Eric Simonoff sold James Frey's third novel Bright Shiny Morning to Harper's Jonathan Burnham for 2 million dollars, a reputable source now tells us. Hey, maybe he could donate some of it to the family of that beautiful dead crack-addicted prostitute who didn't exist!
Former journalist and current fiction writer Steve Almond writes a letter to Oprah in his new book, (Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions, which was published this week. It's called "How This Book Became an Official Oprah Book Club™ Pick," and it's one of those "Kidding! Haha. Ok, not kidding! Okay, kidding!" type of jokes. It is pretty bonkers.
So we were wrong about two things when we relayed the rumor that James Frey had sold his next book to Harper's Jonathan Burnham yesterday. We were wrong about the amount the book had sold for, which still hasn't been confirmed, but is now rumored to be in excess of one million. Which, actually, makes sense if Harper is assuming that the four million people who bought A Million Little Pieces will all rush out and buy Bright Shiny Morning, too. Don't let that happen, America. We were also wrong about whether the book is a novel or short stories: it's a novel. "I have never written a short story in my life," James told Times book reporter Motoko Rich yesterday when she contacted him about the rumors. "But Mr. Frey published a short story last fall in a catalog for an exhibition by Malerie Marder, a Los Angeles-based artist," Motoko reports. ZING.
Book Deal For Writer Who Fabricated Parts Of Memoir [NYT]
Now that "Gossip Girl" is upon us, what will be the next Young Adult book series to be made into a megahyped TV series? Our money's on The Luxe, by Anna Godberson. Harper Teen's going out with an enormous first print in December, aiming to duplicate the success of high-concept vampire young adult smash Twilight. The Luxe has no vampires, but it does feature another bestseller-bait ingredient: rich, spoiled Manhattan teenagers. The twist? It's 1899.
We just heard that Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham bought a short story collection from James Frey —yeah, that James Frey—for a million dollars. Can someone tell us whether this is true so we can get on with the killing ourselves/not killing ourselves, whichever turns out to be appropriate?
Today's Observer piece about new-minted literary agent Scott Moyers contains a controversial assertion: That Moyers' boss Andrew Wylie's Wylie Agency is "the most powerful and prestigious in town." Some of the publishing types we contacted for comment would beg to differ. And others were like "Well, yeah!"
29-year-old debut novelist Porochista Khakpour had her book party last night at her friend Sarma Melngailis's raw food restaurant, Pure Food and Wine. It was also Sarma's 35th birthday, so the party contained an oddly wonderful mix of raw food-loving celebs—Carol Alt! Ann ... Curry?—and literary types. Laurel Ptak took the glamourshots.
"New York can't in any stretch of the imagination be called a literary city. Other than a few staid events at chain bookstores, there are few literary happenings. The two major "alternative" papers, Village Voice and New York Press, on the day I was there, contained no information about poetry open mics." We kind of love that, but then again we're not literary crusaders or whatever. [ AttackingtheDemi-Puppets]
Maureen "Marcia Brady" McCormick has signed with Harper Entertainment to crank out a memoir, tentatively titled Here's The Story. In it, she promises to spill details of that long-rumored makeout sesh with Eve "Jan" Plumb, foreal! Anyway, that is a pretty freaking awesome title, but can you think of a better one?
Former Travel & Leisure and CondéNet employee Valerie Stivers' first novel takes place a magazine named Tasty, the flagship of a big publishing empire called Oldham, Inc. At Tasty, editors stay up all night and keep the lights off in their offices until midmorning, and they're almost never spotted eating. Also, there's no garlic allowed in the cafeteria! It takes heroine Kate McGraw a while to clue into the fact that they're all literal bloodsucking vampires, but you know what? Who can blame her. Last night, Emily and photographer Laurel Ptak found themselves in the gothy confines of Death and Co., where a group of sallow-skinned yet not undead magazine types had gathered to fete the book.
So what's the marketing strategy that will help the Goldman family get their dignity's worth out of the publication of O.J.'s If I Did It? "You leave it to the press. It's like blood in the water; the sharks will come. You spend nothing on it. You're catering to the train-wreck crowd," opines Michael Viner, the publisher of Heidi Fleiss's memoir and an Anna Nicole bio entitled Trainwreck. He added, "It's gross exploitation, and the Goldmans are soiling their public image." Now that's like Courtney Love calling you a hopeless drug addict. [AdAge]
Nina Garcia, Project Runway judge and alleged 'Elle' editor, has a new book coming out after Labor Day called The Little Black Book of Style. In it, she imparts her wisdom about the world of fashion unto others for the low, low price of $17.95, or just $3.95 more than a year's subscription to 'Elle.' In our final excerpt, from chapter four—"What to Wear When..."—Nina offers insights into what to wear on various occasions. Also, what not to wear. Hint: granny underwear.
Each season on Project Runway, "Fashion Director for Elle Magazine" Nina Garcia gets bitcher and bitchier as she gets more famous. She's enough to remind us why we never worked for a fashion magazine. That, and we're not a size 2. Nina has a new book coming out after Labor Day called The Little Black Book of Style, where she imparts her wisdom about the world of fashion unto others for the low, low price of $17.95, or just $3.95 more than a year's subscription to Elle. Money well spent, undoubtedly. In Chapter Three—"Inspirations"—Nina teaches us about international fashion. Because she never met a stereotype she didn't like. Also, women everywhere are rich! The highlights follow.
Excellent news today for the Turcotte family, and for fans of, you know, truth and justice: Author Augusten Burroughs has reached an undisclosed settlement with the Turcottes for unfairly describing them as filthy, perverted, Pink Flamingos-style loons in a hugely popular book that was supposedly about his adolescence. Running With Scissors will now be "classified as a 'book' rather than 'memoirs'"—guess we'll look for it in the "books" section at Barnes & Noble!— and Burroughs will include a note in the acknowledgments of future editions of the book. From the sounds of it, it's going to be a bit of a Crap Email From A Dude!
Gosh, it's been so long since we've written about Times rich lady beat reporter and plastic surgery volunteer Alex Kuczynski that we almost forgot how to spell "Kuczynski!" But the opening of today's review of Oh The Hell Of It All cannot be ignored. "When Sean Wilsey's memoir, "Oh the Glory of It All," was published in 2005, I went through it in great mouthfuls, laughing so hard I choked on my own spit, gasping with such noisy abruptness on the subway that I was forced to explain to my fellow passengers the contents of the passage I had just read, and why they had to immediately run out and buy this book." Look, the subway is for the poors, Alex. Stop bothering us with your spit.
Tired of dealing with your ish all by yourself? Starting right now, you can ask Tionna Tee Smalls, the author of Girl, Get Your Mind Right, and of the blog Talk Dat Ish, about love, relationships, life, and who is the best contestant on 'Making The Band.' We finally found an advice columnist! (She was in Brooklyn.)
"Post-college my perspective about sex changed a lot. I traveled the world and had (sex)life changing experiences—unfortunately, none that really helped my cause. First I took off to India for six months. I started working at an English daily newspaper in Bangalore, my first newspaper job. All the other staff members were Indian. There's so much sexual repression in that society that a lot of men didn't dare check out a woman in a sari, but when it came to the 'loose western girl'—me—they appraised my ripeness as conspicuously as they would a melon's. That was intimidating, but about two months into my stay, I started seeing Rafiq, a 31-year-old Muslim man from Mysore, a town about a three-hour bus journey away (looking back, I should have realized a town with that name wouldn't encourage orgasm)." That's from former Voice reporter Mara Altman's Thanks For Coming, which has just sold to Rakesh Satyal at HarperCollins for an amount that's been described to us as "nothing anyone should be getting their panties in a wad over." Well, so that's not what's going to finally make Mara come. But what is? Let's look inside her book proposal!
