On The Books: Harper Lee settles lawsuit against Alabama museum

Harper Lee settled her federal lawsuit against the Monroe County Heritage Museum in Monroeville, Alabama. As we reported in October, the reclusive author sued her hometown museum for selling souvenirs of To Kill A Mockingbird without compensating her. She was also embroiled in a lawsuit against her former literary agent last year over the copyright to her book. Those charges were dismissed after the parties reached an out of court settlement. [AP] [ABC News]

Turns out that Iain Banks had a secret penchant for poetry. Banks passed away from cancer last June, but in his final interview he revealed that he’d always wanted to have his poems published. Little, Brown and Company has announced that they will put out a collection next year with 50 of the author’s poems. The book will be edited by Ken MacLeod, a fellow Scotsman and sci-fi author. [The Guardian]

Remember the good old days when hyper-masculine literary renegades ruled pop culture? That’s what the New York Times is doing today. “It’s the question every writer faces, every morning of his or her life: Am I Malcolm Gladwell today, or am I Arthur Rimbaud? Do I sit down with my pumpkin latte and start Googling, or do I fire a couple of shots into the ceiling and then stick my head in a bucket of absinthe?” You can guess which route I took this morning. [New York Times]