Super-cute email newsletter DailyCandy knows no boundaries in the pursuit of pretty clothes and precious tchotchkes, so few were surprised when those pretty ladies went and got a book deal. We've not seen much on the book-to-be, however, so stumbling upon the publisher's page for Daily Candy A to Z has felt like a slap in the unstylish face.

• We apologize for today's lapse in coverage on suspected rapist Peter Braunstein. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with anything other than the fact there's nothing new to report. Kate Moss has been warned to look out for homeboy, and NYPD is tracking him through his Metrocard use. Alas, the whole system operates on a two hour delay. Brilliant. Honestly, Richard Belzer would've had this shit taken care of last week.
• 50 Cent expands his faux-ghetto empire to the extremely hard-ass realm of publishing. G-Unit books will be a collaboration with MTV/Pocket Books and deal with a range of topics, from cash and hoes to candy stores. [Contact Music]
• Authorities seize 136 pounds of heroin from a Staten Island storage facility, thus prompting the gutter pirates of Tompkins Square Park to riot. [Newsday]
• Starbucks holiday campaign invents a new alternative to "it's" and "its:" ITs. [Fawny]
• Been stalking various members of U2 since 1986? Then now's your big break: you can bid on the chance to be an extra in Bono's upcoming film. [eBay]

The Thurber Prize for American Humor was presented last night in a ceremony at — where else? — the Algonquin. The three finalists were America (The Book), by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, and David Javerbaum; The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers, by Andy Borowitz; and Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America, by Firoozeh Dumas. Adam Gopnik, one of the three judges, hosted the proceedings. A bookishly humorous (or perhaps humorously bookish?) spy reports:

Poor Lola Oguinnake. Not two weeks ago, the mean editors at the Times made her report an entire story on Chelsea hell-den Marquee; now they've gone and forced her to exert her talent on the subject of Nicole Richie and her new book, The Truth About Diamonds. (Disclaimer: We read the tome in a single sitting. It's that bad/good.) Richie insists that she's authored Diamonds all by her lonesome, but we're not so sure we buy it. Case in point, from page 22:

Look! She's happy! Single and happy! Veryfuckinghappy!
Times Op-Ed diva Maureen Dowd just appeared on the Today show to discuss her much-discussed new book, the very discussion-worthy Are Men Necessary? None too surprisingly, she sat down with Matt Lauer (though we would've loved to see a power struggle with Couric). A loose transcription of the interview's end:

Poor Intern Alexis, saddled with her responsibility to review the latest Times Book Review. Because we're such meanies, we made Alexis drag the paper to the Sunday night premiere of Walk the Line, where she did most of her reading (and, we hope, caught the eye of Joaquin Phoenix for being such an intellectual). This week, the Review indulges the ankle-biters with its Children's Books section, which does a solid nosedive in quality by devoting space to the work of Queer Eye star Carson Kressley and his book about unicorns. After the jump, Alexis delves into the homo-kiddie-lit and requisite Maureen Dowd review.

• Is Judy Miller now a right-wing hero? Wait, what was she before the war, then? [NYM]
• Andrew Sullivan to move his blog to Time.com. Sellout! MSM! All those other things we're supposed to say! Yada yada yada. [NYP]
• Bob Schieffer to stay longer as CBS Evening News anchor. [NYT]
• Times to launch quarterly sports mag. [NYP]
• Esquire likes undulating apartments. [NYT]
• Google considers offering book rentals, sort of. [Reuters via Yahoo]
• Ruth Reichl reads The Bruni Digest. Bruni doesn't. Or so he says. [AP via Yahoo]

Oh, happy day! The UPS stud just came by HQ with the most fantastic package from HarperCollins: Not one, but two copies of Nicole Richie's new novel, The Truth About Diamonds (one with the "good Nicole" cover photo, one with the "bad Nicole" cover photo)! We've hardly put it down all day; our favorite part is the middle, where there's sixteen pages of Nicole Richie glamour shots that have absolutely nothing to do with anything. It's so awesome. For your reading pleasure, an excerpt from Chapter 10 ("Build Them Up"):

Oh, but it's not just blogent Kate Lee. (Get it? "Blogent," combining "blog" and "agent"? Nah, we didn't think so either. Oh well.) Plenty of other random Jews you either know or know of or wish you knew or wish you didn't know of have their bar and bat mitzvah pictures in Bar Mitzvah Disco.

This week's a very special time for Intern Alexis: It's her first interracial encounter! In her latest review of the Times Book Review, nestled comfortably between talk of sad whores and elitist education, you can find Alexis' deflowering by the penis of African-American author E. Lynn Harris. After the jump, Intern Alexis becomes a Woman.

Bar Mitzvah Disco, the between-hard-covers celebration of Jewish coming-of-age campiness that overtook America's affluent suburbs in, according to the book, mostly the 1970s and 1980s, hit bookstores last week. While we continue to find the book vaguely disconcerting when it's used to sell hipster t-shirts to the goyim, we also find it charmingly amusing when it's sitting on our Semitic coffee table. And so we spent a good chunk of Sunday afternoon poring over it, during which we learned several things.

• Lindsay Lohan hasn't really given much thought to attending college. Surprising, we know, but think about it: She's already got four years of heavy binge drinking under her belt. What could higher education possibly have to offer? [Gatecrasher (2nd item)]
• If you're going to write a graphic roman clef about your affair with former Times editor Howell Raines, have you any choice but to call it Touched by Ink-Stained Hands? Clearly not. [Page Six]
• Celebs like Paris Hilton don't take Kabbalah seriously enough, prompting Madonna to choke them with her red string. [Scoop]
• Congrats to Us Weekly EIC Janice Min, who's expecting her second child. So many choices for her new baby's name: Tomkat, Federletus, Vaughniston, Brangelina... [Page Six]
• Lloyd Grove gets snippy with WWD's Jeff Bercovici. They'll be meeting under the old willow tree at 4 P.M. to settle things once and for all. [Lowdown (last item)]

• Now that actor Leonardo DiCaprio and supermodel Gisele Bundchen are no longer an item, gossip column speculation can truly begin. DiCaprio has been connected to Sienna Miller, Bundchen, surfer Kelly Slater. Oh, how we love when our celebrities are free to roam the humpy fields. [Page Six]
• Times columnist Maureen Dowd gets camera shy: She made it about 10 feet down the Glamour Women of the Year awards before being scared off by photographers. At least someone's intimidating her for a change. [Gatecrasher (bottom of page)]
• Lloyd Grove has no idea where Nick Lachey is, and he's starting to get worried. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Marlise Kast is shopping a book proposal, The Tabloid Prodigy, about how she was the Globe's top reporter at 21-years-old. Should she really be calling herself a prodigy? We're pretty sure that rag is written by 12-year-olds. [Page Six]

We saw the weirdest thing the other night: Waiting for the 6 train at Grand Central, there was this middle-aged woman — we'd describe her as, um, secretarial — with her face shoved in a book. That book? James Frey's vomit-soaked rehab memoir A Million Little Pieces.

• CNN's changes had nothing to do with getting rid of Brown; that was just a coincidence. "He's really a doll to work with," says CNN chief. [NYT]
• Of course, ol' Aaron had been a "drag" on CNN's ratings. [NYP]
• Knight Ridder sale could spark industry consolidation. You know, because there are too many independently owned papers left these days. [WSJ]
• S&S EIC Micahel Korda to step down, after 938 years in job. [WP]
• Comedy Central ups Colbert Report order to a full year, ensure 11 more months of a show we sort of feel like we should be watching but also don't enjoy as we'd hoped to when we do. [E! Online]
• Jack McCoy's flannel suits too boring for your TV-crimefighting tastes? Rejoice, then, in Sleuth, NBC Universal's new cable net featuring old crime shows from The A-Team to Miami Vice. [B&C]
• Russ Smith doesn't like Arthur Sulzberger. We're shocked. [NY Press]

You'll have to forgive Intern Alexis if she seems a bit sluggish today — it's just that this week's edition of the Times Book Review is the most depressing thing she's read since Dicey's Song. It's amazing that, between the reviews of Iraq-related literature, Joan Didion's self-pity, and some nasty tales of child molestation, poor Alexis didn't kill herself. But our girl is nothing if not brave and so, after the jump, she looks depression in the eye and does her damnedest to skewer whatever she can.

Variety carried the (somewhat old) news yesterday of a "premiere Gotham lit agenc[y's]" recent demise. Collins McCormick — home to some of our favorite journo/author folks, like Hard Newser Seth Mnookin, menschy cad Rick Marin, and an earlier, now-Transomisitic, incarnation of ourselves — broke up a week ago, and the Hollywood trade repeats the farewell email from primo partner Nina Collins:

You know things are bad in the publishing industry when instead of bad wine and processed cheese cubes, all you're offered at a book party is cigarettes and competitive eating:

• Former Voicers react to New Times deal; one actually likes it. [Boston Phoenix]
• Barely competent magazine publisher Primedia sacks CEO, explores plan to further break itself up. [NYP]
• Some bloggers would be protected under proposed federal shield law. And thank God for that. [E&P]
• Um, yeah. So it turns out actually Diane Sawyer isn't gunning for the World News Tonight job. [AP via USAT]
• Tom Masland, Newsweeker who reported from Mideast, Africa, war zones, and elsewere, is hit by SUV on West End Avenue. He's at St. Luke's in critical condition. [NYDN]
• Bob Wallace, erstwhile Wenner Books chief, takes a walk. [Media Mob/NYO]
• In fact, so few people want to work for Wenner that no one wanted to run Men's Journal. "It's like going to work for George Steinbrenner," said one uninterested candidate. [WWD, second item]
• Apparently, Andrew Krucoff lost a job yesterday. [NYT]

In her latest review of the Times Book Review, Intern Alexis is forced to endure yet another cranky reviewer's bitching about some author who, in an attempt to write about a bygone era, uses modern language. Well, God fucking forbid. And then there's the unshakable suspicion that, in the era of Judy Miller's crimes against her colleagues, the Book Review is jumping the Times' self-loathing express. Self-flagellation and errant Bridget Jones references after the jump.