2009's National Book Awards went down last night. In delightful twists of irony, they were a) sponsored by Google, b) held on Wall Street, and c) James Franco was there. So were Party Crash Photog Mo Pitz and I. BOOKS!

Publishers release "advance reader copies" or "galleys" of books for the New York Literary Elite to have before the masses and Oprah ruin them for you. Being spotted with some merits certain kinds of "status"...that we're about to ruin.

Read the bestselling first novel critics are calling "One of the best books of the year" (New York Times Book Review, Time, Boston Globe). Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Finally in paperback. $13.99/$15.50
CHECK OUT AN EXCERPT AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK.

Read the bestselling first novel critics are calling "One of the best books of the year" (New York Times Book Review, Time, Boston Globe). Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Finally in paperback. $13.99/$15.50
CHECK OUT AN EXCERPT AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK.

"The year was punctuated by anxiety over the decline of many newspaper book review sections and worry that publishing, with its old-fashioned way of printing books on paper and shipping them to stores or to online services, can't keep up with a fragmented, increasingly distracted and digital world," according to the LA Times, which was one of many newspapers that cut back or altered its book review coverage in 2007. Another problem was that there just weren't that many exciting books this year, according to Times Book Review editor Dwight Garner: "There was a lot of excitement about books by major writers... But all of them were mild disappointments." But wait, there's hope!

"The NBAs are like the Oscars, except the acceptance speeches are longer and no one is attractive," an agent observed as a burbling, mostly elderly crowd gathered for cocktails outside a ballroom at the Marriot Marquis last night. Au contraire! Author-hottie Josh Ferris was looking Hollywood handsome, decked out in a tux adorned with his Finalist medal. He and Jim Shephard, who was also in contention for the fiction prize, stood shoving each other playfully and talking about how thrilled each would be if the other won. "The brutal fact is, I'm not going to win, " Josh said. He was correct: The prize went, as expected, to Denis Johnson for his Vietnam novel 'Tree Of Smoke.' But Josh quite possibly won the prize for "Having and Being the Most Fun at the Pre-Party."

Joshua Ferris, who wrote one of our favorite debuts of 2007, Then We Came To The End, shares his playlist with the Times' Paper Cuts blog today, suggesting books to accompany his favorite songs. It's adorable!

Young Joshua Ferris's debut about working at an ad agency at the tail end of the dot-com boom is one of our favorite books we've read in a while, so it pains us to have to acknowledge that he is a pussy. At his book party, he told us in no uncertain terms that Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss "deserve all the shit you guys heap on them." Ok, it was a festive occasion and perhaps the celebratory cocktails had loosened Ferris's lips, but! Here's his current take on whether or not The Most Important, Rich, and Precocious Literary Couple Of Our Time deserve to be mocked: "Whatever shit they may or may not have deserved is far less than the shit I deserve for having said publicly that they deserved any shit whatsoever. I spoke unnecessarily of a very minor matter about which I knew very little, and so despite the likelihood that my comments didn't even reach them, I'm glad you asked, so that I can set the record straight: I'm the shitheel." I'll say!

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

Sometimes, debut authors astonish us with their ability to channel the voices of the past or to invent new universes out of whole cloth. Joshua Ferris, who worked at a Chicago ad agency toward the end of the dot com boom and whose book, Then We Came To The End is about working in a Chicago ad agency toward the end of the dot com boom, is not one of those novelists. But the book is still pretty good! It's Josh's attitude that sucks.

"I saw the thing on Gawker today about Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss, and I think they deserve every bit of snark you guys heap on them," said Josh Ferris. His raved-about debut novel's release was being celebrated last night with the kind of loving, emotional enthusiasm usually reserved for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. When told that the word "snark" was over and off-limits, Ferris's puppy-dog eyes narrowed momentarily. "Well, okay, but what should I say instead? They deserve all the shit you guys heap on them?" When this revision met with approval, Ferris cracked a big, sincere grin. The grin faded, though, when Ferris was pressed about whether, should film rights to And Then We Came To The End sell, he and his wife might be tempted to buy a $7 million brownstone in Park Slope. "My brownstone would be in Sunset Park," he declared, after a moment of serious deliberation. It's hard not to like Josh Ferris.