Renowned Spanish-language novelist Carlos Fuentes died Tuesday in Mexico City at age 83, authorities announced. Fuentes was a prolific, politically engaged writer, best known in the U.S. for books including “The Death of Artemio Cruz,” “Aura,” “Terra Nostra,” “The Good Conscience” and “The Old Gringo,” which was made into a film starring Gregory Peck. In an interview published Monday in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Fuentes said he had just completed a new novel, titled "Federico on His Balcony."

In that interview, Fuentes said, "My system of youth is to work a lot," and that he had a project pending. In 2006, after the death of his 29-year-old daughter, Fuentes told The Times, "It was very painful.... It puts a premium on your own soul. How do you go on living? How do you make people go on living within you? It nullifies you or sends you into work. Work saves you."

Born in Panama City in 1928 to Mexican parents, Fuentes lived in Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, France, Mexico, England and the U.S., where he had taught at Brown, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia. He was often spoken of in conjunction with other writers of his generation from Latin America, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, both of whom have won the Nobel Prize; although Fuentes received many prestigious awards, the Nobel eluded him.

"At home, Fuentes remained until the end outspoken on issues of the day," our World Now blog reports. "His most recent column — about the presidential election in France — was published Tuesday in the daily Reforma newspaper. Disdainful of many Mexican politicians, he tacked a note at the end taking aim at the tone of Mexico’s own presidential race, which he said sacrificed discussion of big issues for candidates’ petty attempts to knock each other down."

Between 1992 and 2011, Fuentes was interviewed five times by KCRW's Michael Silverblatt. The first four interviews were directly related to books. In the most recent interview, posted in two parts, the two discuss culture, politics and writing. All the interviews can be streamed online.

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Photo: Carlos Fuentes in 2008. Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of S.E. Hinton's book "The Outsiders." To celebrate, Penguin is releasing the story of the boys from the wrong side of the tracks for the first time as an e-book.

Hinton began writing the book while she was still a high school student in Tulsa, Okla."It was the year I was 16 and a junior in high school that I did the majority of the work (that was the year I made a D in creative writing)," she said in an interview on a website dedicated to "The Outsiders" book and film. "One day, a friend of mine was walking home from school and these 'nice' kids jumped out of a car and beat him up because they didn't like him being a greaser. This made me mad and I just went home and started pounding out a story about this boy who was beaten up while he was walking home from the movies — the beginning of 'The Outsiders.'" The novel was published by Viking when she was a freshman at the University of Tulsa, in 1967. She later published "That Was Then, This is Now," "Rumblefish" and "Tex," among other novels.

The book "The Outsiders" was adapted for the screen in 1983. Director Francis Ford Coppola cast a stellar group of mostly up-and-coming young actors that included Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Cruise. Ralph Macchio played the ill-fated Jonny and C. Thomas Howell his friend, the narrator Ponyboy.

In its press release about the e-book edition of "The Outsiders," Penguin notes that there are more than 14 million copies of the book in print, making it the bestselling young-adult novel of all time. Its e-book edition is available for $9.99.

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— Carolyn Kellogg

Photo:  From the 1983 film "The Outsiders"; from left, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise. Credit: Associated Press

Mike McGrady, a cigar-smoking, hard-drinking reporter who rallied his Newsday colleagues to write 1969's suburban sexcapade "Naked Came the Stranger" under a pseudonym, has died. He was 78.

Published as the supposedly true-life tales of a highly sexed suburban housewife, the book was attributed to Penelope Ashe, who turned out to be a wholly invented character. Like J.T. Leroy after her, Ashe was represented publicly by an actual human -- Billie Young, McGrady's sister-in-law -- who had nothing to do with the text.

That book had been written by McGrady and others on the Newsday editorial team. Inspired by popular bestsellers by the likes of Jacqueline Susann, McGrady challenged his newsroom buddies to write their own terrible, trashy, sex-filled bestseller. McGrady and 24 other writers each took a chapter; in every badly-written one, Penelope Ashe engaged in fantastical sexual exploits.

"It was great," McGrady said in an August 1969 Times story, after the scheme had been exposed. "Everybody sat down and wrote his chapter in one night. It was terrific for morale at the paper. We would all pass our chapters around to see how bad everybody else was writing. The only problem was that we had to send several back for rewriting. They were too good."

That was in 1966. McGrady and co-editor Harvey Aronson spent some time knitting the pieces together and finding a publisher. Lyle Stuart, known for its racy books, published "Naked Came the Stranger" in 1969 without being aware of its true origins. 

The actual authors were exposed in the summer of that year, with McGrady happily telling the story of the book. He talked to newspapers and appeared on the television show "To Tell The Truth."

Not everyone was delighted by the ruse. "Mike McGrady and cohorts' bestselling novel 'Naked Came the Stranger' is not only evidence of a decadent American society, but a perverted one as well," fumed Times reader Dona Gregory in a 1969 letter to the paper. "The fact that 25 journalists baited fellow Americans with all the sickness their little minds could conjure up was matched, (perhaps surpassed) only by those who bought 20,000 copies, the $127,000 Dell paid for paperback rights and the 20 movie companies now considering it for film possibilities."

McGrady hoped that a film version would be as deliberately bad as the book itself. "Would anyone in Tinseltown have the guts to make a consciously bad movie?" he asked in The Times in 1970. "The movie, as I see it, should be a compilation of all the great Hollywood cliches. I envision an endless series of naked backsides, flames flickering in nearby fireplaces, fireworks being set off against night skies ... "

Negotiations over a film version never panned out; a pornographic film of the same title was released, but it was not made in conjunction with the book's authors.

In 1970 McGrady published a how-to book for aspiring writers, "Stranger Than Naked: Or, How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit."

Maybe that's the secret to E.L. James and her wildly popular series, "50 Shades of Grey."

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Image: The Dell paperback edition of "Naked Came the Stranger." Credit: Goodreads

A 350-page ruling was delivered late Friday in the Cambridge University Press et. al. v. Patton case, known colloquially as the Georgia State University e-reserves copyright case. The ruling, which scholars and universities had been waiting a year for, is mixed, leaving both parties -- libraries advocating for fair use on one side and publishers on the other -- with reason to be pleased. Or to be displeased. Observers suggests an appeal is likely. (Scholarly Communications at Duke University, Publishers Weekly)

The New York Public Library announced its 2012-13 Cullman Center fellows in April, and every single project sounds fascinating. Ruth Franklin is working on a biography of writer Shirley Jackson; artist Gary Panter is exploring images of paradise and the afterlife as imagined by Milton and Dante; Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is writing a collection of stories set in 1863, when there were draft riots in New York City; Luc Sante is working on a documentary novel about the end of bohemia (think 1982); John Wray is writing a novel about a century in the life of a family of renegade physicists. There's more, but not quite enough.That's because I wish the L.A. Public Library might have a similar program, and offer writing space and stipends to gifted authors. There certainly is demand -- 305 writers applied for the 15 Cullman Fellowships. (NY Public Library)

Want to buy a club chair or two for your home library? The outdoor antique show in Brimfield, Mass., has you covered. (A Continuous Lean)

L.A. moviegoers still love Raymond Chandler: "The Big Sleep" is the first sellout of the Last Remaining Seats series from the L.A. Conservancy. The summer series is held at downtown's grand, endangered theaters -- thanks in part to the series (and in part to being used as film locations) some are making a comeback. The Bansky film "Exit Through the Gift Shop" premiered at the Los Angeles Theatre, completed in 1931, which is where "Paper Moon" will screen this year. One other literary film will be screening as part of the series -- "The Wizard of Oz," based on L. Frank Baum's books, will show both as a matinee and in the evening at the recently restored art deco Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. (L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats)

Silly cover alert: "Dog on the Roof! On the Road with Mitt & The Mutt" by Bill Kluger & David Slavin, illustrated by Colleen Clapp, is coming June 19. Written in rhyme, the children's-style book is a short political satire for adults. (From our book room)

Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century Englishman whose lively diaries are now posted online, daily, in blog form, had a very good day on May 14, 1669. For the first time, he was invited to dinner with the Archbishop of Canterbury:

[T]he first time I was ever there and I have long longed for it; where a noble house, and well furnished with good pictures and furniture, and noble attendance in good order, and great deal of company, though an ordinary day; and exceeding great cheer, no where better, or so much, that ever I think I saw, for an ordinary table: and the Bishop mighty kind to me, particularly desiring my company another time, when less company there. Most of the company gone, and I going, I heard by a gentleman of a sermon that was to be there; and so I staid to hear it, thinking it serious, till by and by the gentleman told me it was a mockery, by one Cornet Bolton, a very gentleman-like man, that behind a chair did pray and preach like a Presbyter Scot that ever I heard in my life, with all the possible imitation in grimaces and voice. And his text about the hanging up their harps upon the willows: and a serious good sermon too, exclaiming against Bishops, and crying up of my good Lord Englinton, a till it made us all burst; but I did wonder to have the Bishop at this time to make himself sport with things of this kind, but I perceive it was shewn him as a rarity; and he took care to have the room-door shut, but there were about twenty gentlemen there, and myself, infinitely pleased with the novelty.

May we all have days as pleasant. (Pepys Diary)

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in "The Big Sleep," adapted from the Raymond Chandler novel. Credit: UCLA Film and Television Archive

Benjamin Busch has an interesting resume. He’s an actor -- he played Anthony Colicchio on the HBO series “The Wire,” appearing in the final three seasons of the show -- and also a photographer, former Marine Corps officer and writer.

The son of novelist Frederick Busch, he was raised in upstate New York and went to Vassar College. An item in the New Yorker recently noted that his parents had protested the Vietnam War and Benjamin confounded them by joining the Marines after graduating. He served two tours of duty in Iraq with the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and, while there, took photographs of his combat experience. He has shown those photographs in three exhibitions. In his memoir, “Dust to Dust,” he considers his life so far -- he's in town this week at Vroman’s and Skylight Books.

Also this week: Pico Iyer, one of our favorite writers and thinkers, is in conversation with Lisa Napoli in a Live Talks Los Angeles program at the Fowler Musuem  at UCLA on Thursday. Erik Larson, author of  “Devil in the White City” and, most recently, “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” in conversation with David Kipen at Writer’s Bloc on Tuesday. And, if dogs are your thing, W. Bruce Cameron discusses his latest foray into the canine world also on Tuesday at Book Soup.

There are plenty of great, no-cost, low-cost, higher-cost events available, so get out and enjoy. As always, we suggest you check the appropriate venue to confirm information and notice on late cancellations.  

Monday, May 14, 7 p.m. Benjamin Busch reads and signs “Dust to Dust: a Memoir.” Vroman’s

Monday, May 14, 7 p.m. David Talbot discusses and signs “Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love.” Book Soup

Tuesday, May 15, 7:30 p.m. Benjamin Busch reads and signs “Dust to Dust: a Memoir” Skylight Books

Tuesday, May 15, 7:30 p.m. Erik Larson, author of “Devil in the White City” and “In the Garden of Beasts” in conversation with David Kipen in a Writer’s Bloc event at Temple Emanuel, 300 N. Clark Drive, Beverly Hills. Tickets: $20

Tuesday, May 15, 7 p.m. Christelyn D. Karazin and Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn discuss “Swirling: How to Date, Mate, and Relate Mixing Race, Culture and Creed" Eso Won Bookstore

Tuesday, May 15, 7 p.m. W. Bruce Cameron discusses and signs “A Dog’s Journey” Book Soup

Tuesday, May 15, 8 p.m. Gregg Allman talks about his memoir “My Cross to Bear” with Alan Light as part of Live Talks Los Angeles program at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Tickets: $25

Wednesday, May 16, 7:30 p.m.  Meg Howrey reads and signs her novel “The Cranes Dance” Skylight Books

Thursday, May 17, 7:30 p.m. Dan Rather, former CBS news anchor author of “Rather Outspoken: My Life in News,” in conversation with Marty Kaplan in a Writer’s Bloc event at the Writer’s Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills. Tickets: $20

Thursday, May 17, 7 p.m. Laura Dave discusses and signs her novel “The First Husband” Book Soup

Thursday, May 17, 7 p.m.  Augusten Burroughs discusses and signs “This is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More For Young and Old Alike” at the New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, 90036, presented by Book Soup. $5 admission or free with purchase of book at the event

Thursday, May 17, 7 p.m. Robert Green signs his novel “Astride a Pink Horse” Eso Won Bookstore

Thursday, May 17, 7:30 p.m. Pico Iyer in conversation with Lisa Napoli in Live Talks Los Angeles program at The Fowler Museum at UCLA. Tickets: $20

Thursday, May 17, 4 p.m. Gregg Allman signs his memoir "My Cross to Bear" Book Soup

Friday,  May 18, 7 p.m. Brandon Jones discusses and signs “All Women and Springtime” Book Soup

Friday, May 18, 7:30 p.m. Slake Issue 4 reading, featuring Luke Davies, Joseph Mattson, Melissa Chadburn, Sam Slovick and Clay Steakley Skylight Books

Friday, May 18, 7 p.m. Anne Cherian discusses and signs “The Invitation” Vroman’s

Saturday, May 19, 4 p.m. Drew Friedman in conversation with Leonard Maltin for “Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental (Two)” Book Soup

-- Jon Thurber

Photo: Actors Dominic West, left, Benjamin Busch and Johnnie Louis Brown in HBO's "The Wire."   Credit: Paul Schiraldi Photography

Thousands took to the streets of Moscow on Sunday to follow a handful of writers taking a "stroll" as a literal protest against efforts to thwart public gatherings. The poet Dmitry Bykov, detective novelist Boris Akunin, children's book writer Eduard Uspensky, bestselling author Lyudmila Ulitskaya and eight others had come up with the idea just four days before.

The N.Y. Times reports:

No one knew quite what to expect on Sunday. But when the 12 writers left Pushkin Square at lunchtime, they were trailed by a crowd that swelled to an estimated 10,000 people, stopping traffic and filling boulevards for 1.2 miles. Many wore the white ribbons that are a symbol of opposition to Mr. Putin’s government. The police did not interfere, although the organizers had not received a permit to march.

“We see by the number of people that literature still has authority in our society because no one called these people — they came themselves,” said Lev Rubinstein, 65, a poet and one of the organizers. “We thought this would be a modest stroll of several literary colleagues, and this is what happened. You can see it yourself.”

“I don’t know how this will all end, but I can say that no one will forget it,” he said.

Recent protests in opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin, who was inaugurated again Monday, have been subject to increasing crackdowns from authorities. Hundreds have been arrested, some for doing nothing more than wearing a white ribbon, a signal of opposition to Putin's government.

The authors said they wanted to walk across Moscow “without being blocked, beaten, poisoned with gas, detained, arrested or at least subjected to stupid molestation with questions.” A pending measure in Parliament would impose fines of about $50,000 and 740 hours of compulsory labor on public protesters.

Sunday's walk began at a statue of writer Aleksandr Pushkin and ended across town at a statue of playwright Aleksandr Griboyedov. According to organizers, 10,000 joined in the stroll; police set the number of participants at 2,000.

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Photo: Supporters of the writers' walk in Moscow. Credit: Sergey Ponomarev / Associated Press