John le Carré?s latest novel is set in Hamburg, Germany, the city where Mohamed Atta and other members of Al Qaeda prepared for their assault on the United States.

Publishers, authors and even libraries are embracing video games to promote books to young readers.

Ron Rash?s fourth novel, ?Serena,? will prompt instant interest in his first, second and third.

The Nobel Prize has eluded America?s writers. Insularity is one unflattering explanation.

John le Carré?s new novel examines spying in the post-9/11 era.

The early 2000s have seen a string of big-budget remakes of classic horror films. In addition to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, John Carpenter's benchmark slasher flick HALLOWEEN has been given a new-millennial overhaul. At the helm of the project sits rocker Rob Zombie, whose previous films, HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, brought a fan's touch and an auteur's vision to the director's chair. While Zombie's HALLOWEEN is faithful to Carpenter's vision, there are some obvious changes, the most pronounced of these being the substantial focus on Michael Myers's childhood. The film posits Michael (played by a creepily vacant Daeg Faerch) as a troubled child made all the worse by a horrible home life--wonderfully illustrated via William Forsythe's performance as Deborah Myers's boyfriend--and constant abuse at school. Zombie paints Michael's pain with palpable grit and sleaze, but he isn't out to put our culture on the couch--he simply wants to show Michael killing his family. With the exception of Michael's therapy sessions while incarcerated, the film, post-massacre, stays loyal to the original.

Zombie's film is clearly the work of a filmmaker who knows and loves the genre. The director's signature is stamped all over HALLOWEEN (most notably in the use of grainy home movie footage and a smokin' classic rock soundtrack), although remnants of Carpenter's brilliant original still remain. When it comes to remakes, it's hard to ask for much more. (1 hr. 49 min.)

In THE HAPPENING, M. Night Shyamalan serves up over-the-top, apocalyptic strangeness. The film opens onto New York City's Central Park with a crowd of people enjoying an idyllic summer day. The carefree scene soon takes a terrifying turn, when out of nowhere, hordes of people begin to commit suicide en masse. People scramble to make sense of the pandemonium, and many believe it is a terrorist attack. It appears that some sort of deadly toxin is being released into the air. Cut to Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) a science teacher in Philadelphia. When he learns of the attack on New York, he meets up with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julians's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They make plans to get out of the city via train, but the train is evacuated in the middle of a small Pennsylvania town. When they learn that the mysterious toxin is spreading its way across the Northeast, they break up into groups, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess running through open farmland in search of safety. They are unsure of where to hide, or what exactly they are hiding from, until Elliot slowly forms a theory about the threat. He fights to keep Alma and Jess free from harm, and the film builds to a bizarre, unsettling climax, with Shyamalan's usual surprise ending.

Shyamalan's premise of escaping an unknown, unexplainable attack is a timely one, and is quite chilling in concept. However, while he at times appears to be groping for the frenzied scariness of THE BIRDS, THE HAPPENING's outlandish death scenes and implausible plot line often veer closer to B-movie classics. The film doesn't match the clever creepiness of THE SIXTH SENSE, but for fans of campy horror à la THE EVIL DEAD, it is truly something to behold. (1 hr. 29 min.)

The home of a colony of rabbits is threatened with destruction by human developers. Hoping to escape and to save their community, the rabbits, led by Hazel and Fiver, seek out a safe place to set up a new warren. (1 hr. 32 min.)