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Novelist Jasper Fforde was born in London on 11 January 1961. His father was John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England (whose signature appeared on sterling banknotes during his time in office). He is the cousin, by her marriage, of the author Katie Fforde, the grandson of Austro-Hungarian (later, Polish) political adviser Joseph Retinger, and a great-grandson of journalist E. D. Morel. Fforde published his first novel, The Eyre Affair, in 2001. His published books include a series of novels starring the literary detective Thursday Next: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels and One of our Thursdays Is Missing. The Eyre Affair had received 76 publisher rejections before its eventual acceptance for publication. Fforde won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction in 2004 for The Well of Lost Plots. The Big Over Easy (2005), set in the same alternative universe as the Next novels, is a reworking of his first written novel, which initially failed to find a publisher. Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty?, and later had the working title of Nursery Crime, which is the title now used to refer to this series of books. These books describe the investigations of DCI Jack Spratt. The follow-up to The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear, was published in July 2006 and focuses on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Fforde's books are noted for their profusion of literary allusions and word play, tightly scripted plots, and playfulness with the conventions of traditional genres. His works usually contain various elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy. None of his books has a chapter 13 except in the table of contents where there is a title of the chapter and a page number. In many of the books the page number is, in fact, the page right before the first page of chapter 14. However, in some the page number is just a page somewhere in chapter 12. Shades of Grey, the first novel in a new series, was published December 2009 in the US and January 2010 in the UK.
See his bibliography at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Fforde

The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which commenced in November 2001. Its objective is to lower trade barriers around the world, which will help facilitate the increase of global trade. As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies. The most significant differences are between developed nations led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA), and Japan and the major developing countries led and represented mainly by Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and South Africa. There is also considerable contention against and between the EU and the USA over their maintenance of agricultural subsidies—seen to operate effectively as trade barriers. The Doha Round began with a ministerial-level meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001. Subsequent ministerial meetings took place in Cancún, Mexico (2003), and Hong Kong (2005). Related negotiations took place in Geneva, Switzerland (2004, 2006, 2008); Paris, France (2005); and Potsdam, Germany (2007). The most recent round of negotiations, 23–29 July 2008, broke down after failing to reach a compromise on agricultural import rules. After the breakdown, major negotiations were not expected to resume until 2009. Nevertheless, intense negotiations, mostly between the USA, China, and India, were held in the end of 2008 in order to agree on negotiation modalities. However, these negotiations did not result in any progress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_Development_Round

2010 DePuy Hip Replacement Recall was instituted when DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., a division of Johnson and Johnson, recalled its ASR XL Acetabular metal-on-metal hip replacement system on August 24, 2010. This recall came after data from a recent study indicated that the five year failure rate of this product is approximately 13%, or 1 in 8 patients. The defective and dangerous replacement hips have already been implanted in patients. The recall means that patients who have already undergone one surgical procedure to replace a hip may have to undergo a “revision.” The DePuy ASR XL Acetabular System first became available in 2005 in the United States. Johnson & Johnson was given special clearance from the FDA in 2005 to market the ASR devices without first performing clinical trials—tests to determine the safety of the products. But since 2008, the FDA has received approximately 400 complaints from patients who received ASR hip replacements. The first lawsuit in the United States against DePuy Orthopaedics was filed on June 15, 2010. The lawsuit claims that the DePuy ASR hip replacement was defectively designed, that DePuy knew that there were problems with the implant early on but didn't do anything to let patients or their surgeons know about the possible problems. The United States Judicial Panel on MultiDistrict Litigation filed a ruling on December 7, 2010 that determined the fate of the thousands of lawsuits regarding DePuy Hip Recalls in the United States. Its ruling stated that all cases filed across the country, "are transferred to the Northern District of Ohio and, with the consent of that court, assigned to the Honorable David A. Katz for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_DePuy_Hip_Recall

DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, Multidistrict Litigation Cases, MDL 2197 Find attorneys and orders at U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Toledo
http://www.ohnd.uscourts.gov/home/clerk-s-office-and-court-records/multidistrict-litigation-cases/mdl-2197/

Found in Translation by Stephen Mitchell
I have spent the last three years translating Homer's "Iliad," a project I began because none of the English translations on my bookshelf interested my ear enough to get past Book 1. Translating is a specialized kind of work, but in the most general sense, it is the art of listening. It has lessons for anyone who cares about the sound of their writing. With Homer, the first thing that I do is my homework, looking up the Greek words I don't know and studying the commentaries. I'm left with a bramble of possibilities handwritten on the right-hand page of my notebook and a blank page on the left. I begin to listen for the rhythm (a music that I hear before the words themselves come into focus in my ear), and line by line, sometimes after a minute, sometimes after 10—magically, it seems—the words begin to configure themselves, my hearing creates what I want to hear, the pen starts to write, and I am a fascinated witness. The rest of the work, over the next few days or weeks, is a process of refining, of testing every word, every sound, against my sense of what Homer's music should sound like in English, an English that is rapid, direct and noble, as his Greek is. Sometimes it takes five or six drafts until my ear is satisfied, sometimes 30 or 40. Before you finish a piece of your own writing, you might try reading it out loud or silently, paying attention just to the sound of the words. If you come to a phrase that doesn't sound quite right, let your ear, rather than your thinking, revise the line. You may be surprised by what you didn't know you knew. —Mr. Mitchell is a writer and translator whose many books include "Tao Te Ching," "The Book of Job" and "Gilgamesh." His translation of Homer's "Iliad" was published in October. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577024470798695892.html

Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for fiction on November 16 for “Salvage the Bones.” In the nonfiction category, Stephen Greenblatt won for “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.” The award for poetry went to Nikky Finney for her fourth collection, “Head Off & Split.” The prize for young people’s literature went to Thanhha Lai for “Inside Out and Back Again.” Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, which has independent stores in South Florida,Westhampton Beach, N.Y., and the Cayman Islands, won the 2011 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Mr. Kaplan, who is also the gregarious co-founder of the Miami Book Fair International, has been hailed as one of the most innovative independent booksellers in the country. The award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters went to the poet John Ashbery, a native of Rochester, N.Y., who has published more than 20 books of poetry and has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Read much more at: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/celebratory-night-for-the-book-world/?partner=rss&emc=rss