient sex scenes, must have seen the writing on the wall while in the midst of penning his newest novel, a sort of Thriller titled ”Terrorist”. The plot of Updike’s new novel...

It's a rainy day in South Florida due to the brand new Tropical Storm Alberto so I picked up a paperback that has been lying around for a long time---"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville. SURPRISE! It is actually a real PLEASURE to read it. I said "SURPRISE" because "Moby Dick" was one of those novels in High School that was assigned to me to read as part of my Literature/English class. Of course, the first read of the "Moby Dick" novel was anything but fun because I kept thinking that I needed to memorize passages for the inevitable test on...

After a long slump, Christian literature is finally experiencing a rebirth—and that’s something to celebrate. The state of Christian fiction was so poor for a while that most Christians have forgotten what a rich heritage we actually have in fiction, from the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Austen, O’Connor, and so many more. These writers understood that moral literature is one of the most important ways of transmitting Christian truth. That’s why I’m so thrilled to see the success of recent works such as the heartwarming Mitford series by Jan Karon; Susan Howatch’s penetrating novels about the Anglican church; and the...

The minutes from Aitchison's Haven - which could be the oldest recorded stonemason lodge in the world. DAN BROWN'S next book The Solomon Key is said to speculate on the role and influence of Freemasonry. In much the same way that The Da Vinci Code has its climax in Rosslyn Chapel, it may well be that the best-selling author's latest work will also find its roots in Scotland. For if Brown's new novel is looking at alleged Masonic conspiracy in the US, then there is a strong and vocal body of Masonic historians who believe that the whole of...

Good money in rewriting Christ story Success of The Da Vinci Code raised ante for religious revisionism Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Sunday, April 16, 2006 John Robson of the Ottawa Citizen says of the publishing world that this is its "Was Christ a black lesbian?" season. Each year before Easter, book and periodical publishers inundate us with features and new volumes disputing the divinity of Jesus. Or his death and resurrection. Or even whether he existed at all. (In his The Pagan Christ, released just before Easter 2004, Canadian author Thomas Harpur postulates there never was a...

THIS Lenten season, I would like to focus not on Jesus Christ, but on the woman he loved, Mary Magdalene, a mysterious woman who was much misunderstood, maligned, ignored and marginalized by the Christian church. To me, Mary Magdalene stands taller than any of the apostles of Jesus. She was the “Apostle of Apostles” to whom was revealed the greatest spiritual mysteries after the resurrection of Jesus. She was mentioned only a few times in the canonical gospels of Luke, Mark, Mathew and John. But her importance in Christ’s mission cannot be denied. She was present during the most crucial...

With all the hype of how difficult it is to find good Christian fiction, do we want to start a list on freerepublic of books we think the others would like?

He's accused of acting like a villain from one of his best sellers. James Patterson's ex-lover claims the scribe was a callous cad who stole her ideas, character names and even turns of phrase - then dumped her after saying they'd marry.... "He's a thief," [she] Sharp said. "He copies the material he's reading, taking the best parts. But no one wants to see him exposed. He makes too much money for too many people." Sharp says that shortly after they started dating, Patterson asked for her help in fleshing out the character Christine Johnson, the love interest for Alex...

[Click on the picture to go to the official September Day Site] MY REVIEW OF SEPTEMBER DAYBy Jeff Head FreeRepublic's own Larry Schweikart (Freeper LS), has really knocked one out of the park with this historical, fictional depiction of events leading up to 911, of the attack itself, and of the aftermath of the attack. To my knowledge it is the first historical, fiction novel dealing with the events...and Larry does it in a grand, and very direct and professional style in keeping with his other great literary works like, "A Patriot's History of the United States," and "America's Victories:...

This one from a 2004 book called 'The Novel 100' A rankling of the 100 best novels of all time... 1. Don Quixote - Cervantes 2. War and Peace - Tolstoy 3. Ulysses - Joyce 4. In Search of Lost Time - Proust 5. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky 6. Moby Dick - Melville 7. Madame Bovay - Flaubert 8 Middlemarch - George Eliot 9. The Magic Mountain - Mann 10. The Tale of Genji - Lady Murasaki 11. Emma - Austen 12. Bleak house - Dickens 13. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy 14. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Twain 15....

Opus Dei, which has protested its portrayal in "The Da Vinci Code," has embarked on an image-polishing campaign that includes its own book, a report said. New York-based Opus Dei is portrayed as a secretive Roman Catholic organization in the book by author Dan Brown and movie set for release in May, in which fictional assassin Silas is an Opus Dei monk.

A new novel, based "90 per cent on historical facts", depicts Leonardo Da Vinci as a heretic who painted his own face into The Last Supper, and claims that the painting portrays Saint Peter as a traitor and carries a blasphemous message. The Secret Supper, which has sold more than 500,000 copies in Europe, is set to rival The Da Vinci Code for conspiracy theories about one of the most famous figures in art history. The novel portrays Da Vinci as a Cathar, a member of a gnostic sect outlawed by the Roman Catholic Church. The story, which is being...

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – The year is 2007. After a clash with Turkish forces in northern Iraq, US troops stage a surprise attack. Reeling, Turkey turns to Russia and the European Union, who turn back the American onslaught. This is the plot of "Metal Storm," one of the fastest- selling books in Turkish history. The book is clearly sold as fiction, but its premise has entered Turkey's public discourse in a way that sometimes seems to blur the line between fantasy and reality. "The Foreign Ministry and General Staff are reading it keenly," Murat Yetkin, a columnist for the Turkish daily...

MALAGA, Spain (National Catholic Register) -- Some Catholics may be bracing for a new onslaught of confusion about Christ, his teachings and his church when "The Da Vinci Code" movie opens May 19. But few may be aware of a challenge on another front: a growing genre of books that takes church history and gives it a fictional twist under the auspices of entertainment and enlightenment. The crop of books set to be released this year -- some reportedly researched and concocted even before Dan Brown’s bestseller hit bookstores -- are written by American, Spanish and British authors; all are...

NEW YORK - In the early months of 2006, expect a few novels with some very familiar story lines. "Labyrinth," by Kate Mosse, features a rival sect to the Catholic church and a search for the Holy Grail. In "The Templar Legacy," a thriller by Steve Berry, a former government agent attempts to unravel a mystery about an order of knights whose power rivaled the Pope's. Matilde Asensi's "The Last Cato" features the head of the Vatican's secret archive and his efforts to solve a murder with clues dating back to biblical times.

· Author of The Magus suffers heart failure · Praise for writer who gave literary novel mass appeal John Fowles, described by his agent as 'one of the best writers of fiction of the last century'. Photo: Random House handout/Carolyn Djanodly/PA John Fowles, the novelist who brought sexiness and popular appeal to the serious literary novel, has died from heart failure near his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset. According to his wife, Sarah, he "faded away, slipped away on Saturday" after two weeks in hospital in Axminster. "His heart just gave out - gave up, really," she said. Fowles, who...

Leaving vampires and witches behind, author centers novels – and new life in La Jolla – around ChristShe breathed life into vampires and witches with blood-curdling passion and dabbled in soft-porn with an erotic series about Sleeping Beauty. Now, Anne Rice is fixated on the boy Jesus. Her new book, "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," was released this week, taking readers into a fictional account of the young Messiah, capturing the junior years that are conspicuously absent from the Gospels. She begins when he is 7 and follows him for the next year, from Alexandria, where her novel says...

Friday, 21 October 2005, 16:59 GMT 17:59 UK Da Vinci publisher in court case Two authors are launching a High Court action against the publishers of The Da Vinci Code, which they say infringes upon their ideas. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing Random House, claiming the bestseller lifts from their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. A High Court hearing will be held next week, followed by a trial next year. Random House was unavailable for comment on the claim that Brown stole the idea that Jesus had a child. A spokeswoman for Baigent and...

THE film version of The Da Vinci Code is attempting to reduce the offence that the best-selling book caused to Roman Catholics. Sony Pictures, the studio behind the film starring Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen, is reported to have been so concerned that it has consulted Catholic and other Christian specialists on how it might alter the plot of the novel to avoid offending the devout. Film officials have held talks with Catholic groups and other organisations despite Dan Brown, the author, insisting that “it’s only a novel and therefore a work of fiction”, The New York Times reported...

One of the many striking statements in Michael Crichton's best-selling novel, "State of Fear," comes in a footnote on page 43: "Since 1940 ... data have [shown] ... predominantly a cooling trend. ... The Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the current global warming trend."Forget the words, interesting as they are in the context of supposed worldwide warming trends. Consider this obvious point: They come from a well-sourced footnote in a best-selling work of fiction.Obviously, "Fear" is not the normal novel. It is, in fact, a jeremiad against junk science, against the politicized theory of global warming...

PARIS (AFP) - In 1872, French author Jules Verne sent one of his greatest heroes, British adventurer Phileas Fogg, around the world in 80 days -- an amazing feat given the modes of transportation available at the time. On March 3, US aviator Steve Fossett completed the first solo flight around the world without refueling in three days. Last week, French sailor Bruno Peyron made the trip by boat in 50 days, winning the... Jules Verne trophy. One hundred years after the death of the French writer, known worldwide for his fantastic tales of undersea exploration and space travel, technology...

Robert Heinlein Remembered by L. Neil Smith "Take big bites. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love Imagine a lonely kid, undersized and overbright, living on an American air base overseas. Comic books taught him to read years before he started school and he'd tackle anything that fell open under his eyes. Anything about science or space travel leaped off the page as if printed in boldfaced italic. A neighbor's medical texts had such delightfully disgusting diseases you could practice having, and radio magazines ... in those days radios had vacuum-filled glass cylinders, see,...

"What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?" – Robert Browning, A Toccata of Galuppi's. In this hour of "bests," some will tell you the last restaurant they went to is the absolute best — the ribs or the Caesar salad, the filet or the yummy breads or the obscene desserts with more goop than anywhere else. For others, it's their golf clubs or their car. For still others it's the last book they read — such as, in this case, Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. The chichi critics have panned Charlotte for two...

ROME - Art experts and conservative clerics are holding an unusual "trial" in Leonardo da Vinci's hometown aimed at sorting out fact from fiction in the "The Da Vinci Code" after many readers took the smash hit novel as gospel truth. The event in Vinci, just outside of Florence, began Friday with an opening statement by Alessandro Vezzosi, director of a Leonardo museum. He said he will produce photographs and documents as evidence of the mistakes and historical inaccuracies contained in Dan Brown's best-seller. "Leonardo is misrepresented and belittled," Vezzosi said in a telephone interview hours before the event began....

A Writer's Vicious Prejudice February 15, 2005My favorite books and movies are court room dramas but this day and age it's nearly impossible to find good ones. I did read a very fine one a while back, titled Grand Jury, by Philip Friedman, and there have been a few others-The Soloist, by Mark Salzman, comes to mind. When I have tried the popular ones, such as John Grisham, I have found many of them annoying because of the author's technique of stereotyping characters. All people in business are greedy bastards, the leading attorneys dedicated professionals, many politicians devoted public servants,...

There is no law against writing twaddle. Just as well, comes the joyful cry, otherwise many journalists would be out of a job and newspapers would have acres of white space. No, no, not newspapers … books. There is no law against writing several hundred pages of twaddle with no basis in fact and finding success with a bestseller. Good news, then, and good luck to him, for Dan Brown, whose The Da Vinci Code has now sold more than 1.8 million copies and rising. To whom? Conspiracy theorists who believe Brown’s assertions that secret organisations such as the Priory...

"Atlanta Nights" By Travis Tea. "Travis Tea" is a pseudonym for a group of (mostly) science fiction and fantasy authors who were amused by PublishAmerica's claim (at their authorsmarket.net site) that SF & F authors are "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters." So about thirty writers banged out a novel over a long weekend, writing it as ineptly as they could. Plot, characterization, theme ... none of them...

As if 12 weren't enough, evangelical celebrities Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have planned two more titles to their "Left Behind" franchise. In addition to the dozen novels on dispensational theology, a prequel set before the tribulation and a sequel presumably set during the Millennial Reign are slated. These additional novels, of course, go along side the Left Behind political series, military series, the 40-book kids series, the graphic novel series, the audio books of both child and adult series, the dramatized audio of both child and adult series, the two film adaptations, the two daily devotional books, the Left...

Amanda Marquit poses in her New York City home January 19, 2005. Marquit at 18 already has quite a resume; child ballet star, accomplished on the piano and the electric guitar and she's just published her first novel, 'Shut the Door,' a story of teen sex and parental neglect. (Jeff Christensen/Reuters) Amanda Marquit poses in her New York City home January 19, 2005. Marquit who at 18 already has quite a resume, child ballet star, accomplished on the piano and electric guitar and she's just published her first novel, 'Shut the Door,' a story of teen sex and parental...

Miles away from the hectic city, Reed and Rebecca hike into the beautiful Northwestern woods. They're surrounded by gorgeous mountains, waterfalls, and hundreds of acres of unspoiled wilderness. But something—or someone—begins closing in on them. Something no human has ever seen. And it's killing everyone in its path without remorse. Best-selling author Frank Peretti has sold more than 12 million novels about angels, demons, and dragons. That was just the warm-up. From the master of suspense and supernatural thrillers comes the season's hottest page-turner. Be warned: this monster's got teeth.

TOM WOLFE IS AMERICA'S preeminent observer of decaying elites, chronicling and often forecasting their decline in his journalism and novels. In his 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, he exposed the comic decadence of Leonard Bernstein and his friends, an elite so indifferent to its own survival it feted the Black Panthers at its Park Avenue mansions. In his 1975 book The Painted Word and the 1981 companion book From Bauhaus to Our House, he detailed the effete theories dooming America's art and architecture. He anticipated the decline of a privileged media class in his famous puncturing...

(AgapePress) - A best-selling Christian author is criticizing his publisher for putting out a new fictional series by another writer whose stories postulate that the rapture occurred long ago and Revelation's prophecies have already been fulfilled. Tyndale House recently published The Last Disciple, the first book of a series that embraces the notion that many of the promises for the return of Christ were fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Roman armies brought destruction to Israel. The novel was co-written by Hank Hanegraaff, a Christian scholar/researcher and host of a syndicated call-in radio show, The Bible Answer Man, and the...

Arthur Hailey, author of "Airport," "Hotel" and other novels that became hit movies, has died, his wife said Thursday. He was 84. Hailey, who plucked characters from ordinary life and threw them into extraordinary ordeals, died in his sleep Wednesday at his home in Lyford Cay on New Providence island, his wife Sheila said. She said doctors believe he had a stroke. "It is obviously a shock to wake up to, but it was peaceful," she said. "Arthur was a very humble man, but was delighted with the letters he used to get from readers praising his books. He was...

History and critical thinking are inseparable for a good education. If read merely as fiction, The DaVinci Code would be an interesting mystery story. However, when the claim is made, both in the book and in the ABC documentary, "Jesus, Mary and DaVinci," that a historical core lies behind the story, then it demands our attention. The DaVinci Code, with 6 million copies in print and a Time magazine cover, is a popularized version of what some radical theologians have been saying for some time now, as they have attempted to rewrite the early history of Christianity by relying on...

Jared Olar just returned this to my attention, so it's time to analyze it. An article in the September 28th edition of The Australian indicates that Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, are suing Dan Brown for copyright infringement. They accuse Danny Boy of having stolen their whole jigsaw puzzle plot. It should be an absolutely easy case for them to win. But that’s not the funny part of this whole escapade. The lawsuit is hilarious primarily because their greed has forced everyone involved in this farce to show their hands. You...

Move over, Bridget Jones! Christian women are taking over this hot literary trend. by Ramona Richards You probably know someone like her. You may have read about her in magazines, or seen her on television or in the movies. She's smart, sophisticated, and sassy—a career woman who worries about her boyfriend, her boss, and the latest fashion trends. She may be like your best friend, or the girls who hang out with your daughter. She's the heroine of the publishing phenomenon called "chick lit," a secular literary trend that gained attention with Helen Fielding's best-selling book (and later movie) Bridget...

LITTLE ROCK — Linda Bloodworth Thomason hasn't been to Paris, Ark., but the town's name had a "poetic appeal" that prompted to her to use it as the setting of her first novel. "I've made it to Paris, France, but not to Paris, Arkansas," she joked. Thomason, co-creator of the television series "Designing Women" and "Evening Shade," says her novel about six friends who re-evaluate their lives around the time of their 40th birthdays is "an homage to people who live between New York and Los Angeles." The book is about Southerners adapting to social change and its intent...

The Reverend G. P. Taylor had a problem. He was noticing an increasing amount of occultism in children’s popular culture. For example, he quotes the following from Philip Pullman’s bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy, “God is a liar, God is a cheat, God is senile.” As for popular teen shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Taylor believes they’re “anti-monotheistic” and that it’s dangerous to try to “spiritualize” them, as some Christians do. From his own experience, Taylor knew that the occult is not to be taken lightly. As a teenage runaway, he was involved in it himself. Years later, after...