On a dry and hot Saturday in June, the kind of day most locals stay at home to avoid the oppressive heat, a crowd of more than 100 people packed One Way Street, a small Beijing bookstore.
When Michael Berry made up his mind to translate Wang Anyi's seminal work, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, he never imagined that at the end of the day he would have to resort to hard sell, as the book - awarded, televised, staged and generally accepted as a contemporary classic and an insightful account of 20th-century China - was a huge commercial hit.
At 56, the award-winning Wang Anyi has a formidable body of work to her credit that touches almost every aspect of life - from the ordinary to the bizarre.
Ian Watson, the doyen of British science fiction writing, has made what he terms "transgressive" interpretations of history in his most recent book of short stories, "The Beloved of my Beloved."
Hollywood interested in filming books from Chinese best-seller.
One of Europe's biggest book fairs will aim to bring a smile to Spaniards suffering from belt-tightening by offering more events at the free-entry 10-day festival which begins on Friday.
Wang Zhousheng owes her writer's vocation to a number of extraordinary women.
Wan's latest novel Paper Restaurant is released in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of her famous father's birth.
The love songs and poems of Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706), the legendary sixth Dalai Lama, moved generations of readers and listeners.
Pat Benatar is a fan of Lady Gaga.
Commentator looks for a better view of Sino-Japanese relations.
A book about people living in secretive North Korea won the 20,000 pound ($30,000) BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction on Thursday.