Who’s in the Book With Alan Greenspan? It’s Magic

Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is already in the record books. Now he and about 150 other people, places, things and events also have made it into the World Book Encyclopedia. Former Beatle Paul McCartney, comedian Bill Cosby, composer Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tyson are among those deemed worthy by editors for a permanent entry in this year’s edition of the encyclopedia. “You can’t be of temporary interest like British novelist Salman Rushdie, author of ‘The Satanic Verses,’ who may be news today but forgotten next year,” Executive Editor A. Richard Harmet said. Also among this year’s new entries, which can take up to three years each to prepare, are American writers David Mamet and Maya Angelou, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, British physicist Stephen Hawking, Lakers basketball star Magic Johnson and Chinese Premier Li Peng.

--Sen. Paul Simon lost his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he hopes his book, in which he offers blunt observations on his own campaign and those of his Democratic rivals, will be a winner. Simon writes that Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) came off as brash, Bruce Babbitt eventually became desperate, Gary Hart was a dull speaker and Michael S. Dukakis was too remote, a flaw fatal to his campaign, Simon writes in “Winners and Losers.” In the book, Simon faults himself for some tactical errors and for failing to build his campaign around a “central theme” that would have been easily accessible to voters. Simon has written 11 other books, which have examined such topics as unemployment, hunger and foreign-language education. “We’ve had all kinds of people writing about what a campaign is like, but it’s a little different when you’re sitting in the chair of a candidate,” he said.

--Another author, Saul Bellow, will become a visiting professor at Boston University next semester, teaching a weekly seminar course titled, “An Idiosyncratic Survey of 19th and 20th Century History.” Bellow, who already teaches at the University of Chicago, will hold the titles of visiting university professor and professor of English. Bellow, 73, has written eight novels, won the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature, three National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.