I never thought my first real book would concern something I cared so little about. But that is exactly what happened with Pot Psychology's How To Be: Lowbrow Advice from High People.

This web site, myself included, has been frequently unkind and occasionally unfair to ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper over the years. So allow me to recant, sort of: Over the course of the last election campaign, Tapper has been among the least obnoxious mainstream-media voices in the Washington bubble. His brief stint filling in as host of This Week was the best thing to happen to that show in years (and I nominated him as its permanent host). But more important, he has written an excellent, unsparing new book about the tragic mindlessness of the war in Afghanistan and the lives of the men and women tasked with waging it.

Do you remember "books?" A book is basically thousands of tweets printed out and stapled together between pieces of cardboard. It may sound ridiculous, but back in colonial times (and for a number of years after) books were a major source of information and entertainment. These days, the majority of books are read by people who don't know how to use the internet. A book is a great gift for these people; it's important to replenish book-lovers' collections so they don't just stare at the wall all day.

Via the folks at AmericaBlog: When Denver's ABC affiliate put together a piece on the ever-devolving Petraeus affair yesterday, the station needed an image of the cover of Paula Broadwell's Petraeus bio All In to show its viewers. So it naturally went to the internet, which was a big mistake.

Does your child love dystopian political allegorical novellas but, more than that, love talking animals doing people things? Then he or she is going to love Andy Serkis' upcoming family-friendly adaptation of George Orwell's iconic anti-Stallinist kids' story Animal Farm.

Book publisher Random House has signed sitcom writer Lena Dunham to a $3.5 million contract for a collection of "frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work," to be called Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned. Lena Dunham became eligible to vote in 2004, so you should listen to her.

Saved by the Bell star Lark Voorhies, who popped up in a Yahoo! interview earlier this year with an insane approach to cosmetics, is fighting with her mother about her mental state and they're using People as their battlefield.

When news broke that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of Navy SEALS, the first thought of everyone in the media business, and of many curious Americans was: when can we get one of these heroes to tell his story? Well, now we have. And a lot of people want the government to crush him for it.

After 24 weeks at number one, Mark Owen's Bin Laden assassination tell-all No Easy Day has dethroned 50 Shades of Grey.

If you don't have a book contract right this minute, you should very ashamed. Consider: Nathan Harden (pictured), a 2009 graduate of Yale, not only got a book contract, but has already written and published his book, and that book is about how bad it is that kids are into sex things at Yale—a topic that a professional book publishing house presumably considered sufficiently interesting to pay Nathan Harden U.S. currency, to write it.

Why read Fifty Shades of Grey when you can live it? Or, OK, at least drag a bunch of girlfriends to the real-life hotel where some of the book's filthy sex takes place.

Daniel D'Addario says that Katie Roiphe's new book is exactly what one would expect. Too bad.

Teen death rattle trumps adolescent wizardry: The Hunger Games surpasses Harry Potter as best-selling books of all time.

Earlier today, the patron saint of unique storage space Lauren Conrad ripped apart some Lemony Snicket books with an X-Acto knife and advised others to do the same.

UPDATE: It appears the video has been removed from Youtube (and Lauren Conrad's website). Buzzfeed managed to save a copy with dicey audio. Thanks for betraying us, LC. Now we know how Kristin felt.

"How much of this book is about your own life?" All novelists, even those who write about horny Centaurs or plasma cannons, have to come up with a standard response to that prickly, earnest question. As someone who has been accused of navel-gazing on the Internet, who has written a few personal essays and now has published a novel in which the protagonist shares many of the same biographical details as the author, I have certainly come to expect it.

Not to be a "yes-saying" critic, but an emphatic yes to Dwight Garner on the need for incisive cultural criticism.

Robert Anasi moved to Williamsburg in 1994 and spent more than a decade watching the neighborhood transform from an isolated and novel bohemia into the fully gentrified cultural monster that it is today. His new book, The Last Bohemia: Scenes from the Life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a first person chronicle of the neighborhood's character (and characters), and of its changes.

Look at this guy. Like it or not, he's an American icon.

Neil Barofsky was at the very center of the U.S. government's response to the 2008 economic collapse. He spent more than two years, until March of 2011, as Special Inspector General for the TARP program, overseeing and monitoring government bailout funds. Now, Barofsky has written a ferocious book detailing how, he says, "Washington abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street." And he's here to take questions from you, the Main Streeters.