E-books to make book-filled school bags history Down Under

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Kama Sutra, the Indian tome of love, is creating one huge stir in Florida with a school in Lee county choosing to teach it as a vocabulary word. A handful of parents are shocked about what their kids are reading in their history book with some saying lovemaking and the classroom shouldn't mix, ABC-7.com reported.

August 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Senator Ted Kennedy's autobiography, "True Compass," will hit shelves next month, but the talking point is the publisher, who has announced a 1,000 price tag for a limited number of pre-signed books. According to Politico, standard editions of "True Compass" will sell for 35 dollars and will hit stores on September 14.

August 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Harvard professor and CNN pundit David Gergen has been signed to write a book on how a US president's administration gets rolling and assumes office. Earlier, Simon and Schuster editor Alice Mayhew had said: "He's writing about this administration and how it takes office, but he's writing from the perspective of Gergen, which is unique, I think, as he has worked in so many administrations on the inside." When it comes to books revolving round Obama and his team, there's already been Richard Wolffe's "Renegade" and the campaign-focused book "Battle for America 2008" by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, Politico reports.

August 21st, 2009 LONDON - Dan Brown, the author behind the controversial book 'The Da Vinci Code', has been revealed as the most donated author to Oxfam's high street shops. Oxfam, the largest retailer of second hand books in Europe and the third-biggest bookseller in the UK, found that Brown, one of the world's bestselling authors, was likely to be the top writer to be dropped at shops by readers.

July 30th, 2009 LONDON - A Brit pensioner is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th library book - without incurring a single fine for late returns. Louise Brown, 91, is an avid reader and has almost worked her way through her local library's entire stock.

July 23rd, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian man was taken into custody for trying to smuggle heroin into Australia by hiding it in a kid's story book. The 56-year-old man had carved a little compartment inside the book and filled it with the drug.

July 9th, 2009 HONG KONG - Plastic bag use in Hong Kong has dropped by 85 percent in the first two days since the introduction of a 6 US cents tax on every bag, a survey released Thursday showed. The number of plastic bags handed out in 18 supermarkets during a peak shopping hour before and after the introduction of the ban fell from 2,742 to 403, the environmental group Greeners Action said.

July 9th, 2009 NEW YORK - How Sarah Palin plays her next hand, politically or otherwise, will determine how well books about her or written by her will do in the publications market, the Politico reports. Earlier this year, Palin inked a deal with HarperCollins for her memoir, due out in spring 2010.

July 7th, 2009 LONDON - Middle-aged women in Britain like to read books about sex, according to a new survey. In the poll involving 2000 women between 45 and 60, 35pct said that romantic fiction was the most popular genre.

July 1st, 2009 LONDON - After a detailed meeting with Dr Shabir Choudhry in London, Professor Khawaja Abdul Rehman has been appointed Regional Director of Institute of Kashmir Affairs, Azad Kashmir Chapter. Rehman is a professor of English in Muzaffarabad and is conducting research on languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

June 19th, 2009 LONDON - WH Smith, the British newspaper, books and stationery retailer, has come under fire for promoting a book on Austrian incest fiend Josef Fritzl as a Father's Day gift. The Crimes of Josef Fritzl, written by journalists Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski, details how the 74-year-old kept daughter Elisabeth captive for 24 years in a rat-infested cellar at Amstetten, Austria.

June 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Seeking to find common ground with authors, who have complained about copyright violations through search services, Google plans later this year to begin distributing and selling e-books on behalf of its publishing partners. "We've consistently maintained that we're committed to helping our partners find more ways to make their books accessible and available for purchase," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said Monday confirming the move first reported by the New York Times.

May 16th, 2009 LONDON - Britain's most successful male writer for children, Anthony Horowitz, urged 11,000 Scottish schoolchildren to "read anything" to "exercise their minds" during a question-and-answer session from Edinburgh, which was carried on schoolroom "smart boards" and computer screens. He was speaking to classrooms in 215 schools across the country during the session.

April 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama is set to grace the cover of a biographical comic book. The First Lady will feature in the Female Force: Michelle Obama "as she secures her place in American history".

April 2nd, 2009 MELBOURNE - American rapper Vanilla Ice has revealed that he is not happy with the contents of his former girlfriend Madonna's notorious Sex book. Vanilla Ice, 41, real name Robert Matthew Van Winkle, had been dating Madge when she posed naked in the street in her 1990 Sex book, and photographed simulating sex with her.