KAZUO ISHIGURO

Australian actor and director Simon Baker, best known for his role as Patrick Jane in the CBS drama series “The Mentalist,” has avoided a conviction after pleading guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol near his rural home.

Fans of Philip Pullman have been waiting almost five years for the final instalment in the author’s sextet of books about his intrepid heroine Lyra and her adventures in multiple worlds.

Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s next book will be one for music lovers.

“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras’s epic documentary about photographer Nan Goldin and her activism against the Sackler family and their art connections has been awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” the Marilyn Monroe drama “Blonde,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” and Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” with Timothée Chalamet, will all have their world premieres in competition at the Venice International Film Festival this fall.

Julianne Moore has been selected to serve as president of the main competition jury for the Venice International Film Festival this year, festival director Alberto Barbera announced Friday.

Joni Mitchell has received honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the century old institution where general inductees have ranged from Henry James and Georgia O’Keeffe to Sonny Rollins and Jasper Johns.

South African writer Damon Galgut has won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction with his story of racism and reckoning “The Promise.”.

Novels that explore historical injustices, the nature of consciousness and the dizzying impact of the internet are among six finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.