Michael Douglas has been chosen to narrate late movie industry mogul Jack Valenti’s emoirs, This Time, This Place, which features fond memories of the Douglas clan.

Valenti was planning to narrate his own autobiography for an audiobook series, but the former Motion Picture Association Of America (MPAA) President died last month before the book’s release.

Australian author Thomas Keneally, best known for the 1982 book Schindler’s Ark, is to appear on the BBC’s World Service programme World Book Club, where he will discuss the novel.

The programme will be recorded in front of a studio audience at The British Library on Thursday 24 May at 4.30pm and members of the public can attend as well as ask him a question.

Alex Rider author Anthony Horowitz has revealed that cheder classes and some fellow female Jews turned him off being more religious.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Horowitz said: “Being Jewish is a crucial part of my make-up but any chance of being a practising Jew was driven out by well-meaning parents, who dragged me to Sunday school, and cruel, spiteful North London girls in the 1960s.”

Legendary English playwright Harold Pinter has received a honorary doctorate from Leeds University.

The 76-year-old writer, author and actor became a Doctor of Letters at a ceremony in Leeds, Yorkshire.

Pinter’s honour coincided with a three day conference discussing his huge body of work.

University Chancellor Melvyn Bragg said: “It is a great occasion. Harold is a great writer, known all over the world. Leeds University has put together these workshops and it’s terrific that I can give him an honorary degree.”

2007 is starting well for prolific book guru Daniel Hahn who has been shortlisted for three major literary prizes.

The 32-year-old who was born in London and now lives in Brighton is up for honours for his translation from Portuguese into English of The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa by the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, his translation, also from the Portuguese of Pele: The Autobiography has been shortlisted for a British Book Award while as editor of The Ultimate Teen Book Guide he’s been shortlisted for an ERA (Educational Resources Award).

A British woman from Yorkshire has scooped $100,000 by becoming the first winner of an international Jewish book award.

Tamar Yellin won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature for her book The Genizah at the House of Shepher which explores how a women traces the origins of a handwritten bible that is discovered and has a deep history associated with it.

Cardiff-born writer Dannie Abse has been shortlisted for a top Welsh literary award, the Roland Mathias Prize, for his collection of poems Running Late.

The prize, which is worth £2,000, is awarded to a work published in English by a Welsh writer over the past two years, either in poetry, short stories, literary criticism or Welsh history.