It's comical, but no real surprise, that pop-science plagiarist and fabricator Jonah Lehrer appears to have lifted someone else's work for his new book proposal. Lehrer has established by now that he is a pathological fraud. The question on the table is: What kind of a fraud is Jonathan Karp, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, which bought the book?
Law & Order: SVU's Chris Meloni turns 48 today. CNN president Jonathan Klein is 51. Cardinal Edward Egan is turning 77. Femininst author Camille Paglia turns 62. Book editor Jonathan Karp is 45. Maroon 5's Jesse Carmichael turns 30. Emmylou Harris is turning 62. And Rodney King, victim of the LAPD and a member of the cast of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, is 44 today.
At first, we thought Jenny 8. Lee's oversharing was just on this side of adorable, if mildly grating. We're reconsidering our assessment in light of her latest blog post, which reproduces, in full, the gushing letter she received from her editor, Jon Karp, upon the submission of her first draft. We can't help but think that Jenny has just bought herself a one-way ticket on the Schadenfreude Express.
Somewhere at the nexus of self-promotion/congratulation, reflexive ass-kissing, and totally charming genuine enthusiasm is New York Times metro reporter Jenny 8. Lee's new website. As we learned a while back, her new book used to be called The Long March of General Tso, but apparently that title was too confusing—there was some concern that people would think it was a book about the Chinese military. Because people are stupid. Now it's called the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which should play better on the "synagogues and college campuses" Jenny plans on hitting on her book tour. Also, it seems that Jenny is an overachiever—her editor, Jon Karp, had contracted her for 90,000 words, and it looked like she was going to be 20,000 over. But Karp told her not to worry, as they could just change the typesetting: "Perhaps you did something similar in high school when you had to turn in a term paper." Uh, right. We were always turning in papers that were just too long. Anyway: Watch that space! She'll be posting cat pictures within weeks.
