Jazz singer Abbey Lincoln dies, and other top stories...

The jazz singer and actress Abbey Lincoln has died at the age of 80. She achieved fame in the 1950s with her Billie Holiday-inspired singing, and was well known for her role opposite Sidney Poitier in 1968's For the Love of Ivy. For a time she was married to jazz drummer Max Roach, during which she adopted a more political style, and distanced herself from her raunchier early image. Her career experienced a renaissance in the 1990s as she focused on her song writing work and starred in Spike Lee's film Mo' Better Blues...

The books chosen for this year's Booker longlist are the best selling nominees in almost ten years. The most popular is Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, which has sold over 33,000 copies and centres on the consequences of a man hitting a child at a barbeque in Melbourne. The selection has proven divisive as a result of its questionable taste - an uncommon point of controversy for the Booker prize. Other selections include David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Rose Tremain's Trespass and Andrea Levy's The Long Song, all of which have sold in excess of 14,000 copies...

One of the joys of having created artistic masterpieces early on in life must be being able to just kick back and enjoy yourself during middle age. That's what The Smiths's Johnny Marr seems to be going. The guitarist, who currently plays in Wakefield indie group The Cribs, has written the theme tune to American comedian David Cross's new comedy. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret follows an American salesman sent to England to promote a new energy drink. Marr also provides the incidental music...