Singer Gloria Estefan cuddles a bulldog named Kahlua at a book signing in Panama City, Panama, on Feb. 16, 2006. Estefan is promoting her new children's book "Las Magicas y Misteriosas Aventuras de una Bulldog Llamada Noelle," or "The Magical and Mysterious Adventures of a Bulldog Named Noelle." Kahlua came with a fan.
Surrounded by children, Gloria Estefan shows a page illustrated with a picture of the magical bulldog Noelle, title character of her new children's book, "Las Magicas y Misteriosas Aventuras de una Bulldog Llamada Noelle," in an appearance in Panama City, Panama, on Feb. 16, 2006.
In the mid-1980's, Tom D'Antoni wrote headlines and stories for tabloid newspapers. Some of his best (and, he notes, worst) efforts are detailed in the book, "Rabid Nun Infects Entire Continent." Now a freelance writer and television producer, D'Antoni gestures during an interview at his home in Portland, Ore., on Feb. 1, 2006.
Actor John Lithgow performs during an appearance in Los Angeles to promote his new children's book, "The Runaway Pancake," on Feb. 16, 2006.
Danish author Kaare Bluitgen hoped his children's book about the Prophet Muhammad would bring ethnic Danes and immigrant Muslims closer. How wrong he was. Bluitgen's problems finding an illustrator triggered the conflict that sent angry mobs rampaging against Denmark. Here, Bluitgen is seen at his office in Copenhagen, Feb. 9, 2006.
Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, stands in front of the university's Physics Building on Feb. 3, 2006. Gonzalez has been criticized for co-authoring the 2004 book, "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery." The book defends the concept of "intelligent design."
Writer Paul Auster's 12th novel, "Brooklyn Follies," plunges a retired insurance salesman into a plot involving a forged page of "The Scarlet Letter," a disturbing revelation in a sperm bank and an impossible dream of rural refuge. Here, the author poses at home in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 19, 2006.
Hal Wiggins, a wetlands biologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has written a book, "Virginia Native Plants," which has the feel of a field guide. It includes photos taken by Wiggins and basics about plant biology and taxonomy, as well as a section listing plants used by American Indians as food and medicine. Here, the author explores a marsh in a photo taken on Aug. 19, 2002.
Actress Isabella Rossellini, daughter of late Italian film director Roberto Rossellini and actress Ingrid Bergman, smiles during the presentation of her book "In the Name of the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Spirits - Remembering Roberto Rossellini" in Berlin on Feb. 13, 2006. The event was part of the Berlinale International Film Festival.
Marc Galanter, professor of law and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talks about lawyer jokes and legal culture at the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tenn., on Feb. 21, 2006. Galanter is promoting his new book, which charts the increasingly bitter tone of lawyer jokes over the past couple of decades.
E.L. Doctorow's new historical novel, "The March," has won the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction, announced Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006. Here, Doctorow appears at the National Book Awards on Nov. 16, 2005. He was a finalist for that award as well for his Civil War novel.
Author Mark Spragg and his wife, Virginia Korus Spragg, are shown outside their home near Red Lodge, Mont., on Aug. 29, 2005. Spragg wrote the acclaimed novel "An Unfinished Life," and he and his wife co-wrote the screenplay for the movie of the same name as an experiment in telling the same story in different media. The film was released in theaters last September.
Carol Stone White, in foreground, hikes up Cobble Hill at Lake Placid, N.Y., on Dec. 17, 2005. She profiles 29 women in her new book, "Women with Altitude: Challenging the Adirondack High Peaks in Winter." The women are Winter 46ers, an elite group within the Adirondack 46er club.
Tom Perkins, 73, author of the novel, "Sex and the Single Zillionaire," poses in his office in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2006. In the background is Telegraph Hill and San Francisco Bay. The hero of his book is a middle-aged widower who appears on a reality television show called "Trophy Bride."
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer speaks at the University of Chicago Law School on Feb. 7, 2006. Justice Breyer was there to talk about his new book, "Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution," compiled from lectures he gave last year at Harvard Law School.
Romance writer Judith McNaught poses in Dallas on Jan. 23, 2006. McNaught, who is moving to Dallas, says she writes for women like herself, and hopes to make them laugh and feel good. Her latest is called "Double Standards."
Sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison on a charge of denying the Holocaust, British historian David Irving declared during a Feb. 23, 2006, jailhouse interview with The Associated Press that his critics want to silence him. Here, Irving holds his book "Hitler's War" as he arrives at a court in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 20.
Students at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox School in Milwaukee wear hats earned for reading achievement on Jan. 27, 2006. An anonymous 80-year-old woman from Colorado knits hats as awards for kids who read a certain number of books. She knitted about 100 hats for the children at this school.