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The Galaxy Nexus, a smartphone that arrived in Verizon Wireless stores on Thursday, is huge -- and not just because of its unusually large size. The new Android phone, which has been available in Britain for weeks, is the first to run Android 4.0, the latest version of the popular mobile operating system that also goes by the adorable name Ice Cream Sandwich. This is a very significant update to Android for smartphones.

If you’ve never read anything by Anita Desai, you’re out of excuses. One of India’s most celebrated writers, she’s been publishing for almost 50 years and come close to winning the Booker Prize three times. (Ironically, her daughter, Kiran Desai, beat her to it in 2006 for “The Inheritance of Loss.”) Now she’s released “The Artist of Disappearance,” a collection of three superb novellas that’s a rare gift in the sparse December publishing season. Here, in miniature, you can experience the deceptively subtle, slightly surreal and profoundly insightful fiction of a world-class writer.

YelpInc., the online review website, has picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to lead an initial public offering that could value the company at up to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the plans. Yelp intends to file its IPO plans publicly within the next few weeks, said one person familiar with the matter. It's aiming to complete the sale in the first quarter, though timing may change with market conditions, the person said.

HotHardware takes a detailed look at the new AMD FX-8150 eight core processor, codenamed Zambezi, based on the Bulldozer architecture.

Early reviews of the iPhone 4S may have been uniformly great, bordering on glowing. But the best part of Wednesday’s coverage of Apple’s latest has been reviewers’ transcripts of their conversations with Siri — the personal assistant.

One week after “American Idol” season 10 winner Scotty McCreery dropped his debut, runner-up Lauren Alaina follows with her major label bow. Will “Wildflower” debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 like McCreery’s “Clear As Day?”

Alice Hoffman may be the most uneven writer in America. A trip through her enormous body of work — for adults and young people — is a jarring ride, from the loveliness of “Illumination Night” to the schlockiness of “The River King.” Hang on tight and you’ll swerve from the quiet power of her short stories in “Local Girls” to the groaning hokiness of “The Ice Queen.” In bestseller after bestseller, she explores women’s subjects and feminist themes, especially ancient and modern expressions of witchcraft. Sometimes, the results are practically magic; sometimes, they’re practically laughable.

In “Life Itself” the film critic Roger Ebert covers much career and personal ground, including the challenge of coping with cancer and disfiguring surgery.

This week at the movies, we?ve got baseball nerds (Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill), aquatic rehab (Dolphin Tale, starring Harry Connick Jr. and Morgan Freeman), an assassin-dodging teen (Abduction, starring Taylor Lautner and Lily Collins), and a tough-guy showdown (Killer Elite, starring Jason Statham and Clive Owen). What do the critics have to say? Do you love The Natural, but wish the movie had found time to take a closer look at Roy Hobbs?s OPS and weighted on base average?

Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and other hip-hop stars reprised albums at the Rock the Bells festival on Governors Island.