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Novelist Julie Myerson and her husband, screenwriter Jonathan Myerson, offer widely differing views on what has been labelled the most depressing relationship film ever HER VIEW: 'After the sex, prepare for real life or be torn apart' How many terrible marriages begin this way? Dean and Cindy have only known each other a matter of weeks and seem to have shared no more than a few laughs and a few orgasms when she accidentally gets pregnant. Cindy has ambitions. She wants to study to be a doctor. With Dean's support, she books an abortion, only to find she can't go through with it. Dean, meanwhile, who works for a removals firm and doesn't seem to boast much by way of professional ambition, is understanding. He puts his arms around her, says maybe they should be "a family". And so they marry, while knowing almost nothing about each other except that, for the moment anyway, they're sexually compatible. Five or six years later, although Dean does seem t...

With more than 400 libraries under threat of closure due to budget cuts, campaigners will today take part in mass read-ins, author events and more. Follow the action here Tell us about the level of protest in your area with our interactive map 9.45am: Lots of activity about Save Our Libraries day on Twitter, with the #savelibraries hashtag. The hashtag was started by Shropshire ICT lecturer @MarDixon back in January, while she was doing her laundry . It was hugely successful, trending worldwide, with authors Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman joining in. Today, Mar tweets: . 9.24am: Cindy Jeffries, one of the Gloucestershire's " flying authors " has been in touch: Cindy Jeffries has taken off and is heading for Lechdale library. ETA 9.30. She will be racing against children's author John Dougherty, writer and performance poet Marcus Moore and author Katie Fforde to visit as many libraries as possible in the county today. 9.20am: Good morning, and happy Save Our Librarie...

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky below. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All I ask is that you don't post random photos that you find online. Kitty Midnight on a rare sunny winter day. I can't help but wonder what was going through her mind when I took this photo. I thought of so many captions I could put under this one. I almost chose "Does this chair make me look fat?" but then I thought about it and realized that she could care less about her weight. Oh for the life of a house cat! This post 2011 At Home With Books . All Rights Reserved. If youre reading this on a site other than "http://athomewithbooks.blogspot.com" or its RSS feed , be aware that this post has been stolen and is bei...

Updates A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley Set on a prairie farm in Iowa, Smiley's novel tells how the three daughters of Larry Cook struggle over the control of the land and of their family memories. It is the plot of King Lear moved to the mid-West, with the added twist that it is narrated by the sister who has taken the role of Goneril. The Last Weekend by Blake Morrison More Shakespeare. Morrison's novel transposes Othello to contemporary England and tells the story from the point of view of Iago. He is now schoolteacher Ian Goade, who sets out to destroy his hated rival Olly Moore (get it?) and his wife Daisy during a weekend in a country house. In this version, Ian has plenty of reasons to resent posh, blithely successful Olly. The Infinities by John Banville It might seem odd to have a story apparently set in modern Ireland that is narrated by the god Hermes, but Banville's novel is updating Amphitryon , that began with Plautus and has already been updated by Mo...

Shares in parent company HMV rise as speculation mounts about intentions of entrepreneur turned novelist Tim Waterstone The entrepreneur turned novelist Tim Waterstone was today considering making a sixth bid in 12 years for the eponymous bookshop he founded in 1982. Shares in Waterstone's owner, the struggling entertainment group HMV, shot up by 9% today as speculation mounted that it would put the bookseller up for sale and that its founder was plotting a bid with Alexander Mamut, a Russian billionaire with a 6.1% stake in HMV. "I just can't comment at this stage. Sorry to be obtuse," Waterstone said when asked if he was considering a bid with Mamut, who owns Evroset, a Russian mobile phone retailer. Waterstone, who last month said he was still interested in the bookshop, previously invested with Mamut in Bookberry, a now bankrupt Russian bookstore chain. HMV declined to comment, but sources said the group, whose high street music business has been hit by online riv...

Novelist who drew her readers into the world of the past with her acclaimed crime series The novelist Diana Norman, who has died aged 77, was best known for her historical crime series featuring the 12th-century medical examiner Adelia Aguilar, written under the pen name of Ariana Franklin. The first book in the series, Mistress of the Art of Death, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 and won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award in the UK, aswell as prizes in the US and Sweden. Always modest, Norman confessed her astonishment at its reception, saying: "I'm not used to being feted, being married to a TV presenter, Barry Norman. I'm more accustomed to being trampled in the rush to get his autograph than being publicised myself. I'm not complaining, though." Born Mary Diana Narracott, she grew up first in London and then in Devon, where her mother took her toescape the blitz. She left school aged 15, butwith her keen intelligence and with journalism in her ...