Harper Lee breaks silence - just - for Mockingbird anniversary

'To literature fans, Miguel Hernandez was one of Spain's greatest modern poets, a socially conscious young writer who combined Baroque-era rhythms and surreal images such as a mother breast-feeding her baby on "onion blood", writes Anita Brooks.

To Spaniards unfamiliar with powerful verses such as Onion Lullaby, the late poet is a beloved-yet-tragic figure, a lesser-known Federico Garcia Lorca who was persecuted by the Franco regime and wrote much of his verse from his cell.

Miguel Hernandez died at 32 in prison in 1942, after a death sentence for his left-wing sympathies was commuted to 30 years. Now the poet's family want his supposed crime wiped from the records. In a law suit filed this week in the Spanish Supreme Court they ask for his guilty verdict to be annulled. In March, the family had a posthumous "declaration of reparation" from the Spanish government. But they are not satisfied. "We want something more, that they void the death sentence, so we can take away that burden," his daughter-in-law, Lucía Izquierdo, said. "That's why we are asking that justice be served, that they hand down a ruling of innocent."

Read more at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/family-of-spains-dead-great-poet-hernandez-want-name-cleared-2023168.html

Writer Harvey Pekar, whose series of comic books, American Splendor, was made into a film starring Paul Giamatti in 2003, has been found dead at his home. He was 70.

Police were called to Pekar's home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, at about 1am yesterday. His body was found in his bedroom. The writer had been suffering from prostate cancer, asthma, high blood pressure and depression. He had gone to bed about 4.30pm on Sunday in good spirits, his wife told police.

Read more at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-splendor-author-found-dead-at-home-2025107.html

Eclectic crowd of friends celebrates the life and work of a 'superb granny' with a 'truly Dickensian gift' writes Maev Kennedy.

Beryl Bainbridge, rarely perceived as cuddly even by those who relished her work and eccentric personality, was today celebrated as "a superb granny", before being buried in suitably grand literary surroundings at Highgate Cemetery, where her neighbours include George Eliot, Karl Marx, the parents of Charles Dickens, and the poet Christina Rossetti.

Death cast a heavy shadow over much of her work, including Master Georgie, about the Crimea, Every Man for Himself about the Titanic disaster, and The Birthday Boys, about Captain Scott's fatal attempt to conquer the South Pole. In a BBC Radio 3 essay, rebroadcast to mark her death from cancer on 2 July, aged 77, she said: "To give value to existence, death must be regarded as an art."

Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/12/beryl-bainbridge-buried-highgate-cemetery

'In Tana French’s novel “Faithful Place,” an Irish detective learns you can go home again, but would probably rather not', writes Janet Maslin.

Frank Mackey grew up on a cramped Dublin cul-de-sac called Faithful Place. Street name notwithstanding, Frank had no fidelity to the neighborhood. A horrendous trick of fate drove him out of there two decades ago, and he turned his back on his difficult working-class family. But as Tana French’s expertly rendered, gripping new novel begins, Frank has to go home again.

The reason: Rosie Daly. Rosie was Frank’s first sweetheart. She too grew up in the claustrophobic confines of Faithful Place. In 1985 Frank and Rosie decided to make a joint getaway and elope to England. All 19-year-old Frank had to do was stake out a spot on the street late on the appointed night and wait for Rosie to join him. For 22 years he has heard no word of her and has tried not to wonder why she never showed up. '

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/books/12book.html?_r=1&ref=books

Email late Swedish author sent to friend reveals unpublished work was set in remote part of Canada

'A friend of Stieg Larsson's has revealed new details about the fourth book in the late Swedish author's bestselling Millennium series, which he said is set in a remote area of northern Canada in September', writes Alison Flood.

John-Henri Holmberg told the Associated Press that he was sent an email by Larsson about the book shortly before the novelist's death in November 2004. "The plot is set 120 kilometres north of Sachs Harbour, at Banks Island in the month of September ... According to the synopsis it should be 440 pages," wrote Larsson in the email, which Holmberg showed the news agency.'

Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/13/stieg-larsson-millennium-fourth-book