>>> '%s for %s' % ("tit", "tat")
tit for tat
>>> '{} and {}'.format("chicken", "waffles")
chicken and waffles
>>> '%(last)s, %(first)s %(last)s' % {'first': "James", 'last': "Bond"}
Bond, James Bond
>>> '{last}, {first} {last}'.format(first="James", last="Bond")
Bond, James Bond
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 3, in <module>
print '{0}'.format(unicode(author))
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)