books

More on "Semi-Succesful Author" Confession

Gawker · 03/23/04 09:36AM

More on yesterday's anonymous Salon piece, The Confessions of a Semi-successful Author. Says a reader: "Anne Lamott! Some of the details were changed, and I think it may have been about her offspring's gender. I do think that Bird By Bird's success may cancel this out, although it does include a lengthy section on the let-downs of publishing. Also: former/present columnist for Salon.com??!! Next choice: Joyce Maynard, also known for book-publishing-bitching."

The Black Clock

Gawker · 03/22/04 03:34PM

Last night, all the literati dressed down and turned up at the launch party for the Black Clock, the new Cal Arts lit mag. We're sure it was very interesting — if you like hearing people read aloud from things you could read in the privacy of your own home, between reality shows. Fortunately, a reader was thinking exactly what we've all been thinking:

The Confessions of a Semi-successful Author

Gawker · 03/22/04 11:26AM

There's a pretty great piece by a writer in today's Salon: anonymously, she dishes all the dirt on her sales, advances, and her ensuing complete disgust with the publishing industry. So... who is she? The details thus far, some of which may have been slightly altered to protect her anonymity:

NYTBR Gets "Intellectual Fire-Hose"

Gawker · 03/10/04 04:34PM

I go out for lunch for the first time ever and suddenly the NYT decides to FINALLY announce the new editor for the Book Review. That'll teach me to eat.

Guilty Reading

Gawker · 03/08/04 02:52PM

As we ready ourselves for beach season, The Daily does the roundup of upcoming tell-all literature, surveying only the finest offerings with which publishing is soon to grace our bookstores. Currently enjoying the limelight is Spin Sisters, which, according to the Guardian, trashes Katie Couric, Rosie O'Donnell, Tina Brown, and pretty much every other woman who's ever edited a magazine. Sadly, we have to wait until 2005 for Rachel Pine's Twins of Tribeca, the Miramax tell-all published by... Miramax Books.
The Next Tattletales [The Daily]
Spin Sisters: 'Traitor' lifts lid on US glamour mafia [Guardian]

Jayson Blair: The Reviews Are In

Gawker · 03/08/04 09:18AM

Sick of the Jayson Blair mediawhore parade? Well it's just going to escalate until this Sunday, when the NYT Book Review publishes Jack Shafer's two-page review of Blair's Burning Down My Master's House. According to Slate's Shafer, the book is "shoddily-written" and "filibustering," and Blair spends most of it making the excuse that the Times drove him mad. Shafer rips apart this claim, which is pretty easy, given the fact that Blair lied and stole at the Boston Globe before he worked at the NYT. Shafer gets in a few other weird digs too: "The Times is a flawed, human institution that deserves every brick tossed at it except this one." Wait, we get to toss deserved bricks at the Times now? Sweeeeet.
Related: Blair Book: Short on Apologies, Long on Blame [Editor & Publisher]
The Jayson Blair Project [Slate, May 8, 2003]

Nick and Jessica's Book Proposal, Excerpt I

Gawker · 02/24/04 11:35AM

We're pleased to present this first excerpt from the 33-page proposal for an important new piece of literature, "Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's Secrets for a Happy (And Sexy!) Marriage," to be written with Lori Majewski, executive editor of Us Weekly. In Jessica's own words:

Literary Crew Amazon Review Shocker!

Gawker · 02/16/04 10:15AM

Last week, Amazon's Canadian site somehow got glitched to reveal the names of the writers of anonymous user reviews — which gave everyone a little peek into the world of friends pimping friends' books and bitter unpublished writers trashing other writers. (It seems Amazon is sort of like, oh, any street corner in lower Manhattan.)

Hollywood Calling: "The Corrections" Screenplay

Gawker · 01/26/04 11:23AM

Jonathan Franzen's disillusioned-30-something bible The Corrections is, of course, being made into a movie. According to a screenplay review at FilmJerk.com, the movie will be a towering pile of crap. (Noted: the reviewer loved the book, so maybe he's living in backwards-land and the script is brilliant.) "Adapting Jonathan Franzen s 'The Corrections' is an act of futility," the review begins. (Actually, it's more an act of finance-ality, but whatever.) "You can t blame [scriptwriter David] Hare for failing. Almost anyone would. You can blame him for how he failed. This is a phoned-in work. This is typing and not writing. This is a lazy attempt that doesn t even try to make something meaningful of itself."
Screenplay Review: The Corrections [FilmJerk]

Michael Wolff: 1. David Denby: 0. Kate Bolick: 69.

Gawker · 01/19/04 01:41PM

You know the feeling you get when you see someone leave the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe? That
s how Boston Globe columnist Kate Bolick felt after reading New Yorker film critic David Denby's memoir, American Sucker:

Henry James's Testicular Traumas Revealed!

Gawker · 01/16/04 10:52AM

Okay, for those of you who've been steeped in Britney and Bennifer too long, "Henry James" was like this really famous writer guy. You know — like Hemingway, or Gandhi. (Heh.)

Fabulous Fabulist

Gawker · 01/07/04 02:04PM

Definitely on the top five list of things I never thought I'd hear myself say in 2004:

Maybe They Should Partner With Cargo?

Gawker · 01/07/04 01:27PM

Today's Voice gets on a new Brown University study about the New York Times book Review. "Over the course of a year, the study reveals, 72 percent of all books reviewed in the NYTBR were written by men, and 66 percent of all reviews also carried a male byline. In other words, the most influential venue in the publishing world showcases male authors and reviewers by an average of two to one." According to the Voice, Chip McGrath, editor of the NYTBR, wrote to the study's author that "more books are written by men than by women" and that "I'm not convinced that we are guilty of a male bias."

I'm All Puffy, Too

Gawker · 01/02/04 11:14AM

The Puffies, the distinguished awards given to the most whorish book jacket blurb of the year, have been announced. This year's winner is Amy Tan, for her life-sucking quote on Mitch Albom's equally treacly The Five People You Meet In Heaven.

The State of the Book, etc.

Gawker · 12/22/03 11:27AM

The Complete Quarterly has an ENDLESS wrap-up of the year in books and culture (in brief: they're con on Eggers and Ashcroft, and think Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri probably shouldn't be referred to as an "exotic beauty" any more. Go figger). Writer-interviewer and curmudgeon Robert Birnbaum gives some predictions for literature in 2004:
· Amazon will open its first super store in Salt Lake City.
· Chris Hitchens and Henry Kissinger will meet face to face. Since I can't predict the time of day, I can only suggest their ensuing tête-à-tête will be, uh, newsworthy.
· The Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox will meet in the World Series. Cubs in six.
· Laura Miller will become the editor of the New York Times Book Review.
· Mario Vargas Llosa will win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
· George Bush will not be elected President. Neither will Howard Dean.
· Elmore Leonard will publish another spiffy novel.
· Someone will finally publish an English language biography of Karl Kraus.
· Web-based magazines will start to make money- but not Salon.com and not the dreary offshoots of media conglomerates and their co-opted sellout hot shots.
Year End Panel [Complete Review, via TMFTML]