Alain de Botton is a respected European writer who was ready to bite the arms off anyone standing in the way of his contract to spend a week sitting in an airport, writing a boring airport book. Writing careers suck.

Sheryl Weinstein was pretty broken up when she lost millions to Bernie Madoff, who was also her secret lovahhhhhh. But now she's telling the world all the sexy details of Bernie sexy time, in a book, for satisfaction, and riches.

Who should feel more embarrassed about the story on the front page of the Daily News today? Bernie Madoff, who will have to go through life knowing that not only do people despise him for carrying out the biggest fraud in history, they all now know he has a small penis, too? Or Sheryl Weinstein, the author of the new tell-all, who squeezes in the fact that he "was not well-endowed," but says sex with him left her "on fire" nonetheless, and he was a pretty good kisser to boot? Maybe it's Weinstein's husband, Ronald, who lost all his money to Madoff and now gets to spend his penniless golden years with the woman who will be forever known as the one who dished about the size of Madoff's member? It's hard to say, isn't it? [NYDN]

You'd think Steve Forbes would be content having his name slathered all over his various properties. You'd be wrong, because Forbes wants to be the author of a bestseller, too. Badly. Badly enough to spend company money buying his book.

Gawker friend R. Nicholas Kuszyk, the Williamsburg-based robot artist who occasionally fools the world into thinking he is Banksy, has a new book about, yes, Robots, so why don't you pick it up? Art sample photo below!

Hank Paulson's attempt to weasel out of an interview with the New York Times looks more comical every day. Now it's emerged that the book he was busy writing is being written by someone else.

Bernie Madoff had an affair, allegedly! With one of his victims! Who now hates him! And is writing a book!

Yale University Press is publishing a book about the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy of 2005. But Yale will not publish any images of the cartoons, or Muhammad, because Yale University Press is run by freedom-disregarding accommodationist pussies.

There are about 20 books about Bernie Madoff scheduled to be published over the next few months. Let's hope only one gets into what Bernie was like in bed. Cheryl Weinstein, who says she lost her entire life savings to the fraudster, plans to detail an affair she supposedly had with Madoff in her upcoming book, Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me. And according to a spokesman for St. Martin's Press, in addition to details of the affair, "the hardcover book will include photographs and some intimate descriptions of Madoff." [Bloomberg]

Now-famous recently freed Current TV journalist Laura Ling and her already-famous-before sister Lisa Ling—who you know from your television set—have reportedly landed a book deal! Like we said, being kidnapped is the career move of a lifetime.

The New York Times ran a big story last weekend about Hank Paulson's contacts with Goldman Sachs, but they couldn't get a quote from Paulson because he was too busy writing his memoirs. Really? No, not really.

Why didn't the authorities catch Bernie Madoff sooner than they did? According to Andrew Kirtzman, the author of the book, Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff, it was Bernie's taste for fine design that kept regulators from noticing giant Ponzi scheme staring them in the face:

Phoenix Books president Michael Viner, the man responsible for publishing books by some of the most objectionable figures in recent American history, has died at the age of 74.

Famous prosecutor and TV commentator with absolutely no respect whatsoever for the fundamental principles of Western Criminal Justice Nancy Grace wrote a novel! It's about a hard-charging no-nonsense prosecutor....

Publishers release "advance copies" for the Literary Elite to have before the masses/Oprah ruins them for you. Being spotted with one sometimes merits "status"...that we're about to ruin. Today's selection is TwitterWit, The Big Book of Collected Tweets!

SoHo House, why're you so cruel? The Manhattan country club thriving on envy of an "elite" membership will crack down on violators of their draconian policies/culture eugenics! Suits are neit wanted. Neither are real books, which they intend to imprison.

• NBC is pulling out all the stops to promote Jay Leno's new show. Don't believe it? Try this out for size: "In early September, NBC will even adopt a portion of Interstate 10 in California to reiterate Mr. Leno's time slot." [NYT]
• Notwithstanding the Leno blitz, NBC is still looking to cut its budget. [NYT]
• No one cares about CNBC these days, in case you haven't noticed. [Slate]
• More on troubles at Condé Nast (revenues may fall by as much as $350 million this year), and the recent round of receptionist-purging. [NYP, NYO]
• The lobbyist scandal goes on. A couple of days after it was revealed that MSNBC's Richard Wolffe is now working for a lobbying firm comes the news that CNN's Bill Schneider has signed up with a D.C. think tank. [HuffPo]
• Related: Wolffe has another Obama-related book in the works. [TNR]
• Experts say the prognosis for BusinessWeek is not good. [DailyFinance]
• As you might expect, the mood has been very upbeat at CurrentTV today now that Laura Ling and Euna Lee have returned from North Korea. [NYT]

So here's Herman Rosenblat, who admitted months ago to fabricating his book about his wife throwing apples to him over a concentration camp fence, telling two movie producers the story, as though it's true. WTF?

It was apparently impossible for the New York Times' Charles McGrath to hate novelist Nick McDonell, once they met in person. Thankfully, as we are merely stealing from McGrath and not meeting young Nick, we shall not have that problem.

Julie Powell blogged her way through cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking; a book deal and movie followed. Are food bloggers thrilled for her? Hardly; Powell is a foodie infidel who must be stopped.