So you know Kyle MacDonald, the enterprising young Canadian who set up a blog with the goal of bartering his way from a red paper clip all the way to a house and, with the help of BoingBoing, actually managed it? This weekend, thanks to Auntie Joyce Wadler at the Times, we learned that the house that is the fruit of the former layabout and girlfriend moocher-offer's bloggy efforts is actually only worth about $8,000. HA! Well, "ha." Because, of course, the dude still got a book deal and a movie deal out of the whole shebang. The book (One Red Paperclip: Or How an Ordinary Man Achieved His Dream with the Help of a Simple Office Supply) comes out in paperback original this week. ("With plenty of irreverent and insightful anecdotes and practical tips on how you can find your own paperclip and realize your dreams, he proves it's possible to succeed in life and achieve your dreams on your own terms.") Uh, why is it that this benign Canadian's success fills us with actual bloodlust? Maybe it's that he's a living embodiment of the potential of the Internet. TO SUCK.

Each season on Project Runway, "Fashion Director for Elle Magazine" Nina Garcia gets bitcher and bitchier as she gets more famous. That eternal tan! That perfectly highlighted hair! That little smirk every time they mention that she is "Fashion Director for Elle Magazine"! The way she plays favorites! It's all enough to remind us why we never worked for a fashion magazine. That, and we're not a size 2. Anyway, 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 One—"Be Your Own Muse"—we learn that it's about confidence, not style! Except that confidence influences style? And style is part of confidence? And that Nina Garcia might not have passed logic. And if you have a fat ass, wear tight clothes. Especially if you want to be her assistant!

Each season on Project Runway, "Fashion Director for Elle Magazine" Nina Garcia gets bitcher and bitchier as she gets more famous. That eternal tan! That perfectly highlighted hair! That little smirk every time they mention that she is "Fashion Director for Elle Magazine"! The way she plays favorites! It's all enough to remind us why we never worked for a fashion magazine. That, and we're not a size 2. Anyway, 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 the Author's Note, we learn that Nina's style was formed not just by her glamorous Colombian parents, but also by the frumpy girls at her prep school outside of Boston.

Next week sees the release of Edward Klein's "Katie: The Real Story" (Crown), a biography of "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric. Klein's previous biography was the Hillary Clinton hatchet job "The Truth About Hillary Is That She Eats Box," and the Couric book follows the same pattern: it's full of rumor, innuendo, and scurrilous information from anonymous sources. Since the stuff about Katie being a bitch to work for has already been all over the papers, let's just jump to the sex parts! Here, the newly-installed anchorwoman meets a much younger man and damages feminism forever.

So Courtney Thorne-Smith, who you might recall as the author of The Greatest Celebrity Novel of Our Time, has granted an interview in which she vows that the heroine of her book, Kate Keyes-Morgan, is no mere analog for Courtney Thorne-Smith. "'I know people are going to think it's autobiographical,' Thorne-Smith said. But the cad is not her ex-husband and the dreadful mother is 'so comically not my mom. My mom would crawl over hot coals to have lunch with me.'" Um, okay! We want to believe Courtney, we really do. But it's hard to believe anything in an article that also contains the words, "Looking barely older than when she played Alison Parker on "Melrose Place" in the 1990s ..."

Sad news for those among you hoping for the gritty details and hot lesbian sex from Paris Hilton's prison diary: Her literary agent says her next project won't be about her stint in the slammer. "It's actually a strongly-argued polemic that defends cultural relativism against the anti-egalitarian attacks of conservative critics such as the late Allan Bloom." Nah, we're just kidding. They won't have any idea what the book's going to be about until they hire a guy to write it. [24sizzler]

"My email marketing finally worked. Gawker.com did a story on me. They did 3 actually. And if you're in the industry u know that Gawker is a celebrity website that keep it real and from that story I am meeting with an agent today who contacted the kid after reading and researching me. Wow, you get rid of the losers in your life and doors began to open for you. So let me get this book deal on and popping. So we shall see what's good with that. Right now I'm on my sk so I can't place a link of the story but just google me or wait until I get online later on to do so. Life is starting to look up for Tionna Smalls and I'm happy. I'm happy with my fam situation, my man situation, friends, locality, everything. I sleep all day, work all night. That's the life of a go-getter. Were planning the next luncheon. What else can happen to make my world better?" [Talk Dat Ish]

So this will be the cover of the contested O.J. Simpson memoir, now that rights have reverted to the Goldman family, who've opted to publish it through a glorified vanity press. But the classiness doesn't stop there! Per Grandma Cindy Adams, a "shocked and horrified" Denise Brown has sent friends a note decrying the publication of the book, reminding everyone that very recently, Fred Goldman's thinking about the book's publication was more along the lines of "Make certain this material never sees the light of day . . . That someone is willing to publish this garbage is morally despicable . . . I would hope no one would buy this book . . . that the message from people in this country is sent to his publisher . . . we as a nation won't put up with it . . . it's reprehensible." Money changes everything! And so, apparently, does hiding the "If" inside the "I."

According to an AP poll, basically no American reads any books anymore. Well, the "typical person" claimed to have read four books, with half of respondents claiming to have read fewer and half claiming to have read more. God, was The Da Vinci Code too hard, guys? What about the work of Zane, did its hot pink covers not entice you? Or the Bible, or Danielle Steel? You people could not even manage Danielle Steel?

"A YouGov poll has found that almost 10% of Britons aspire to being an author, followed by sports personality, pilot, astronaut and event organiser on the list of most coveted jobs. More women than men yearn to write, while those aged between 35 and 50, and those over 50 were most likely to dream about getting published." Thank you very much, J.K. Rowling. Now instead of the traditional habits of soccer violence and videotaping couples screwing in cars that we've come to expect from the British, we can look forward to a deluge of sub-standard Harry Potter rehashes. [Guardian]

To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee, who rarely makes public appearances, made one yesterday. Her quotable quote from the occasion: "Well it's better to be silent than to be a fool." [AP]

So you know that Fall is supposed to be when publishers release their blockbusters, right? Back to school studiousness plus Christmas shopping equals prime time for book-reading. So what are the bigwigs at Borders ordering a bunch of this fall? We hear they're focusing on two books: Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) and Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence. Exciting! Also: Boring! So what else is hot?

Have you heard about the new indie publication Girl, Get Your Mind Right!? No? It's on the Amazon hot new release list, and word on the street is that it's selling quite nicely! Apparently the author is a young woman from Brooklyn named Tionna Smalls, who apparently has a limited promotional budget but plenty of free time! Also according to Amazon, author Tiona Smalls is "a writer, community advocate, socialite, and entrepreneur from Brooklyn, New York" who "hopes to complete her B.A. degree in Sociology at Stony Brook University." So how did we find out about this book in the first place, you're probably wondering?

Have you heard of this self-published book Girl, Get Your Mind Right? It sounds awesome and we are very excited to read it. From the Amazon description: "Girl, Get Your Mind Right! is a book that will have you thinking about your whole life in a nutshell. It discusses the trials and tribulations that women go through while finding themselves like cheating, self esteem issues, dealing with broke men, etc. Girl, Get Your Mind Right! will help motivate you and help you understand what it takes to be a strong woman. Author, Tionna Smalls, speaks directly to the reader in a honest way and tackle the issues that most writers are afraid to address. Girl, Get Your Mind Right! will definitely be the book you read and pass along to a friend in need of a little motivation while getting their mind right." Also according to Amazon, author Tiona Smalls is "a writer, community advocate, socialite, and entrepreneur from Brooklyn, New York" who "hopes to complete her B.A. degree in Sociology at Stony Brook University." So how did we find out about this book in the first place, you're probably wondering?

Have you heard about the new indie publication Girl, Get Your Mind Right!? No? It's on the Amazon hot new release list, and word on the street is that it's selling quite nicely! Apparently the author is a young woman from Brooklyn named Tionna Smalls, who apparently has a limited promotional budget but plenty of free time! After the jump, please enjoy the informative e-mail every single one of your Gawker editors got at some point this week. It's actually kind of charming in its own sadly clueless way. Oh, and be sure to cop the book, 'kay?

News aggregator Michael Wolff has signed a "high six-figure" deal to write a biography of Rupert Murdoch, who "absolutely plans to cooperate" with the mini-mogul aspirant. "I think the subject and the author were born to be put together," says Doubleday president and publisher Steve Rubin. Any further commentary would be superfluous, no? [NYP]

Remember That Extra Half An Inch, Victoria Beckham's guide to making the most of your looks, which we celebrated book club style a few months ago? Back then, we bemoaned the fact that, like Top Shop jeans and meat pies, the book was only available in the UK. Luckily for people who feel the need to own a little piece of Vicky Beckham, though, Harper Entertainment has announced today that it will be publishing the book Stateside. Whee! A minor mystery, though: why didn't Penguin's U.S. arm publish the book, since it's a Penguin book in the U.K.? We asked a Penguin employee, who told us, "As fabulous as it was it was going to be, WAY too expensive to produce. Also, no one's going to buy it." And they say publishers never make good decisions!

You Can Run But You Can't Hide by Dog The Bounty Hunter debuts next week at #1 on the Times bestseller list.

This morning's "Today Show" featured a spirited discussion between Denise Brown—sister of slain trophy-wife Nicole Brown Simpson—and Eric Kampmann, the publisher who is publishing O.J. Simpson's metafictional narrative I Sliced That Bitch Up. Also Her Friend Ron Goldman. against the wishes of the Brown family. Brown tears into Kampmann pretty much the same way O.J. tore into Nicole. You know, if he did it.

Publisher's Marketplace reports, "We were surprised when media outlets made much of the news that a "New York publisher" had picked up rights to IF I DID IT. Last night, a statement was released showing the true nature of those first implications — the purchaser is Eric Kampmann's Beaufort Books (distributed by Midpoint), and a Reuters piece cites a publication date of October 3. Though it now appears to have been removed from their site, as of recently Beaufort described themselves this way: 'Beaufort offers an intriguing alternative to the traditional publishing model. We guide the publishing process, share in the risk, and offer the expertise and experience that are necessary to make any book a success.'" In other words, the O.J. book is for all intents and purposes being published by iUniverse. Pure class. Commenter MisterHippity "drew" this faux New Yorker cartoon, by the way.