Spartan Echo

  WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — One of Maya Angelou’s doctors says the poet and author is recovering at her North Carolina home following a brief hospitalization. Dr. Jeff Williamson of the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., says in letter dated Tuesday April 23, that, as leader of Angelou’s medical team, he has ordered [...]

  LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hunky love interest Liam Hemsworth is promising the highly-anticipated “Hunger Games” sequel will not disappoint fans. It was a low-key pitch at the movie theater convention CinemaCon, where most stars boasted their films would be the biggest, loudest, splashiest blockbusters of the summer. Then again, “Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is [...]

  NEW YORK (AP) — Here’s a list “Fifty Shades of Grey” was destined to make: The booksmost likely to be removed from school and library shelves. On Monday, E L James’ multimillion selling erotic trilogy placed No. 4 on the American Library Association’s annual study of “challenged books,” works subject to complaints from parents, [...]

  NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn-based poet has won a prize named for one of the New York City borough’s most famous former residents, Walt Whitman. The Academy of American Poets announced Wednesday April 10, that Chris Hosea (hoh-ZAY’-uh) has won the Walt Whitman Award for a debut collection. Hosea will receive $5,000 and his [...]

  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Holding a Bible in her arms at the start of Holy Week, seamstress Maria Munoz waited patiently to visit the tomb of the man she considers another savior of humanity. The 64-year-old said she had already turned her humble one-bedroom house into a shrine devoted to the late President Hugo [...]

  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Near the entrance to Venezuela’s national book fair, an image of the late Hugo Chavez holding a can of paint in one hand and a brush in the other greets visitors. Beside him reads a bright-red message that has also been scrawled on walls all over the country: “I will [...]

  “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” (Alfred A. Knopf), by Sheryl Sandberg Anyone who makes it to the first page of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, “Lean In,” without hearing anything about it deserves some sort of prize. Sandberg’s smiling face has been everywhere in the last few weeks. And everyone seems [...]

  NEW YORK (AP) — A new book from E L James will be a how-to guide on one of life’s most enduring passions: writing. Vintage Books announced Monday, March.11,  that James has collaborated with the publisher on “Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal).” It combines professional advice from the million-selling author and [...]

  Fear, stubbornness, ignorance, procrastination, resignation – for singles or couples longing for love, these are among the deadly sins, according to relationship expert Ernest Quansah. “These are the psychological traits which singles and many couples use as excuses,” says Quansah, author of Do’s and Don’ts of Relationships: Nine Steps to a Deeper, Richer Love [...]

  NEW YORK (AP) — Not everyone believes that Philip Roth has written his last book. Among the skeptics: Livia Manera Sambuy, co-director of an upcoming PBS “American Masters” documentary about the prize-winning novelist. “Philip Roth: Unmasked” features extensive interviews Sambuy conducted with Roth, who turns 80 this month, along with commentary from such friends [...]

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Sunday, March 10, likened political reporters to “crack addicts” and “heroin addicts” during a tour of morning talk shows that drew repeated questions about the still-distant 2016 presidential election. Bush, capping a media-heavy week that sparked chatter about a presidential campaign for a third member of [...]