* John Updike has published a sequel to The Witches of Eastwick, aptly titled, The Widows of Eastwick. He talks about it with The Guardian. [Guardian] * Moby Dick is the official epic novel of Massachusetts. (We were rooting for the WPA Guide.) [MSNBC] * The joint Kerouac/Burroughs novel -- And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks -- has been found. [Phoenix: Article/Excerpt.] * A new book by Kerouac was released last month, Wake......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Writers are taking a second look at Jack Kerouac's On the Road in light of the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's publication. Lowell, Kerouac's birthplace, has hosted several events and is presenting the original Kerouac scroll. And why not? People named Kerouac's book as an inspiration that liberated them from the daily grind and fed the counterculture movement. But is Kerouac's famed book all that inspiring? Or is it more inspiring in hindsight, once people......

The On the Road 50th-anniversary event will be on Thursday, September 6, at 6:00 pm at the Brattle Theatre. Tickets are $5 and are available at Harvard Book Store. You may have heard rumors of a bar at the event, but, alas, the idea was nixed. Lowell's own Jack Kerouac is getting the royal treatment from Massachusetts now that On the Road is turning 50. Lowell is showing the legendary Kerouac scroll, and authors Joyce......

The Kerouac marathon will run from 10 am to 10 pm on Wednesday, September 5. The event takes place at Olive That & More in Lowell. It's free. Break out the bongo drums! Serious fans of Jack Kerouac's On the Road are engaging in a 12-hour reading of the book on September 5, which is the 50th anniversary of the book's publication. Local poets, teachers, dee jays, fans, and actors will flock to Lowell, Kerouac's......

James McNeill Whistler – creator of the iconic painting nicknamed "Whistler's Mother"* - is getting his very own bobblehead. Lowell's minor-league baseball team, the Spinners, is honoring the painter, who was from their home base, by giving away the bobbleheads tonight during their game against the Oneonta Tigers. The first 1,500 people to make it to LeLacheur Park will get a free bobblehead, and a woman will portray Whistler's Mother, watching the game from her......

Kerouac's On the Road scroll will be on display at Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Lowell National Historical Park from Friday, June 15, to September 14. The opening celebration will be on Friday, June 15, from 6 to 9 pm at Boott Cotton Mills Museum. Lit buffs, counter-culture aficionados, and the last remaining beatniks will have the chance to view a sacred scroll - the original manuscript for Jack Kerouac's On the Road. While writing......