Sponsored Blog Post: Audrey Niffenegger resides in Chicago, where she is a visual artist and professor in the MFA program at the Columbia College Chicago Centre for Book and Paper Arts. At the end of four and half years of writing The Time Traveler’s Wife, Niffenegger dyed her hair red, as a tribute and a way to say goodbye to lead character Claire Tabshire.  She has published The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel ( Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 2005) a fairytale about the lives of three sisters who live by the sea, and The Adventuress (Harry N. Abrams, 2006) a dreamy tale of an alchemist’s daughter and her discovery of love. Both books featured illustrations done by Niffenegger. This September, Audrey Niffenegger will publish Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel (Scribner), about the lives of twin girls who inherit a home near Highgate cemetery in London. According to the NY Times, she received an advance of US$5 million. Currently the trade paperback edition of The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of the top five bestsellers on the New York Times Bestseller list.

The Google book search settlement (for background, see here and here) faces yet another hurdle. The New York Times is reporting today that the U.S. Justice Department has confirmed its intention to investigate whether or not the settlement violates American antitrust laws. According to the Times:

“The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” wrote William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general. “At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition. However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry.”

Antitrust experts said the letter was the latest indication that the Justice Department is seriously examining complaints that the agreement would grant Google an unfair monopoly over millions of so-called “orphan works,” books whose authors or rights holders are unknown or cannot be found.

The U.S. government has been given a deadline of Sept. 18 to present its views, which will be considered at a fairness hearing scheduled for Oct. 7.

Organizations like PEN and Amnesty International battle tirelessly to free writers who have been silenced, often through quasi-judicial means. But what happens when it goes the other way – when someone is forced to write a book?

From The New York Times:

On Monday, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, sentenced a former senior pharmaceutical executive to write a book.

Earlier this year the executive, Dr. Andrew G. Bodnar, a former senior vice president at Bristol-Myers Squibb, had pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the federal government about the company’s efforts to resolve a patent dispute over the blood thinner Plavix.

The judge sentenced Dr. Bodnar to two years of probation during which he is to write a book about his experience connected to the case. Dr. Bodnar must also pay a $5,000 fine.

This is a blatant case of reverse censorship. To sit by and allow it is to accede to tyranny (of the blank page). We suggest a gluttony strike. (Ba-boom!)

New York Times columnist Ross Douhat (who does not look at all like David Brent … well, maybe just a little) believes that Dan Brown’s novels are successful not just because the books are cheesy page-turners, or because the notion that the Vatican conceals nasty little secrets is inherently interesting (especially to many Catholics), or even because, well, corny thrillers often sell huge, but because The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons (the film of which just opened to big numbers) present an alternative vision of faith, one more attuned to modern life:

Brown is explicit about this mission. He isn’t a serious novelist, but he’s a deadly serious writer: His thrilling plots, he’s said, are there to make the books’ didacticism go down easy, so that readers don’t realize till the end “how much they are learning along the way.” He’s working in the same genre as Harlan Coben and James Patterson, but his real competitors are ideologues like Ayn Rand, and spiritual gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. He’s writing thrillers, but he’s selling a theology.

[...]

For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.

Jesus and Dan Brown, then, are kind of like cake and cookies – you can only pick one.