February 2008 - Posts

February 27, 2008

Word Up Exclusive Author Q&A: Aimee Liu
By Sharon Steel

Word Up pauses from our usual coverage of literary gossip and socialite authoresses to call your attention to the fact that it's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. As such, we are quite pleased to present you with an online-only author interview with writer and lecturer Aimee Liu. In Liu's first memoir, 1979's Solitaire, she detailed her first battle with anorexia, and nearly three decades later she's returned with New York Times bestseller Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders

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Author Q&A, Lit Links, On Tour

February 27, 2008

Word Up Exclusive Author Q&A: Aimee Liu
By webteam

Word Up pauses from our usual coverage of literary gossip and socialite authoresses to call your attention to the fact that it's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. As such, we are quite pleased to present you with an online-only author interview with writer and lecturer Aimee Liu. In Liu's first memoir, 1979's Solitaire, she detailed her first battle with anorexia, and nearly three decades later she's returned with New York Times bestseller Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders

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Lit Links, On Tour, Readings & Signings

February 27, 2008

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's Literary Influence
By Sharon Steel

The Interweb is exploding with book deals today. Er, maybe not -- perhaps it is just in our own strange little brain/world.

People reports:

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen can now add author to their growing list of professions.

The 21-year-old twins will pen a new book together called Influence that features artists and fashion designers who have inspired the savvy fashionistas over the past decade, Penguin books announced Wednesday.

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Everyone's An Author, Lit Gossip, Major deals

February 27, 2008

Marisha Pessl: Fuck-Me Boots, Round Deux?
By Sharon Steel

It's deal day for Publisher's Lunch Weekly. Fresh out of the inbox:

General/Other
Marisha Pessl's NIGHT FILM, a psychological thriller about obsession, family loyalty and ambition set in raw contemporary Manhattan, moving to Kate Medina at Random House, by her new agent Amanda Urban at ICM.

Uh, so was that a nice deal? A very nice deal? A good deal? A significant deal? OR A MAJOR DEAL (a/k/a here's a check for half a million dollars, you win the author lotto again!) Inquiring minds are inquiring, and obviously, we wish we knew.

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Lit Gossip, Major deals, Publisher's Marketplace

February 26, 2008

More "Fine Lines": Why obsess over the NYTBR when you can obsess over 80's YA?
By webteam
Hell to the yes. "Fine Lines," the newish Friday feature at ultimate lady-blog Jezebel just keeps getting more and more delish. The past fortnight showcased two of our especial YA favorites: The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger and Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Read them both, then come back to us, if you choose.

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Author Rants, Jezebel, On Writing

February 25, 2008

F.S.G's Moving Day: "The money went into the books, not painting the walls."
By webteam

The intimidating publisher of serious and lovely books, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, is moving to a new HQ. Editors and publicists have been toiling away without hot water in the ladies' bathroom sinks! Rebecca Mead explains in her "Talk of the Town" this week.

“You had to put your own hot-water tank in, and that was not something that was in the F.

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Lit Gossip, Publishing, The New Yorker

February 22, 2008

"Titles change!"
By webteam

David Sedaris: we are fans, we must admit. Not of all of his work, but much of it. We missed the fact that the title of his latest book, set for a June publication date, keeps on changing. Leon Neyfakh at the Observer didn't, and asked Sedaris to please explain.

We can't help but sort of adore the fact that Sedaris loves the titles his boyfriend suggests and then, ultimately, rejects them.

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Lit Gossip, Lit Links, NY Observer

February 20, 2008

Lit-Tionary
By Sharon Steel

This Independent piece got The Elegant Variation musing about various possible literary genres. It's an amusing list, and the comment-supplied suggestions are great, too.

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Lit Links, Publishing

February 15, 2008

Intriguing Australian author alert
By Nina MacLaughlin

“The world is getting hotter, the ice caps are melting, because man keeps saying to nature, Hey, our whole idea of a cozy future is to have jobs. That’s all we’ve got planned. What’s more, we will pursue this aim at any cost, even, paradoxically, if it means the eventual destruction of our workplace. Man says, Sacrifice industry and economy and jobs? For what? Future generations? I don’t even know those guys! I’ll tell you something for free ― it makes me ashamed that our species, which is so finely ennobled by its sacrifices, winds up sacrificing it all for the wrong things and comes off looking like a race of people who like to use their hair dryer while taking a bath .

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Brookline Booksmith, Events, Readings & Signings

February 12, 2008

Anna Nicole Smith baby-drama bleeds into her latest unauthorized biography
By Sharon Steel

The New York Daily News reports today that the authors of the new Anna Nicole Smith book are suing their own publisher.

Jody (Babydol) Gibson, a former Hollywood "super madam," is selling "Anna Nicole Smith: Portrait of an Icon" online through her imprint, Corona. But authors Pol' Atteu and Patrik Simpson tell me they backed out of their arrangement with Gibson and are selling a separate "signature edition" through publisher Kings Road.

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Book Scandal, New York Daily News, Spin

February 11, 2008

Modern Love Breeds Book Deals
By Sharon Steel

We realized long ago that we were not alone in the fact that we loved to hate Modern Love, a New York Times Sunday Style column equal to a 1,700-word cringe-fest. In this week's New York Observer, Doree Shafrir expertly dissects the column and its uncanny ability to breed book deals.

“I read the Styles section religiously, but my eyes glaze over the Modern Love column,” said an editor at Random House.

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Lit Gossip, Major deals, NY Observer

February 05, 2008

Mortified: Love is a Battlefield tomorrow at the Paradise Lounge
By Sharon Steel

In this week's fishwrap we chatted with Mortified creator David Nadelberg about social wallflowers, accidental art, and his new romance-themed anthology. It's 275 pages filled with brutally humiliating tales of love and lust and youth. We cannot be the only people who live for this sort of thing.

Tomorrow night, we beg of you: go see the Mortified Boston stage show at 8 pm at the Paradise Lounge, followed by a book-signing of Mortified: Love is a Battlefield with Nadelberg himself.

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Events, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Local

February 04, 2008

Monday Round-Up: Spilled Milk
By Sharon Steel

James Frey is serious about his come-back, so much so that he's jazzing up his forthcoming novel, Bright Shiny Morning, with jacket art by his friend Richard Prince. He's also thinking of going Ira Glass on us, with a book tour that the New York Post's Page Six likens to something that sounds more like a concert tour:

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Book Scandal, Lit Gossip, Lit Links

February 01, 2008

Fine Lines: It's Like Eating Your Favorite Book
By Sharon Steel

Okay, we feel badly for calling out Jezebel about the whole bitter thing -- it's not all the time! it's just about certain stuff! and we understand how they feel because excessive shallowness is annoying! -- but anyway, we are kissing their collective bums over this Friday Fine Lines feature that they've been running for the past while.

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Gawker, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Lit Gossip

February 01, 2008

Swag Off
By Sharon Steel

This Thursday Styles piece about beauty bloggers and swag is basically just repackages a million-year old story about beauty editors (or fashion editors, or whatever kind of editor) and the swag that they're inundated with on a regular basis.

What's funny is the subsequent debate that flared up on Jezebel

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Gawker, Lit Gossip, Publishing

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