So your debut memoir was a huge sleeper hit because it had an adowwable labrador retriever on the cover. But what do you do for a follow up? It's not like you can go out and get another pet that will misbehave, unite your family, and then [SPOILER!] die in tearjerking fashion. Well, if you're savvy businessman-author John Grogan, you find ways to extend your brand without ever coming up with any new ideas.
Good news, for once, on the literary front: The Post is reporting that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is shopping a memoir proposal. Make all the jokes you like about Keef not being able to remember anything, because the man keeps meticulous notes. Richards is reportedly seeking $5 million for the deal, and if the excerpt we've "obtained" is any indication, he's worth every penny: The man is one hell of a stylist.
Confused, confusing Neal Boulton is out as the editor of Men's Fitness, but he's not going to sit around twiddling his thumbs. That book he alluded to in his departure announcement is going to become a reality. It absolutely, totally is. ""I'll be dropping off the proposal on Friday [with William Morris agent Jason Fox]," Boulton told Keith Kelly. "It's a lot more than a theoretical idea to do a book someday." The voluminous proposal's working title is Inside the Politics that Keep America Fat, which sounds like a surefire hit, especially since Neal has so much more name recognition now. But we'd still be a little bit more interested in reading a book called Inside the Politics That Keep Gay Men Married To Lesbian Wives. Maybe he'll get a two-book deal!
Organic Recycling [NYP]
We hear that Janet Jackson is shopping a book concept—when you're Janet Jackson, you don't have to fuss with details like "proposals"—about her recent dramatic weight loss, to be titled Body & Soul. Which has a way nicer ring to it than How I Didn't Have Gastric Bypass Surgery, Like, At All.
"Although The Devil's Teeth sold just 36,000 copies in hardcover, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of book sales, it was a New York Times nonfiction hardcover best seller," Times book reporter Motoko Rich wrote last week in a weird article that had book editors around town scratching their heads. "Although"? "Just"? Many Times bestsellers have similar and, sometimes, lower Bookscan numbers. Is it possible that the Times, arbiter of the most influential bestseller list in the country, doesn't really have a set or sensical definition of what constitutes a "best seller"? An article in yesterday's Business section reveals: yes, that is possible. Likely, even!
GradSpot.com, a new "web portal" launched last month, bills itself as "the survival guide to life after college." And while some of their materials seem pretty handy—articles on how to use your student ID to get cheap stuff after graduation, etc.; a roommate-hunter function—the site as a whole makes us wonder whether survival is really the best plan.
"Poised for success in the literary community: Not only is Jeff Hobbs dedicating The Tourists to his mentor Bret Easton Ellis, but The Tourists has a plot and depth that makes it comparable to some of today's finest literary fiction," according to the copy on the galley of 27-year-old's debut novel. These statements are not entirely untrue! The literary community, or something like it, did turn out in full force last night to celebrate the book's publication. Jonathan Franzen was there! (Supposedly: we didn't actually glimpse him). And so was, for some reason, Aaron Eckhart!
"For years we've sent agents biographical profiles of our editors every season along with our catalog," Little,Brown publisher Michael Pietsch (pictured!) says, by way of justifying his decision to make all his Hachette imprint's editors post online profiles on Publishers Marketplace. "The editors have a lot more room on the site to talk about what kinds of books they like, to describe some of their favorite moments, to include photos of their kids and cats." Kittypix are in short supply on the editors' current profiles, however. Some don't even choose to include the requisite headshot, leading us to wonder whether Asya Muchnick is hideously deformed or something! (J/k, she's cute.) In fact, the general dearth of personal information on these leads us to wonder whether the editors are so crazy about their boss's great idea.
David Boyer's first book was about gay kids going to prom, so perhaps it makes sense that his second is about the ultimate straight-man fantasy, the bachelor party. But one with very distinct homoerotic overtones, let's not forget! Last evening, Doree and photographer Nikola Tamindzic braved the sleaze of the Pussycat Lounge to see what Bachelor Party Confidential was all about.
In case you haven't made it to Borders yet, let me draw you the picture: She's walking away from the camera, in profile. (Great profile, by the way.) She's on the beach, in a light sweater and dark jeans rolled above the ankles. And I don't know if this overstepping bounds, but facts are facts: She's got a commendable can. A bountiful bottom. A terrific tush.
Can print book coverage and literary blogs ever find a way to get along? Book blogger Maud Newton thinks so: "I find it kind of naïve and misguided to be a triumphalist blogger," she told Times book reporter Motoko Rich. "But I also find it kind of silly when people in the print media bash blogs as a general category, because I think the people are doing very, very different things." A good point, and one that's entirely lost on novelist Richard Ford.
Pete Wentz: Fall Out Boy. Bar impresario. And now, memoirist! We hear that Wentz is shopping a follow-up to his self-published 2005 debut, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side. While that book was an illustrated compendium of the Ashlee Simpson-dating bassist's nightmares, the new work is a more straightforward autobio from the "logorrheic diarist." In it, according to someone we found who's read it, Wentz "talks about exes, but doesn't name anyone—instead annoyingly refers to them as 'her,' 'she' or 'her.' He does talk about his overdose a bit. He's death-obsessed and also sex-obsessed. Needless to say, most of all, he is self-obsessed. It's among the most self-indulgent whiny trying to be smart and artsy high school creative writing class crap I've ever read." We're reserving judgment til we get a chance to read it ourselves, so PLEASE GIVE IT HERE.
As more people get their news online than ever, our country is locked in a fierce struggle to keep its newspaper book reviews from extinction. But while books sections nationwide reduce their coverage or shutter entirely, some papers are bravely experimenting with new digital bells and whistles — the kind of value-added content that keeps the youngsters infotained. For example, did you know that every week, Times Book Review Editor Sam Tanenhaus talks to authors, editors, critics and senior editor and best-seller columnist Dwight Garner about new books for a podcast? He does! And the hippest part—besides getting to hear the dulcet tones of Meghan O'Rourke and such, of course— is the New York Times Book Review theme song. Go on, listen. For those about to rock, we salute you.
Shame on you, Mediaweek, for your indelicate and heavy-handed report on the success of Jane magazine's Breast Health Guide issue both in print and online. Did you really have to use so many played-out mammary puns? From the headline—"Jane's Boob Job Pumps Subs Online"—to the first paragraph— "Condé Nast's Jane is filling out its sub file with support from a spread on breasts in the May issue"—seriously, it's just so crass. "Online subs swelled"? Frankly, we're offended. Offended and titillated! Heh, we said 'tits,' sorta. Oh no, and now the floodgates are open and it's like our typing fingers are being controlled by the ghost of Russ Meyer! Swollen subs! Rock-hard nipples! Boobies! Jugs! Knockers! Hooters! MILKY FUNBAGS! OVERBLOWN TEATS SQUIRTING MILK INTO OUR GAPING MAWS!
Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti's new book Full Frontal Feminism has a controversially betorsoed cover, which she justifies to New Yorkmag like so: "Let's face it, no young woman is going to pick up a book with the woman's symbol with a fist on it." Is that what books about feminism usually have on their covers, though? Let's look at some recently published ones.
Apparently Michael Chabon's new book has been troubled with a bad case of being crap. We've been trying to keep an open mind about The Yiddish Policemen's Union, but he's not making it easy. For starters, it's written in a "hard-boiled, Yiddish-inflected patois." Also, the only thing we've heard about Michael since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won a Pulitzer in 2001 has been his personal child-bearer Ayelet Waldman's irrepressible oversharing about his sexual prowess. Now we learn that HarperCollins pulled it from their publication schedule at the last minute! "While long gestation periods and multiple drafts aren't unusual in the publishing industry, the time and effort expended on behalf of Mr. Chabon's vision are illustrations of the book's importance to HarperCollins," the reporter claims. Exactly. Just switch the word "aren't" with the word "are," and the words "the book's importance" with the words "the book's terribleness," and that sentence becomes almost true.
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Lower East Side bloggerbar Lolita had a decidedly high school-ish vibe last night—a generation of ladies whose lives were so changed by Sassy magazine that they grew up to work in the media gathered there to fete the publication of Marisa Meltzer and Kara Jesella's book about that seminal teen mag. Doree and Emily were there. So was Atoosa Rubenstein.
Today's Wall Street Journal looks at the fourteen Diana Spencer books coming our way this summer for the ten year anniversary of her death. Tina Brown's entry, "The Diana Chronicles"—the WSJ hilariously calls Tina "the former high-profile editor of the New Yorker and Vanity Fair"—is riding high in that crop. But it's all about the pre-orders. A bookseller in Winnetka, Illinois, has pre-ordered two, and is thinking about "a few more." Ka-ching? At least a bookstore in Fairway, Kansas, has ordered a whopping 20. The print run is 200,000. Time to buy that advertorial spread on Amazon!
