In "Mommy Books: More Buzz Than Buyers," Motoko Rich sets out to prove an intriguing thesis: that the whole issue of whether mothers should work or stay at home with their kids is so fraught, so thorny, that women refuse to buy books about it. The article is illustrated by a photo of author Leslie Bennetts and her family, and indeed, the first four paragraphs focus on one SAHM-blogger's dismissal (sans actual reading, of course) of Bennetts' recently-published book. And then we come to this little bundle of confusing.

"If F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone to Yale instead of Princeton, set his novel among precociously successful designers and financiers, with a struggling freelance journalist rather than a Midwestern bond dealer narrating, it might have turned out a bit like "The Tourists," a new novel by a 27-year-old Angeleno transplant named Jeff Hobbs," begins Scott Timberg's LA Times mag tongue job about that precocious novelist. "I'm almost embarrassed by the comparison," Hobbs is then quoted as saying. How modest and cute! Also cute: that author photo with a doggie woggie! This book must be great. Hey, look, there's a copy of it lying around our offices! Let's dive right in.

"What would happen if a feminist Jewish wit and scholar invaded David Lodge's territory? Marleen S. Barr, herself a pioneer in the feminist criticism of science fiction, provides a giddily entertaining answer in this feisty novel," reads the publisher's description of Oy Pioneers! Enticed yet? If not, this pitch, which the author herself saw fit to email us, ought to send you running to the bookstore:

As we begin the months-long pre-publicity tour for Tina Brown's forthcoming biography of Princess Diana, expect that knives that have long lain dormant for Brown—why stab someone so intent upon doing it themselves (see "Topic A")—to receive a fresh sharpening. In a piece on The First Post, British hack Charles Laurence calls out the The Tina for, uh, selling out Diana, whose royal ass she used to kiss.

The custody battle between New Jersey's gay ex-governor and his straight almost-ex-wife continues to rage, just as her counter-memoir Silent Partner is being published. Random coincidence! Anyway, the latest bone of contention is whether the McGreeveys' daughter Jacqueline, 5, ought to be sharing a bed with Jim and his boyfriend (pictured). "It is one thing for children to sleep with a parent or parents. It is quite another for children to sleep with a parent and a third party...This situation is very different from our child getting in bed with me—there is never anyone else, male or female, in my bed," Dina said in a written response to Jim's divorce filing. Does that mean there won't be as many steamy lovemaking scenes in Silent Partner as there were in The Confession? Never mind then!

Last night was Prom Night for Manhattan's Young Adult authors! This prom wasn't like high school prom, though. It was held on the Lower East Side, no one arrived in a limo, and you could openly purchase and drink alcohol. Also, everyone there was pretty much a grown-up. The party was a benefit for Advocates for Youth, a group that works to protect young people's right to sexual education. It also celebrated the publication of 21 Proms, a collection of young adult short stories, sales of which will also benefit the charity. Oddly enough, Deadspin editor Will Leitch and Gawker co-editor Emily Gould both found themselves at this event. What follows is their ill-advised morning-after postmortem. Will anyone sit with them in the cafeteria ever again?

While rain continues to fall upon New York, the West Coast finds itself beneath a cloud of its own as the L.A. Times debuts its new Sunday supplement. A cheapo fusion of the paper's once-standalone book review and its recently embattled opinion section, Current, the young beast appears, appropriately enough, to have no proper name. Like a couple joined together by arranged marriage, the new section is nothing more than the sum of its parts. And what's inside? Two sunny editors' notes, for starters; also, a phoned-in essay by Jonathan Safran Foer about the power of words.

Eat the Press notes this recent deal from Publishers Marketplace:

At Leslie Bennetts' "debate" with Elissa Schappell about her book The Feminine Mistake at the New York Public Library on Tuesday night, there wasn't a lot of dissent in the room. After all, to most of us, Bennett's thesis—that women risk their financial wellbeing and that of their children by becoming "stay at home moms"—seems like the purest common sense. But there was dissent out there, Bennetts told us: She was getting "beaten up by the blogosphere." It turns out that stay at home moms don't like it when you seem to imply that their life plan is a "mistake," and the thing about stay at home moms is, they have a lot of spare computer time (see: UrbanBaby). But despite the fact that the idea of a "debate" between Schappell and Bennetts (pals, moms, Vanity Fair contributing editors both) was as contrived as the latter half of Dana Vachon's novel, we did learn some things from their conversation. First thing: Leslie Bennetts is a badass.

When it comes to book websites, is it better to have a lot of bells and whistles or to keep it simple, stupid? Jury's still out! This "every book needing to have a website" thing is still kind of new, after all. But indie auteur and author Miranda July has voiced her opinion, and as you can see, she's on the 'simple' side of the divide. Her site for her new story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You is entirely handwritten on appliances in her home! While maybe this is a little bit precious, at least it doesn't make clickety-clacking noises. It was hard to figure out how to turn those off, Josh!

No One Belongs Here More Than You

As those who (for some reason) care may recall, no one over here can agree about anything regarding Dana Vachon's debut novel, Mergers & Acquisitions. Crap? Genius? Sign 'o the times? Horseman of apocalypse? Honestly, it's been tearing our office apart. Because the book party is tonight—more on that tomorrow!—we made Alex and Emily get together to work it all out. This sort of thing will be mainly of interest to those who first have an interest in books (cutting out most of you!) and, second, those who have read the book or are interested in so doing. (There go most the rest!) There are a few minor SPOILERS, so keep that in mind if, but other than that it's like listening in on a book club. And we all know how fascinating that is!

Rights to the hotly contested former HarperCollins property If I Did It, the O.J. Simpson mea probs culpa, will be auctioned off by the Sacramento County sheriff's office on April 17th, according to a letter received by many book publishers. Do you have questions for the law firm conducting the sale, Cook, Perkiss & Lew? Email them at either Cook@SqueezeBloodFromTurnip.com or Cook@OJTOPAY.com. Yes, really! They "suggest that you arrive somewhat early in that parking is limited." Good to know. Man, just when you thought the OJ book thing could not get any more tawdry. This is so, like, "buy a drug dealer's boat!"

A new book from Ariel Gore, editor of the HipMama parenting zine, is called How To Become A Famous Writer Before You're Dead, and if you're already thinking "but why should I take advice about how to become famous from someone who isn't?" you're not alone. The book arrived in our offices—provenance unknowable!—with its most "offensive" bits neatly highlighted and a post-it on the cover reading "Who does Ariel Gore think she is? A Preggers Proust?"

It's real! The MisShapes coffee table book that you simply must own will at last arrive in September. Why, this MTV book is "a document of their unique world," with portraits of "cutting edge" folk, "some from different generations, alongside the youth of down town New York." Who, you ask? Who? Why: "Madonna, Yoko Ono, Michael Stipe, Axl Rose, Kelis, Peaches, Hedi Slimane, Michel Gondry, Nan Goldin, Sienna Miller, Chloe Sevigny" and much more. And "with each subject posed amidst the downtown scene's dense and riotous environment" you'll be sure to feel as if you're really there in the heart of it all, your head swirling in the toilet bowl, your nostrils flushed with some crystalline tropane alkaloid or other. What's more, the Dark DJs That Could are hitting the road in a group tour this summer—make sure you get Coldstared down at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in June!

"Kitchen Confidential fans will want to read Kitchen Con by Irish resto critic Trevor White when it's published here next month," writes Manhattan User's Guide—but we're willing to bet fans of Kitchen Confidential will probably just want to re-read Kitchen Confidential again. White's first book looks to be a Bourdain "homage," a foul-mouthed free wheeling rampage through the culinary world. But whereas Bourdain actually worked in restaurants, all White ever did was write about them. Don't get us wrong, White certainly knows how to service a gentleman. One gentleman in particular.

Stanley Fish, guest op-ed columnist for the Times, delivers some scandalous news about the book industry and its nefarious machinations:

Those of us who are not actually threatened by the size of Dana Vachon's advance, who feel that he's the best pure writer to have emerged from the blogosphere, and who know him personally and find his affable Westchester goofiness adorable, have had a hard run of it lately. All the press about the Mergers & Acquisitions author makes him seem like such a douchebag. It would be kind of a miracle if it didn't: the Times "A Night Out With" feature and any appearance in New York magazine pretty much instantly confer douchebag status.

Via Publishers Marketplace:

The fun on today's Times corrections page never stops. Ben Schott's March 4 back-matter essay "Confessions of a Book Abuser" (which—irony alert—we've honored previously in the "most bizarre ethical distinction" T.M.I. category) apparently cribs ideas and a whole, highly specific anecdote from Anne Fadiman's "Never Do that to a Book," part of her 1998 essay collection Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. No, people don't read much no more, but we sure love to know about destroying culture, one trade paperback at a time; unfortunately Schott's methods were rather too similar to Fadiman's, and neither involved the thermodynamic constant 451 deg F. When they weren't awkwardly wrestling/awkwardly making out with n+1, the lit blogs have been on the Schott story for a while, and now the Times comes clean, sort of. Spicy details follow about the subconscious internalizations of European chambermaids.

"Frankly, I feel like most of this is wasting my time," Galleycat quotes the judge in ICM v. Richard "Ari Gold-Plated" Abate as saying yesterday. (The lit agent jumped from ICM to Endeavor; wrangling ensues.) We don't want to imply that Galleycat is doing the same with its 9-paragraph dissection of what the first day of that trial was like, but if you're short on time and care about figuring out whether ICM is shadier than Abate or vice versa, here's the juicy stuff so far.