Todd Haynes’s Carol is simple, elegant, and devastating. It tells a story of pre-Stonewall gay love between two women, who become what they are using no specific societal blueprint (none existed for lesbians in the ‘50s), but through their love for each other. Carol (Cate Blanchett) is a mother going through a divorce who happens upon Therese (Rooney Mara), a younger shopgirl in her 20s, and is immediately enchanted. What ensues is a love story that is told with tenderness, pacing, and melodrama that evokes the era depicted in the film. Sometimes it shouldn’t even work—like when during an emotional peak between Carol and Therese, it starts snowing out of nowhere—but it always does, thanks to the tremendous directing, writing, and performances of everyone involved. Carol is, simply, one of the year’s finest movies and its final shot is among the most indelible I’ve ever seen. This movie imprints itself on you, and what’s more, you want it to.

Last Friday in the Guardian, the novelist Will Self declared the novel dead, inert, lifeless, kaput. Self himself (whoa) tries to hedge his bold headline, but it still leaves him sounding like a much more verbose Jonathan Franzen. Also: he's wrong.

Sorry that I'm talking about Christmas before you've even eaten your Thanksgiving meal, but some things just can't wait. Like most of you, I'm already rattled with fear over finding that perfect little stocking stuffer, that one gift that will make all my friends and family think, "Wow, what a thoughtful kid." Thankfully, Horny man Travis' NaNoWriMo entry has put my mind at ease.

We're now 12 days into "National Novel Writing Month," the annual event in which thousands of people, encouraging and guiding each other online, pledge to write entire novels over the course of November. The official "NaNoWriMo" forums are abuzz with encouragement and advice, testifying to the power of group support in achieving your goals. They are also filled with some of the worst ideas you will read in your entire life.

Was your main beef with Britney and Lynne Spears' 2001 novel A Mother's Gift that it eventually drew to a close, rather than continuing on for an infinite number of pages, seemingly writing itself even as you read on, forever adding new chapters to the lives of musically gifted teenager Holly Lovell and her birthmarked mother, Wanda, whose "ugly red scar on the side of her face...makes people who don't know her turn away"?

When young-adult novel Lauren Myracle found out that her gay teen hate crime novel Shine had been shortlisted for a National Book Award, she was "over the moon."

Last February, Kathryn Stockett, author of the immensely popular novel-turned-movie The Help, was sued by her brother's former maid, who said that a character in the book was based on her. And the character clearly was, despite Stockett's credulity-straining denial!

Mayoral progeny, ex-boyfriend underminer, and professional equestrian Georgina Bloomberg has written a novel that draws "heavily from her own experiences" and will contain "tell-all references" about the daughter of a "blunt-talking Wall Street billionaire who lives in a Manhattan townhouse and 'owns half of New York.'"

Time's Mark Halperin has it "confirmed by sources" that the anonymous author behind O: A Presidential Novel is Mark Salter, the former right hand man to John McCain. He's been hiding in Maine, writing this thing!

We're sure that Jersey Shore's Snooki, the greatest literary mind of her generation, needs no help writing her upcoming novel A Shore Thing!, but still we charged you with penning the first page of her book. Your submissions were genius.

The Pale King, the unfinished novel by the late David Foster Wallace, will be released April 15.

Do you want to be able to discuss the endings of 50 classic novels, but can't spend the time it takes to read all of them? If so, then it's your lucky day! 50 endings. Four minutes. Be spoiled, inside.

Breaking news from Martha's Vineyard: Barack Obama went to a bookstore! And he bought novelist Jonathan Franzen's hotly anticipated greatest masterpiece ever, Freedom. It's not even in stores until August 31! He really does have magical time-defying powers. [Image: AP]

Alexandra Lebenthal, CEO of financial firm Lebenthal & Co., just published her first novel, The Recessionistas, about Wall Street elites coping with the great economic downturn. Let's meet John Cutter, the sort of hedge fund jerk we love to hate.

Noted novelist Glenn Beck has finished his latest work, a thriller called The Overton Window, and he's asking fans to pick the cover. Once choice features a girl Statue of Liberty, and another features a boy Statue of Liberty. Weird.

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN's panel on climate change, has written a scandalous sexxxy novel about a sexy environmental scientist that, by political logic, thereby discredits the concept of "global warming." Is the book really that bad?

After the loss of two celebrated writers this week — Howard Zinn and J.D. Salinger — it's easy to feel like there's nobody left. But there is! Lauren Conrad, Hills star and author. And now she's sharing her favorite books.

Louis Auchincloss, whose austere novels exposed and defined the cloistered world of white coastal privilege in which he was raised, has died following a stroke.

Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how much money there is to be made in the Amish porn business? Lots. And by "Amish porn" we mean "Devilish books in which a lady feels a certain tingle beneath her bonnet."

Famous prosecutor and TV commentator with absolutely no respect whatsoever for the fundamental principles of Western Criminal Justice Nancy Grace wrote a novel! It's about a hard-charging no-nonsense prosecutor....