Hephzibah Anderson

U.S. writer A.M. Homes won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for “May We Be Forgiven” last night, beating the favorite Hilary Mantel and four other novelists.

Forget the old boy’s club. Groups like the Brazen Hussies, Power Bitches and SLUTS -- aka Successful Ladies Under Tremendous Stress -- are where today’s hot deals are being brokered and they’re strictly girls-only.

When novelist Lynn Shepherd set out to capture the excesses of the Young Romantics, she was able to draw on a previous career in banking in the 1980s.

In Claire Messud’s smoldering new novel, a 37-year-old elementary-school teacher becomes infatuated with a student’s family and experiences a heady awakening. That’s only half the story, though. “The Woman Upstairs” also offers a furious account of betrayal, the true source of which is withheld until the final pages.

Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver, both past winners, join Hilary Mantel as finalists in the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The bad news is that the zombie invasion has already begun. The good news? Margaret Atwood is safely holed up in Toronto’s CN Tower.

Dance with debt. Befriend a bureaucrat. Be prepared to use violence.

Hilary Mantel has won the Costa Book of the Year award for “Bring Up the Bodies,” the first time an author has received that prize and the Man Booker Prize for the same novel. She accepted the honor, which comes with a check for 30,000 pounds ($47,250), during a champagne reception at London restaurant Quaglino’s.

Hilary Mantel made literary history last night, becoming the first author to win the Costa Novel Award after taking the Man Booker Prize for the same book, “Bring Up the Bodies.”

There is a piece of Pixar studios in California that is forever England, thanks to Steve Jobs and the British flower expert David Austin.

Nancy Huston won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, the U.K.’s “most dreaded literary prize,” for a steamy description of a threesome involving a photographer, her camera and her lover.

Among the boldface names you won’t be expecting to find exhibiting at Art Basel Miami Beach is Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s erstwhile chimpanzee companion.