Sourfaced New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin is in "discussions" about a book deal that could bring him up to three quarters of a million dollars. Unclear: why somebody would pay him to (ghost)write a book, or who might read it. Coughlin has always had a reputation as an angry, unlikeable stickler, persecuting his players for minor rule violations and wearing a perpetually pissed expression on the sidelines. He has reportedly mellowed out a bit recently, which may explain how the freaking Giants, of all teams, lucked into a Super Bowl win. Coughlin was also deeply hated by former Giant and current Today Show smiling face Tiki Barber. So schedule the book tour elsewhere, coach. [NYP]

Why not write your next book on some aspect of Starbucks—how it saved your life or as a small-business model or maybe spend a year working there or whatever! That's what everybody else is doing, AbeBooks points out. (In related news: in about five minutes, every single Starbucks will close for three whole hours for employee re-education). After the jump, ten of the bestselling 'Starbooks' on their website from past 12 months.

Angry McCann Erickson ad agency executive Nina Disesa reminisced fondly to the press today about her former colleague Paul Tilley, who committed suicide late last week. She commended his wisdom and sense of humor. Kind words, and quite a contrast to her assessment of anti-Tilley bloggers as hateful, bitter losers. It's worth pointing out, amidst all the hubbub, that Disesa is currently flogging her book, "Seducing The Boys Club," about how to survive and thrive as a woman in a man's world. Its observations seem to have informed her blog-relations tactics. Below, some of Disesa's top "practical, outrageous, and even controversial maxims" for dealing with men—the dogs!

Writes the agent behind Pub Rants: "The adage couldn't be more true that no two editors are ever alike. I asked [editors] to name the top 5 things they don't want to see in a children's submission. One editor said 'no more vampires.' But the other editor said, 'I'm still good; send me the vampires' (but she says she is 'slightly tired' of trolls in middle grade fiction)." [Pub Rants]

They don't even have hot water in the ladies room, the New Yorker reveals. But everybody seems pretty cool with that: after all, it's the literature that's important (publishing Tom Wolfe, Denis Johnson, Alex Ross, et al), not the amenities. A longtime employee explains, "The money went into the books, not into painting the walls." (How expensive could it possibly be to paint the walls?) Now, FSG is moving 'cause they're a bit too cheap for the rising rents on their Union Square offices; nobody wants to spend money on something "inessential." [New Yorker]

Everybody knows that books are a bitch to move and pack! They're even harder to store and display in cramped urban quarters. How to fix? Go the obsessive route and turn every square inch of your apartment into a custom-made book-storage unit. Check out this staircase-bookshelf!

"Free!", the upcoming book from Chris Anderson, explores the exciting new business concept of freebies. Okay, Wired's editor-in-chief isn't pretending he discovered loss leaders, ad-subsidized media and such; he's just the first to sell a book about it (coming this summer, though of course there will be a Free! version). For Anderson, the book means a Free! feature article in Wired, released today. It's 4,703 words! Here's the 100-word version, in Anderson's own (edited) words.

#1 is C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, the Times Online reports! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince lags at #6. Here are the top twenty books for kids, as polled by Booktrust:

Mom-hating rapper Eminem is planning to publish his memoirs at the ripe old age of 36. Question: Is it really necessary to buy his memoirs when every single one of his albums is an extended exercise in tortured self-examination? We already know all about his family problems, his relationship problems, and his problems with friends getting killed. He made that autobiographical movie too, ya know. Is there a lot more value to add for the rapidly aging Slim Shady fan base?

Why can't they just leave young girls who like to read ALONE?! In the NYT, young-adult authors discuss the selling off of references for product placements to cosmetic companies, shoe brands, etc. Says Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children's Books: "If you look at Web sites, general media or television, corporate sponsorship or some sort of advertising is totally embedded in the world that tweens live in. It gives us another opportunity for authenticity." Authenticity. That's one way to spin it! In other news, nowhere is safe from ads. (Sent from my iPhone)

Ab-obsessed Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko is busy promoting his new book, which should be called "A List Of Foods For Healthy, Stupid People To Eat." Washington Post pseudotrend specialist Laura Sessions Stepp caught up with Zinc [WP], who, now that he's not busy wrestling with Julia Allison, has plenty of time to fill humanity in on the areas of his expertise: Abs, vanity, and how Maxim sucks!

"At EAT on Upper East Side. Tom Wolff is sitting by himself eating breakfast in the window. Wearing full white suit." Sometimes, even when you do get a $7 million advance on your next book about "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption, and ambition in Miami," you still end up seated near the damn window, for the whole world to see.

"Had my first real appts. at HarperCollins this afternoon. Funny enough, the editors and I spent more time talking about my new Kindle than upcoming projects. The associate publisher even popped in to play with it. " [Pub Rants]

Tales of misery and abuse abound in memoirs, and it's not over yet: the Independent says "hic lit"—true tales of reformed drinkers—is the latest craze. Publishers are counting on you philistine-types for sales:

From a tipster: "Young female TV writer for My Name is Earl who is a Republican and just bought her second house (in Palm Springs maybe?) had dumped another writer, [her] longtime boyfriend, who then got a book deal to write a book about how jerky she was basically, and how the breakup sucked. He wrote it and she was nailed, even without names, so then the book company just gave HER a deal to write a book about how it was HIM that sucked so bad. Who says the publishing industry is bankrupt?" Huh. Which book was this?

"The slow death of the book may be with us," The Times of London moans, in what must be the eight millionth story about the death of reading/books in the last year. "That was an incredibly painful sentence to write." It was painful to read, too! Has anyone else noticed that it's hard to read an article over 800 words these days? That may be the real danger, not much-vaunted electronic readers like Kindle. What are the signs of this pending apocalpyse?

Former Daily Show executive producer Ben Karlin seems like a decent fellow, right? He was responsible for some of the smartest comedy to air on American TV since basically ever, that Daily Show book was pretty funny, Deborah Solomon couldn't make him seem like as much of an asshole as she does most of her interviewees. And, as he said last August, when announcing his HBO production deal, he is a man of ideas. Hundreds of ideas. "At least initially, he said, he planned to revisit some of the half-formed notions in his notebook, which he likened to the aging Russian nuclear arsenal. “'Many of the weapons I have may still be good,'” he said. “'Others may not go off.'”" Apparently the idea which did go off was the one he borrowed from a guy in his building!

Will more than one publisher fight over your book, aiming to be the highest bidder? O, the dream! Remember, the LOLCats book went to auction. The "very nice literary agent" over at Pub Rants explains the process.

James Frey has contributed a short story to the new Sex for America anthology of "politically inspired erotica." Rick Moody is also a contributor (will he be recalling his tale of Times Square tranny love?), as well as Jonathan Ames and Jerry Stahl. According to Page Six, Frey's story "The Candidate's Wife" is about "a political aide [who] has hot sex sessions with the spouse of a senator seeking his third term—in a men's room, an alleyway and the back seat of a car." The most shocking thing here is the use of the phrase "sex sessions." [Page Six]

I am exhausted this morning. I stayed up half the night finishing Beautiful Children, by Charles Bock, because I quite simply couldn't stop reading. 407 pages later, I passed out! A while back, we gently ribbed first-time novelist Bock for boasting about taking ten years to write the book, which is about living, being lost, and runaways in Vegas. Was it civilized, we wondered? In conclusion: Yes! Take as much time with that next novel as you need, man. We'll be waiting.