Nothing certifies a hot new trend like a mention in a fledgling trade pub, so now it must finally be true: "It's safe to say that the blog-to-book phenomenon has gone mainstream," reports The Book Standard today. "Two more well-known bloggers scored book deals this week."
• Despite the public denials and a recent Italian vacation courtesy of OK! magazine, Jackass Bam Margera confirms Nick and Jessica's split to Us Weekly, Nick hits Vegas, and Jessica spends their third wedding anniversary in Nairobi. At this point, we think it's safe to say that this marriage is floating face-down in the bathtub of love. [Page Six]
• Biographer Andrew Morton — who's covered Princess Di, Madonna, and Monica Lewinsky — has set his sights on Tom Cruise for a book coming out through St. Martin's Press next fall. That is, if he doesn't wind up in a cement block far beneath the Scientology Celebrity Center first. [R&M]
• Tina Brown and Harold Evans host the party for Shopgirl at their 57th Street dungeon. We presume there was no ping-ponging for Claire Danes. [Lowdown (2nd to last)]
• Only dark, moody Irish gangsters can save NBC's Jeff Zucker. [Page Six]
• Paris Hilton insists that she didn't fuck violent actor Tom Sizemore. She made love, you heathens. [Scoop]
At right, from the forthcoming Us Weekly, an image of probably-single poputante Jessica Simpson in posession of the international bestseller How to Deal With People You Can't Stand (click to enlarge). From the book description:
Click to enlarge and hate your life.
In this week's edition of her unwavering Times Book Review coverage, Intern Alexis discovers that Mnookin, the surname of Hard News author Sethelah, is a verb. To mnookin someone, we learn, is to charmingly crush one's self-esteem and, if executed properly, said victim's will to live, with a deft move of the mnookiner's stiletto. After the jump, exemplary mnooking on reviewer Nora Krug, modern language rapes the memory of Queen Isabella, and we all take a trip to over-hyphenation station.
• Since the world was visually introduced to the coke-fuelled antics of supermodel Kate Moss, she's lost contracts with Burberry, H&M, and Chanel. Now, as it's been roughly a month since the initial story broke, it's time for her comeback: First the cover of W, then love from Yves St. Laurent. Alas, we doubt Vogue will ever forgive her. Those bitches know how to hold a grudge. [Page Six]
• The lobbyists at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America hired writers to create a thriller-style novel designed to scare the crap out of anyone looking to score their prescriptions from Canada. When the deal fell through, the lobbyists attempted to buy the silence of involved writers and publishers for a pithy $100,000. If Lloyd Grove got the story, clearly the money wasn't good enough. [Lowdown]
• America's first completely cracked-out supermodel Janice Dickinson will fuck you — yes, you!! — for a Xanax. [Page Six]
• If you don't receive the self-promoting mass emails from Cory Bernstein (AKA "Cory the Model"), consider yourself a better person. Otherwise, you'd likely give a shit about the leaked tapes of his marathon masturbation. [R&M (2nd item)]
• Matt Lauer's recent vacation from the Today show was reportedly a Eurotrash getaway with his wife, Annette Roque. No better way to celebrate your reconciliation than at Paris's Sexodrome or on the streets of Amsterdam. [Gatecrasher (2nd to last)]
And why could Elizabeth Spiers afford to walk away from Laurel Touby's boa'd embrace? Because she has herself a book deal.
• It's the sort of link we dream of: Chris Wilson, porn, and the movement to save him. [Save Chris Wilson]
• If Carrie Fisher continues travel writing, she will eventually go to many different places for many different reasons. [Fametracker]
• Fuck: Lauren Weisberger has risen above our campaign of passive resistance to crawl up the Amazon sales rankings with the skill of a veteran social climber. [Amazon]
• The Times celebrates the high holidays with the heartwarming story of a doctor, a Jew, and the pig valve that brought them all together. [Canonist]
• "How am I supposed to care about Nick and Jessica when I still know nothing about the Classmates.com couple?!" [dude.man.phat.]
• And today in viral content, UNICEF kills the Smurfs to make a point. [End of Smurfs]
• Hey, bloggers: Quit being such assholes. Link exchanges aren't even a cool payoff for such disgusting blackmail. Go outside or something, please. [Opinionistas]
As of 11 A.M.
We are SO PROUD OF YOU ALL! In just two hours, your passive-aggressive inaction has helped to knock Lauren Weisberger's sophomore effort, Everyone Worth Knowing, down one notch in the Amazon.com sales rankings, plummeting from #232 to #233. Bravo! Now stay strong, our little salvation army, and we just might see her at #235 in time for happy hour.
The latest Times Book Review is just plain pissy (don't you go calling it the Gawker-ization of the Review; we just won't have you insulting them like that), and it's got Intern Alexis feeling a little down. There's hardly any haterade to spare, what with the heaping piles of nasty being unloaded on the careers of Benjamin Kunkel, Wendy Lesser, and Simon Winchester. Naturally, it's Joan Didion who lifts Intern Alexis above the fray so that she might write this week's recap without short-circuiting her laptop with her own tears. After the jump, her weekly review.
Next week's New York features a shocking expose of reclusive author JT LeRoy (NB: Like Michael Jackson and "king of pop," journalists are contractually obligated to preface mention of JT LeRoy with the phrase "reclusive author"): he might be a fraud:
Oh, those poor, pretty girls over at Vogue. We want to help them, really, because they need it. In the latest issue, they used the photo at right to accompany a review of Zadie Smith's On Beauty — sadly, the woman in the picture is not Zadie Smith.
So, word on the street is that Gawker alum and current Mediabistro EIC Elizabeth Spiers has finally roused from her 100-year slumber and is shopping around her completed manuscript. The book, a novel with roots in Spiers' former life in finance, is up for auction, and we hear that wizard-like agent David Kuhn (who scored Dana Vachon's sick, sick book deal) even offered to adopt Spiers just long enough to broker the deal. Makes sense: Spiers is talented enough, honestly, to bring in the big dogs. Our heroine, however, is a woman of principle — perhaps too much so? — and thus declined, staying loyal to her agent-to-the-blogstars, Kate Lee. Excuse us while we go rent Beaches.
How to score a book deal in 10 easy steps:
In this week's installment of her review of the Times Book Review, Intern Alexis gets a much-deserved respite from the literary scatology that's permeated the Review's pages as of late. Nevertheless, she's still forced to deal with another sort of crap: Lauren Weisberger's latest contribution to the pyre of chick-lit, which is enough to make Candace Bushnell seem like a blessing. After the jump, miracles happen.
When it comes to the Jonathan Wunderkinds — successful novelists Franzen, Lethem, and Safran Foer — we tend to pick our battles. That is to say, we'll focus maybe on the work or media flurry surrounding one Jonathan at a time, lest we confuse our Illuminated Fortresses with our Twenty-Seventh Incredibly Loud Disappontments.
