"No one in novels watches TV," a character declares early in Jane Austen Book Club author Karen Joy Fowler's Wit's End, by way of explaining why she no longer thinks printed literature is a truly living medium. There are several levels of irony included in that casual dismissal: This character happens to be a wildly successful novelist herself, for one. And Wit's End happens to be a novel in which lots of people watch a lot of TV. Fowler's characters chat casually about Lost, Prison Break, 24, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, and more. She really does capture what it's like to be a post-millennial pop-culture junkie without beating the theme into readers' heads, and that alone makes me respectfully differ with the solid B that Wit's End received in EW recently. I wolfed it down over the course of two recent plane flights, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Wit's End has also gotten much attention for the way its plot turns on characters' use of Wikipedia, LiveJournal, and fanfic sites. The websites themselves come to life practically as vividly as some of Fowler's secondary characters. As io9's Annalee Newitz has put it, this makes the novel a kind of "science fiction in the present": "While there are no aliens here, or artificial intelligences who come to life, Wit's End
manages to skirt the edges of science fiction themes beautifully,
hinting at the ways our lives have become the stuff of science fiction
without us noticing." And these big, explicit nods to the world that Web 2.0 has wrought aren't so different from those incidental TV references, are they? In both, Fowler is playing with the communities created by a popular medium — the incredible collective experiences shared by people who watch a series or user-edit a website.
I think the reason I like Wit's End so much is because it fits into one of my favorite kinds of entertainment: pop culture about other kinds of pop culture. The Truman Show was a movie about TV; the fourth-season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm was a TV episode about Broadway (Mel Brooks' The Producers). Have any of you out there read Wit's End? And even if not, do you have any other favorite cross-media works of art like this?
So I finally finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics — not bad, but really needed a good editor to dial back the irritating excesses, no? — and after an Idol-heavy week where my nighttime reading consisted mainly of backlogged issues of EW, Everyday Food, and the Blood-Horse (What can I say? I'm a pedigree buff!), I'm now about a third of the way through Thomas Mallon's Fellow Travelers. So far, this wistful historical novel about clandestine gay lovers in the McCarthy era is doing the trick of keeping me up well past my bedtime, and I suspect I'll be finished by this time next week.
With that in mind, it's time for all y'all to reveal what's on your nightstand right this second. I'm thinking it might be fun to pick our next reads from the comments section below. Fun!
Dalton Ross is back with the seventh installment in his series of dramatic readings of passages from the recently published Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul. This week, we pay homage to the literary genius that is Kevin "Chicken Little" Covais. For previous clips -- including Sanjaya Malakar, Scott Savol, and Haley Scarnato -- click here.
When I read that CSI creator Anthony Zuiker was writing his life story, I thought... why? Would the working title, Mr. CSI, and, I'm guessing, a nice blurb from star William Petersen (pictured), be enough to sell the book, due out in Fall 2009? Then I read this: "'Most shocking is Zuiker's recollection of his father's suicide in
Las Vegas, which happened the night he was on stage at the People's
Choice Awards collecting his fourth statue for CSI,'" the
publisher said. 'In a scene that could have been pulled from the
show, Zuiker flew right to the scene and attempted to piece
together his father's last hours.'" That's horrifying, obviously, but also interesting: He's used to solving cases in an hour. What was it like to wait, to depend on others to write an ending? I'm not saying I'll buy the book, but I might stand in the aisle and read that chapter. You?
Dalton Ross is back with the sixth installment in his series of dramatic readings of passages from the recently published 'Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul.' This week, prepare yourself for the literary genius that is "author" Carmen Rasmusen.
(For previous clips — including Sanjaya Malakar, Scott Savol, and Haley
Scarnato — click here.)
By now, you've probably heard about the new children's book, My Beautiful Mommy, written by a Florida plastic surgeon who wants to help patients struggling to explain to their kids, ages 4 to 7, why mommy is bruised, bandaged, and unable to parent them for a few days after surgery. As the author told Reuters, "This book was written with the best of intentions. It wasn't trying to corrupt society. It is not glamorizing plastic surgery. It is not intended to be a best seller that children read with their parents before they go to sleep." Well, that's good.
I'm torn over how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I can imagine how difficult it must be to explain a "transformation" to a child. If a woman's going to elect surgery regardless, why not help her (and more importantly, the kids) through it? On the other hand, as some critics have already noted, mommy's explanation that her nose job will make her look "not just different, my dear — prettier!" does appear to send the message that beauty is the goal, and that it's worth any price.
What do you think: a practical solution for a well-defined demo, or pure evil?
Greetings Popwatchers! What's that you say? You're a fan of Kate Jacobs' debut novel from 2006, The Friday Night Knitting Club? Well that's just a ca-ca-ca-razy coincidence, cause I'll be talking to the best-selling author next week about her new novel, Comfort Food, and I'd be more than happy to sneak in a few questions from you. The book, out May 6, is the tale of a chef who has her own TV show and "decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program" with the goal of teaching "regular people how to make rich, sensuous meals — real people making real food."
So fire up those...uh...question griddles (sorry) and send 'em along!
Dalton Ross is back with the fifth installment in his series of dramatic readings of passages from the recently published Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul. Prepare yourself for the genius that is "author" Sanjaya Malakar. (For previous clips, click here for Scott Savol, here for Kimberly Caldwell, here for Ace Young, and here for Haley Scarnato. Keep the Kleenex handy.)
Norman Mailer's memorial service last night at Carnegie Hall was, I think, a lot like dinner at his Provincetown home must have been: rowdy, bawdy, argumentative, loud, angry, funny, and rip-roaring fun. The near-capacity crowd in the gilded old concert hall listened raptly for hours as family and friends remembered the novelist, the father, the friend who died on November 10 at 84.
Mailer's nine children captivated the crowd, each engaging in long, heartfelt, wickedly funny memories of their dad: his love of oysters, pot roast, and dirty jokes, or the way they brought him rum and orange juice on his deathbed. Michael Mailer remembered how they connected through boxing. Susan Mailer, the oldest, said her father talked of the family as a tapestry. "To others, he was a great writer. To me, he was a great weaver." Kate Mailer described the grandiose, often dangerous schemes her dad insisted the family undertake. Once, when she refused to climb Mt. Katahdin in a storm, her father told her, "We should all be lucky enough to die on a mountaintop!" But it was Stephen Mailer who brought down the house. After identifying himself as the wild card of the family, he proceeded to fall to the floor and writhe, then got up and announced her was channeling his dad. As his siblings — and the crowd — convulsed with laughter, he grabbed the podium and shouted, "Carnegie Hall? Well, why the f--- not?"
A somber Sean Penn (pictured), clad in a dark suit, read from a text he'd hastily tapped into his Blackberry: "The sentence 'Norman Mailer is dead' is a lament for what greatness once was, and what greatness should aspire to." The novelist Don DeLillo remembered his dear friend as "a spectacle in three dimensions — or maybe four — or maybe five." Then, holding up his battered 50-year-old Signet edition of The Naked And The Dead, he said, "[Mailer] was a great novelist, figuring out the world sentence by sentence." Tina Brown remembered how she was mesmerized by him when she moved to New York: "There was no writer like him in England... he subscribed to the Hemingway model, novel as pugilist, as beater of words." Novelist William Kennedy, a friend since 1968, said, "Who else was as rewarding, as brilliant, as exasperating?" But it was a wraithlike Joan Didion who perhaps put it best, in her trademark whisper: "I can think of no other writer who risked so much — and brought it home."
Dalton Ross is back with the fourth installment in his series of dramatic readings of passages from the recently published Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul.
Today's clip spotlights the moving prose of "author" Scott Savol. (For
previous clips, click here for Kimberly Caldwell, here for Ace Young,
and here for Haley Scarnato... if you dare.)
I got handed a lot of random stuff at the free-for-all that was SXSW last month. Everywhere I turned, some dude was offering me a CD, a flier for his band's show, an ill-fitting promotional t-shirt, a cocktail made using the super-expensive new liquor brand sponsoring the party I was at — it was a tough assignment, lemme tell ya. (I also caught a musical performance or two.) But of all that swag, practically the only thing that was truly worth lugging home from Texas was a book about music called The Boy Who Cried Freebird. Author Mitch Myers gave me a copy when we met through colleagues toward the end of the festival, promising it'd make good airplane reading on my return flight. He was right, and I'm still making my way through its pages almost a month later. It's not that it's a particularly long book (just 300 or so pages) — there's just so much in there that it'd be a shame to rush through. The Boy Who Cried Freebird explores rock history through a strange blend of journalistic investigations, speculative rumors, solemn appreciations, and flat-out fiction. In one chapter, a kid from the future travels back in time to see the Grateful Dead play the Fillmore West; in another, Myers waxes philosophical about the true intent of Lou Reed's infamous Metal Machine Music. It's a weird little treasure trove of a book — funny, moving, and informative — and now that it's come out in paperback this week, it's even easier to add it to your nightstand rotation. In the meantime, what are some of your favorite books about music (fiction or non)?
"HOW THE HELL DID A LEVIATHAN GET IN CITY SEWERS?" An important question — and there are few people I'd rather help me answer it than the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man. Luckily, Mr. Mef is addressing this very issue in the new graphic novel he's written with David Atchison and artist Sanford Greene. Titled simply Method Man, it won't be on sale 'til July. But I'm lucky enough to have an eight-page excerpt sitting in front of me right now, and — well, let me just see if I can communicate a small taste of its awesomeness to you.
Okay, so, there's an evil sea monster dwelling in the underground sewer system of "One Bad Ghetto, USA." And man, did that thing pick the wrong kung-fu-obsessed rapper to mess with. In the excerpt, Method Man — er, his thinly veiled alter ego, mystical detective/"murder priest" Mosley Paine — accidentally discovers it swimming around. (This would be when he produces the exclamation that opened this post.) Paine pumps a few bullets into the beast... and then the excerpt cuts off. Right in the middle of the action!
Now I'm fiending to read the rest of the story, not to mention the separate graphic novels that Wu brothers GZA and Ghostface Killah are reportedly working on as well. Who's with me? And is it too much for me to ask that Meth record a new tune to soundtrack his monster-slaying adventures — a RZA-produced epic sampling Radiohead's "Fog" (a.k.a. "Alligators in New York Sewers"), perchance?
In a society obsessed with inane reality shows (So You Think Your Ferret Can Dance!), hulu.com webcasts (ooh look, Just the Ten of Us on demand!) and other stupid human tricks, is reading books ever a bad thing? According to The New York Times, it can be — especially when it comes to romance. In last Sunday's Book Review, the paper of record ran an essay suggesting that clashing literary tastes could ruin a budding relationship. What if you dig Proust, and she loves Picoult (as in Jodi, the best-selling, if decidedly middlebrow, author of works like the current chart-topper Change of Heart)? Or your beloved lives for Jane Austen, while you prefer Dean Koontz? Some of the so-called deal breakers in the Times story include Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ("grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’") and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections ("'Overrated!' 'Brilliant!' 'Overrated!' 'Brilliant!'"). But what about all the mass-market paperbacks out there? Does someone reading the Oprah-sanctioned The Secret tell you they're an earnest, soulful truth-seeker, or a flaky quick-fix sucker? What about Elizabeth Gilbert's ubiquitous Eat, Pray, Love? Or, conversely, the guy conspicuously carting around a battered copy of some Nabokov novel he's clearly never read past the tenth page? Is pretending to read classic literature more egregious than reading stuff you like, even if it's not considered "literary"?
Personally, I'm a pretty voracious if not always picky reader (subway commutes are like free library time!), though I also admit to be being Judgey McSnobberson when it comes to books with embossed lettering and/or anything featuring hot pink and kicky high heels on the cover. My boyfriend, an archeologist, only reads non-fiction, which initially kind of bummed me out. Then again, he doesn't call me out for not reading 200-page tomes about rock formations, so why should I bug him for not caring about the latest hotshot British novelist? Plus, we have plenty of other entertainment tastes in common, like '80s action movies when Bruce Willis actually had hair and Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a robot from the future; so on reading, we can agree to disagree.
What about you, readers? Is there any reading material that could lead you to ditch a blind date, or even a long-term love? Do you think a person's choice in books tells you something real and meaningful about who they are? Or maybe you and your muffin disagree completely on books, but you've managed to overcome your literary differences and live happily ever after? Tell us your stories!
Dalton Ross is back with the third installment in his series of dramatic readings of passages from the recently published Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul. Today's clip spotlights "author" Kimberly Caldwell. (To see last week's clip on the works of Ace Young, click here. The previous installment, featuring the prose of Haley Scarnato, is here.)
When the first Sweet Valley High book was published in 1983, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, identical twin heroines of the soon-to-be wildly popular teen fiction series (and subsequent TV spinoff), were described as blonde, beautiful, and a "perfect size 6." Now bid welcome to a new, thinner, Sweet Valley High: Random House is reissuing 12 books from the original series with a few small editorial tweaks, one of which involves the slightly awkward issue of the Wakefield waistline. The twins' "perfect size 6" has been reduced to a "perfect size 4." Kudos, Random House, for not only introducing body-image issues to a whole new generations of young fans, but proudly trumpeting this point in the press release.
To that end, if you can't manage to (or afford to) physically alter your body via starvation or plastic surgery, you may still create your own anorexic cyber-waif with a little help from Miss Bimbo.
We've had a lot of fun the last few months with our iPod inspection feature — I always get a gajillion ideas for new songs to download — and over the weekend, I wondered why we hadn't tried the same idea with books. So without further delay, let's get the party started: What's currently on your nightstand (or, you know, wherever you keep your reading material)? I just started Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, and also sitting next to the bed is the recently completed (and pretty terrific) The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook, which hasn't yet found a spot on one of my brutally overcrowded bookshelves.
In his new weekly series, EW's Dalton Ross performs dramatic readings of passages from the recently published book Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul. Today's second installment spotlights "author" Ace Young. (To see last week's reading, from the pen of Haley Scarnato, click here.)
The word "visionary" gets tossed around a lot, but it really fits Arthur C. Clarke — though the author, who died early Wednesday at 90, would have disdained it out of modesty. Still, the creator of such sci-fi landmarks as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End really did imagine a future destiny for humanity and, through the influence of his writing, helped move us in that direction. Astronauts have credited him with inspiring them to become space travelers, and telecommunications pioneers have credited him with envisioning the global satellite networks we have today. And millions more have read his books, or watched Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking film version of 2001, and pondered mankind's future. USA Today has a fine tribute to Clarke today, noting that his speculative work was grounded in his academic study of math and physics, and recommending as must-reads among his 80 books Childhood's End (a much-emulated tale about alien visitors who eradicate human misery at the cost of human liberty), The City and the Stars, The Nine Billion Names of God (a short story collection), 2001 (his novelization of the movie, based in turn on his short story "The Sentinel"), and Rendezvous with Rama (a novel that won pretty much every sci-fi award imaginable). Clarke fans should also visit the website of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, which continues to promote his ideals of using science and technology to improve people's lives. Clarke believed that, through applied science, anything that could be imagined could be achieved. He made readers and moviegoers believe it, too.
So I had the apartment to myself for the last four days while my husband took a skiing trip, and that meant I spent many blissful hours lounging around in my pajamas, blaring the music of tragic '80s divas, and reading. Good stuff, except for the fact that I happened to choose John Connolly's The Killing Kind, a book my sister loaned to me over the holidays, to while away the lonely hours. I guess the Washington Post's quote on the cover — "Unfolds with the force and logic of a nightmare" — should have tipped me off, but I kid you not, certain passages freaked me out so badly, I had trouble sleeping.
Cut to me, hiding under my comforter in the dark, wondering if I forgot to lock the deadbolt, imagining weird sounds coming from the kitchen, whimpering with the knowledge that The Killing Kind's spider-loving baddie Mr. Pudd was coming to send me to an arachnid-driven demise. Shudder.
So here's what I need to know: Have any of you ever experienced reading-driven insomnia, and if so, which scary book(s) gave you trouble sleeping? (Yeah, I'm gonna be taking notes because apparently I'm a little masochistic like that.)
In a new weekly series, EW's Dalton Ross performs dramatic readings of passages from
the recently published book Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul.
Today's "author": Haley Scarnato.
The claviola is the kind of musical curiosity you'd expect to find in a museum of extinct instruments off Route 66. Or strapped to the chest of an old
man busking in the Berlin metro. But for the thirtysomething boys of One Ring
Zero — perhaps best known as the house band for McSweeney's — it's the reason for their existence.
Writer Jonathan Ames explained ORZ's humble origins at their 10th
anniversary concert, held Friday night at Manhattan staple Joe's Pub. Basically,
it's Laverne & Shirley for band geeks: A harmonica technician and
an accordion technician work together at a German instrument manufacturer in
Virginia, discover their mutual love for the claviola. A musical
partnership — and hilarity — ensues!
The idea of Brooklynites making music with squeezeboxes only seems
gimmicky. While groove-heavy works like "Ev Got Drunk" and "Voodoo
Function" evoked an Eastern European porn soundtrack, Joshua Camp and Michael Hearst
showcased their burgeoning radio friendliness with multiple tracks off their
last two albums, As Smart As We Are (2004) and Wake Them Up
(2006). Smart's major selling point was its
Granta-worthy roster of lyricists, including Jonathan Lethem, Dave Eggers (pictured), Rick
Moody, Paul Auster, and Margaret Atwood. But without ORZ's genre-hopping melodies to back up
the words, a few of the songs would be little more than stream of consciousness scribbled on a
napkin after the umpteenth book signing. (The biting lyrics in Denis Johnson's
honky-tonk ditty "Blessing," however, proved the author is as adept at poetry as he is at prose: "Bless, please, the people in
art galleries/Lonely as a distant train/Bless, now, the cancer of the bone/The
last light making beautiful/The poisons in the sky.")
That Times Square-through-the-ages CGI at the end rocked, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (pictured) sure is pretty. That's about all I can rave about. Problem is, when I volunteered to cover last night's debut of the Fox drama, I had no idea that New Amsterdam had almost the exact premise as the novel Forever, by Pete Hamill. A guy gets granted immortality by a vaguely mystical female figure (African-American in the book, Native American on the show) and spends the next few centuries doomed to suffer the woes of immortality, play the piano, prowl Manhattan, and deal with his visible scars... until he finds his One True Love, at which point he'll win back the option of dying. Sounds ridiculous when I type it out like that. But it's a good story, I swear! A story that was already written.
For the record, Hamill did speak out in August (the series was originally intended for Fox's fall season) about how the show basically rips off his novel. Hamill called the commonalities "astonishing," but fronted a lighthearted attitude about it, claiming "You've gotta laugh," and that he'd rather spend the likely fruitless legal fees on his grandson. New Amsterdam's executive producer David Manson insisted he was unaware of the book's existence until production on the show wrapped. I'm not buyin' it. But I guess I don't have to. Ultimately, more people will watch the show than have read the book.
Love and Consequences (pictured, right), Margaret B. Jones' memoir about growing up and running drugs in South Central L.A., hit bookshelves on Friday. But all copies have been recalled, because the author — whose real last name is Seltzer — made the story up. She's not half-Native American. She never lived in foster care under the tutelage of a figure called "Big Mom, which means she never had a foster brother named Terrell who got shot by the Crips. Seltzer's publisher (Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin), editor, and agent hadn't a clue about any of this until Seltzer's sister (her sister!) read this over-the-top Times profile and outed her as a fraud. Margaret Seltzer actually grew up in Sherman Oaks (which O.C. fans may know as The Real Valley. Sorry). In EW's book review (published Feb. 22), Vanessa Juarez presciently wondered "if Jones embellishes the dialogue." Indeed!
The news is mind-boggling in a "How did she get away with this?!" sort of way (It's only now, after the reviews and after a Times profile, that the sister comes forward? No other alarm bells went off for anyone else during the years it took to bring the manuscript to market?), but the fabrication itself simply isn't that surprising anymore. Just last week, Misha Defonseca's Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years (left), was exposed as a hoax after 11 years in print. Then there's the James Frey saga, the JT Leroy hoax, blah blah blah, etc. It's getting just as easy to believe that some gambler made the whole thing up as it is that an autobiographical account could be entirely honest.
The Olsen twins, "actress" Mary-Kate and style "icon" Ashley, have "announced" in the "press" that they will "author" a new "book." Influences will reportedly be about the other "celebrity" types who have — thank Uncle Jesse and all the saints for this! — influenced them. And here I was, calling this a slow "news" day
I have recently become smitten with the monthly stage show Mortified Live, billed as a "comic excavation of teen angst artifacts as shared by their original authors before total strangers." So, it was fitting that I spent my Valentine's Day at their "Doomed Valentines Show" in Los Angeles. The night only made my heart grow fonder. One by one, brave men and women took the stage to share their torrid teen tales of failed relationships and crushes gone awry. A few included some hilarious visuals such as drawings (think stick figures intertwined in a Honeymoon "Sweet" with a heart-shaped bed, jacuzzi, and fireplace) and video confessionals (a high school senior sporting a mullet and yellow trenchcoat lip-synching "Wait" by White Lion in the hopes that it will win over the girl of his dreams. Watch it here).
Of course, the night had me thinking about my own teen crushes and how thankful I am that those diaries are long gone, never to be read again (you're welcome, former object of my affection, T.C. Smith). Which makes Mortified all the more enthralling. How do these people bare their souls and expose, as Marcia Brady would say, their "innermost secrets" to a public who will only laugh at their past misery? There are even two Mortified books: the new Love is a Battlefield and Real Words, Real People, Real Pathetic, where individuals offer up their embarrassing journal entries and include photos from their teen-angstiest times.
Please don't let this stop you from confessing anything crush-cringe-worthy in our comment section. I guess we've all been there and are finding comfort in the humor that was our youthful past. I look forward to next month's edition and hope the show will "promise to never forsake me (ahahah, okay, that last portion was ripped off from an e-mail a boy once sent me. A boy who TOTALLY forsook ME)". Mortified's monthly events run in various cities across the U.S. Be warned: tickets, like young love, go fast!
Just in time for the Oscars, EW columnist Mark Harris' new book Pictures at a Revolution, in stores today, offers a snapshot of the tumultuous upheavals in American filmmaking during the 1960s as seen through the lens of the 1968 Best Picture Oscar race, when the nominees — The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Dr. Dolittle, and eventual winner In the Heat of the Night — were emblematic of the struggle between old and new for the soul of Hollywood. Now, PopWatchers, Mark is ready to answer your questions about the book (you can read an excerpt here), the films of the 1960s, the Oscars then and now, or movies in general. First, though, I had a few questions for him myself. Read our IM conversation, then submit your questions in the comment section. Watch for Mark's answers in a future post.
Gary: Mark, what lessons does the Oscar class of 1968 offer for this year's Oscar handicappers?
Mark: Well, not that Oscar handicappers need or want lessons from me. But I think one thing to remember is that Academy voters are often more willing to reach out to innovative or forward-looking films in the nomination stage than people give them credit for being. In '68, that meant a huge number of nominations for Bonnie and Clyde, which had been the subject of a bitter months-long critical dispute, and The Graduate, which was the emblematic movie of the Generation Gap. And this year, we see that with There Will Be Blood — it's exactly the type of movie that people who hate the Oscars always claim is too cool to be nominated for Oscars, and it's up for eight.
But when it comes to the awards themselves (as opposed to the nominations), voters tend to go toward the middle ground. In '68, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate only won three Oscars between them, and the big winner turned out to be In the Heat of the Night. The thing is, this year, I don't think anybody knows what the "middle ground" is. Juno? Michael Clayton? No Country For Old Men?
I had an Oscar vision, and it scared me. In this vision, No Country for Old Men won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, in addition to other categories.
Don't get me wrong. No Country is a tremendous work, and Joel (at right) and Ethan Coen (second from right) deserve every award they win. Yet while the Coens are the presumed front-runners to win Picture, Director, and Screenplay, there's one other person who's also nominated in all three of those categories — There Will Be Blood director, writer, and producer Paul Thomas Anderson (left). It would be an utter shame if Anderson went home empty-handed, but that may happen if everyone sides with the Coens.
You see, the Oscar voters have an interesting dilemma here. Many fans of No Country for Old Men seem to also be fans of There Will Be Blood, and I'd imagine that voters may want to reward both the Coens and Anderson. But how can they do that? Which categories do you give to whom?
The oddly monikered director McG, who brought us such kinetic movies as Charlie's Angels and We Are Marshall, has taken an unlikely new directing task: crafting four short trailers to promote a new book. That's right. A book. In fact, it's a Hollywood satire called Celebutantes by Amanda Goldberg (daughter of film producer Leonard Goldberg) and Ruthanna Khaligi Hopper (daughter of Easy Rider Dennis Hopper). The clips dramatize various scenes from the novel and star Autumn Reeser (The O.C.) as Lola Santisi, the daughter of a famed director who agrees to help her gay designer friend by persuading a famous actress to wear one of his gowns to the Oscars; other somewhat familiar performers in the shorts include Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Wilson Cruz (Rent). I gotta say that the first clip is actually pretty entertaining. And certainly more polished than the usual video book promos (think of all those awful TV commercials with James Patterson woodenly touting his new title). But would a catchy clip make you want to read a book... or would you just wait for the inevitable movie/TV series based on said book?
I haven't read The Ruins, Scott Smith's best-selling novel, but watching the trailer (below) for the April movie, I understand what Gillian Flynn says in her review: "Reading Scott Smith is like having a rope tied firmly round your
middle, as you're pulled on protesting tiptoes toward a door marked
DOOM. The horror is in plain sight; there is no doubt things will end badly — the signs are everywhere."
Should I be as frightened of this film as I am? And for those of you who have read the novel, does it look like the movie will do it justice?
George Michael's memoir, currently untitled, will be published in fall 2009. His manager has said, "George has promised HarperCollins a no-holds-barred biography, and it's certain to be just that." Okay, then. Let's help George out by finishing the following sentences: • If you want me to buy this book, you'll need to seriously dish about that little incident in the park (brilliant parody on Extras, by the way) AND ... • If I were you, I'd title the book ...
Some folks say it's better to give than to receive, but when it comes to books, I prefer a little bit of both, to be quite honest. And in the spirit of the just-concluded holiday season, I thought it might be fun for all of us to post the best tomes we found beneath our trees, and the best ones we wrapped up for our loved ones.
On the giving side, I got Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri's gorgeous, Pulitzer prize-winning collection of short-stories, for my sister Nancy (thus completing my mission to get it into the hands of pretty much every person in my life). On the receiving side, I just finished tearing through Lee Child's Die Trying (from my sister Debby), a trashy-good thriller that I managed to finish in less than a week. Admittedly, it's not a Great Work of Literature, but you can bet the value of all your holiday gift cards combined that I'll be checking out the other entries in the Jack Reacher series.
Okay, your turn: Which books topped your holiday gift list? Hurry, I need ideas for a couple of fast-approaching January birthdays!
Last evening, I came home to a nice surprise: Enclosed in a nice Christmas card from an especially generous friend was a $100 Visa gift card. (Speaking as a recipient of his seasonal largesse, I firmly believe said friend absolutely deserved that large holiday bonus.) Anyway, it occurred to me this morning that I had no idea how to spend that hundred dollars.
I've done all my holiday shopping. Don't need any new clothes at the moment. Music I get through my eMusic account (which I've had for 13 months now, seven months longer than I had originally planned). I really shouldn't buy anymore books until I've made a dent in the stack of volumes that taunts me from my nightstand (just finished the incredible World War Z, starting Manhunt). I don't have to spend much on videogames as I am the humble recipient of lotsa cool review copies (yeah, hate me). DVDs? Well, I have four season of The Wire that I've been saving for a rainy month.
Right now — and this is very much subject to change — this is how I think I'll spend the money:
• What is the What, by David Eggers (a stocking stuffer for my sister) ... $16 • Tonto+, Battles (not on eMusic, and not DRM-free on iTunes) ... $15 • The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings (saw this photo memoir in a bookstore last summer and regretted not buying it) ... $14 (at Amazon) • Which leaves me with about $50, which, I suppose, should go to a charitable organization I'll decide on later.
All in all, not a bad use of a nice (and unexpected) gift.
What about you members of Team PopWatch — how would you spend a holiday C-Note?
Just in case there hasn't been enough Harry Potter in your life since the final installment in the series hit shelves last July, J.K. Rowling and the online fan community have been keeping the spirit alive. Rowling outed Dumbledore on her tour of the U.S., and auctioned a handmade copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Amazon.com bought the rare book for $3.98 million). Now, the folks at The Leaky Cauldron scored an exclusive interview with Rowling that will air on their podcast, predictably named PotterCast, available to download tomorrow.
So what does the EW Entertainer of the Year have to say for herself? In a preview of their interview (click here for the scoop), PotterCast reveals that Rowling talks about the wizarding community's attitude about homosexuality, the Harry Potter theme park, and her plans to write a Potter encyclopedia. Personally, I'm most interested in minutiae such as, how to make a Horcrux and wand-lore, but that's my inner geek speaking.
I can't wait to hear what else the author has to say for herself, and I love that the interview is on PotterCast, because Melissa Anelli, the PotterCast moderator, conducted an awesome exclusive interview with Rowling a couple years ago. But what about you guys? Are you dying to know what happened in the "missing 24 hours," or have you moved on from Pottermania? What other burning questions still need answering? Weigh in below after you enjoy my favorite HP fanvid. Ever.
It didn't take long to find out who paid £1,950,000 (roughly $4 million) at auction for one of seven copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling's handmade book of five wizarding fairy tales, referenced in the last book of the Harry Potter series: Amazon is the proud new owner of the 157-page book. But rest easy, even though you may never get to hold one of these instant classics, you will get to bask in the glory of it all as the retail giant not only posts pictures of the beautifully bound book but also reviews the tales here. The proceeds all go to charity (The Children's Voice campaign), so go ahead and dream: If money were no object, what would you pay to own this?
You may have heard about the dude who looks like Ashton Kutcher reportedly fooling paparazzi. Well, I actually wonder why this kind of thing doesn't happen all the time. I once met a woman who looked and sounded so much like Angelina Jolie that all I had to say was, "Does anyone ever— " and she interrupted me with "Several times a day, every day." My dad likes to laugh about the Tribeca Film Fest screening last spring where a fawning publicist mistook him for director Michael Apted and wanted to make sure he was having a splendiferous evening. And just yesterday, I realized that Amy Ryan, left, the Oscar-bound (if justice is served) costar of Gone Baby Gone, shares an uncanny resemblance to an editor I've worked with. Based on an informal poll of friends, we probably all know someone who looks like (or at least looks closely related to) someone in the public eye.
But have they ever made any money from it? The bizarre world of professional celebrity impersonators, as depicted in the new book Fame Us, is full of doppelgangers devoted to maximizing all the "you-look-just-like" attention. Some of the book's subjects — like the Yugoslavian native who's a dead ringer for Mike Myers — make you wonder about the existence of secret cloning programs, while others boast more dubious claims, like the guy who believes he looks like Conan O'Brien, but totally does not. I'm generally thrilled, as a woman, that nobody tells me I remind them of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, but Felvis (yes, female Elvis) would take that as a compliment.
So, PopWatchers, what's your lookalike story? Are you (or someone you know) often told "you look like..."?
• All the scenescapes are shot in England (thus the U in “colouring”), which, inexplicably, makes the graffiti classier;
• The publication explains/illustrates the difference between Semi-Wild and Wildstyle (finally! the mystery! solved!);
• On some pages, taggers lend unintentionally hysterical insight into their method, like “My style is like bubble gum that you blow up until it bursts in your face. Blowing bubbles is lots of fun too.”
A colleague recently forwarded me a link to Literary Rejections on Display, a Web site that chronicles hundreds of dismissals received by fiction and non-fiction writers. The site's latest posting amusingly dissects a verbose rejection letter from Orchid: A Literary Review that includes a quote from composer Camille Saint-Saens: "I write music the way an apple tree produces apples." To which Literary Rejections responds, "No offense, but I write novels the way five elephants giving birth consecutively over ten years produce other elephants, or Café Lattes for that matter, so don't give me this 'involuntary urge' business or 'natural fruit on the tree' stuff." Another particularly funny post chronicles a Random House editor's rejection letter that repeatedly reminds the aspiring author how much he enjoyed the novel, and then lists numerous reasons he had to reject it.
Anyhow, whether you're a writer who's looking for a better way to deal with cruel dismissal than crying into a cup of herbal tea, or you're simply a bookworm who wants to better understand the indignities your future favorite authors are suffering on their way to their seven-figure book deals, Literary Rejections on Display is worth checking out.
Ever read the year-end Best & Worst issue of Entertainment Weekly and feel like your favorites—or least favorites—did not get their due? Well here's your chance to turn the beat around, so to speak. This year, we're planning to crown the year's ultimate pop-culture moment, and we're letting you decide what makes the cut.
Yeah, it's a pretty broad question, but we're game for a broad selection of answers—anything from a live TV event (say, Scorsese winning the Oscar for The Departed, or the whole spectacle that was Idol Gives Back) to decisions that signified larger trends (Amy Winehouse in rehab, Isaiah Washington leaving Grey's) to news events (my pick: the Hollywood writers' strike, co-starring Tina Fey, pictured) to great fictional moments (the final pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pam running over those hot coals on The Office).
So I'll ask you again: What was 2007's ultimate pop-culture moment? Try to limit yourself to just one answer, and please post it by 3 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, December 5. Remember: You're the only ones who can save us from a tragically blank page in our year-end issue!
A new photo book arrived on my desk yesterday with a thud (it’s huge!), Deborah Nadoolman Landis’ Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, and I couldn’t wait to peek inside. What I concluded (Sex and the City: The Movie being a likely exception) is that the Golden Age of Costume Design is upon us. Not to disparage geniuses like Edith Head (who dressed Swanson in Sunset Boulevard) and Irene Sharaff (who dressed Streisand in Funny Girl), but the visual triumphs in this year’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age and 2006’s Marie Antoinette could hardly have been possible in decades past, could they? Happily for us, the budgets in modern moviemaking enable the most gorgeous clothes to be filmed in the most gorgeous ways. I’m not kidding when I say I look forward to Dec. 7’s Atonement because of Keira Knightley’s stunning green evening gown. (Yes, I loved the novel, so of course I’d watch the film for that reason alone. But wow, that dress!)
Before this post gets so girly that silk ribbons start twirling from your browser, I want to point out something about Project Runway. Of course, having watched every episode since it debuted, I realize the show’s not about costume design, which plays a powerful role in character development within a story. Nor is it populated with true geniuses (not talking about you, Nina Garcia! Or you, Tim Gunn…you’re both brilliant!) But as I leaf through Landis’ book—unfortunately a bit of an uneven read—I’m noticing things about garments I’d never have been curious about before Runway. I may, in fact, be developing an eye for construction and proportion! And so I'm wondering: Do you other other Runway fans find yourselves more thoroughly appreciating (or critiquing) a film’s costumes, or even the wardrobe in a three-minute music video, after witnessing so many clothes being built on the Bravo series? Even if you don't, I'll pose this question: What movies, past and present, have blown you away with their costumes? And if you want to get really specific, which particular outfits contributed to your opinion?
Face front, True Believers! While we anxiously anticipate another annum of adventurous antics (Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk will hit theaters in 2008), let's turn to this titanic testament to the House of Ideas: The Marvel Vault!
In truth, this coffee-table history lesson (edited by former Marvel writers Roy Thomas and Peter Sanderson) doesn't cover much territory that hasn't been explored before — Les Daniels' Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics and Sanderson's own Marvel Universe were similarly handsome overviews. You probably know the basics: Stan Lee revolutionized the comics world with tales of flawed protagonists; Jack Kirby and others provided the dynamic imagery. But the scrapbook-like Marvel Vault also includes reproductions of classic Marvel memorabilia, enclosed in vinyl pouches, which tell a sort of alternate history of the company: the ways in which Marvel connected with its fanbase.
Sure, there had been fan clubs before, but before the M.M.M.S. (Merry Marvel Marching Society) there had never been such a feeling — however illusory it might have been — of community. For a measly dollar, readers would not only receive a button, stickers, 7-inch record, membership card, and stationery, they'd also get their names printed in the comics. Stan Lee's aw-shucks hucksterism was a big part of the draw. Slangy and relentlessly upbeat — he never met an exclamation point he didn't like — Smilin' Stan could seem like a walking, talking Marvel ad, but he knew how to make everything feel like an inside joke. The unhinged alliteration ("A profound potpourri of perplexing pronouncements and preposterous philosophy, all portending practically nothing!") was tempered with a healthy dose of self-deprecation that was just as fresh as Doyle Dane Bernbach's contemporaneous Volkswagen ads. And beginning in 1964, Marvel did something truly revolutionary: it began talking about the behind-the-scenes action at Marvel as if it was a family.
Already tossed your Borat shirt and stopped asking the ladies to "make sexytime?" Fool! Last night, for one glorious moment, you could've been cool again, like the hundreds of fans who thronged a Border's bookstore in Los Angeles to see "Kazakh" "journalist" Borat Sagdiyev on the one and only stop of his American book tour. The double-sided tome, Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A./Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan went on sale November 6, with some 700 copies signed at Borders Wednesday.
EW wasn't officially "press" at the event (Sometimes we're just fans — sometimes we happen to live across the street and know nothing about these things until we go to Borders that morning to buy our boss a birthday card, which we do because we're a suck-up and because, honestly, we genuinely like the guy). But we can report that Sagdiyev (né Sacha Baron Cohen) swept past the DVD and jazz sections, greeted by a horde of photographers, high-fiving anyone with a willing palm. "Hello very much, Los Angeles!" said the erstwhile "documentarian." "There are many childrens here. You have sisters?" Speaking of childrens, Borat brought some of his own — gypsy youths available (free!) with the purchase of five books. Too bad the Borders limit was two.
And who bought their two-book limits? People like the nice man behind me who claimed to actually be from Kazakhstan and suggested that Borat's take on his homeland was "not that far from reality" since "they are not so friendly to women." Or the mom who surreptitiously ripped pages out of her son's copy (Touristic Guidings is totally NSFW). As Sagdiyev himself pointed out, "There is a book shop called Wal-Mart that is making refusal to sell my books." Hmm…maybe the very nice woman on page 43 — naked, faceless, chained at her ankles, and spread-eagle — can tell us why?
Time didn’t name George R.R. Martin "the American Tolkien" for nothing. With the success of his ongoing epic series A Song of Ice and Fire — whose last few titles have topped the New York Times best-seller list — the author has established himself as a giant in modern fantasy fiction. Not bad for a former fanzine writer who had a stint as a story editor on The Twilight Zone in the mid-'80s. This fall, Martin is publishing two hefty volumes of stories, Dreamsongs Vol. 1 and 2, showing his broad range of narrative styles.
But we at EW could use your help. Chances are, some of you PopWatchers know Martin's work better than we do. So we'd like to turn over the questions in an upcoming interview with the author to you. If you were to get Martin in a room, what would you ask him? Your queries can be general (what are your influences?) or super-specific (what did you mean on page 374 of A Feast of Crows?). Post your questions below.
My least favorite part of the writing process is titling my work. I'm very particular about titles, because I judge all books by their titles. If the author couldn't come up with a few intriguing words for the cover, what exactly should I expect in the following 450 pages? Let's say you're a writer and the title of your book is A Summer in Nantucket. It might be a national bestseller. It might make Oprah cry. A well-respected critic could declare: "If you only have the opportunity to read one book in this lifetime, read A Summer in Nantucket…a literary triumph, a revolutionary masterpiece, your once in a lifetime." I'd still pass. A Summer in Nantucket sounds like the sort of book you own but never read, something you keep in your beach bag in case a friend who never returns anything asks to borrow a book. Now, let's say you wrote the same book, but you titled it Nanfu**it. There's punning profanity. It's edgy. Parents are picketing to get the book off display shelves. It doesn't say, "Read me now," it says, "Read me, don't read me, hell if I care." A Summer in Nantucket might cure insomnia, but I'm reading Nanfu**it.
EW.com has a bestselling fiction chart. I would know, I update it every week. If you're a writer on the search for the perfect title, consider these observations.
FACT: The odds of your book becoming a bestseller increase dramatically if your title includes a cosmological reference. This week on the chart we have, The Almost Moon (No. 2), not to be confused with Dark of the Moon (No. 6), Star Wars: Death Star (No. 12), or the alternative, A Thousand Splendid Suns (No. 4). For you, that leaves: On the Bright Side of Dusk, The Soul's Lunar Eclipse, and Stars that Blackout around Dawn.
FACT: If you collaborate with a fellow bestselling writer, it can produce some interesting book chart anomalies and contradictions. Case in point: this week on the chart we have Run (No. 11), followed by the less ambiguous, Shoot Him if He Runs (No. 13). Currently up for grabs: Speed-Walking to a Slow Death, Move and You're Dead (So Get Moving), and Quit Running So Fast, I'm Trying to Kill You.
FACT: Convincing the naive masses that they have buried potential and undiscovered talent isn't the only way to make the non-fiction bestseller list. Become a Better You (No. 1), Be the Pack Leader (No. 15), and Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and in Life (No. 14) worked, but not all readers fall for these self-help title traps. Consider a title with a tone of desperation or indifference, something like Come On People (No. 5) or If I Did It (No. 13). A few ideas: YouHaven't Reached Your Maximum Potential...Yet, Everyone is Sick of Your Bulls**t, and This Kinda Worked For Me.
So PopWatchers, what about a book catches your attention? What are some of the best/worst book titles you've ever heard? If you've read Become a Better You and became a better you, let me know. Exactly how much better are you at being you? I liked you a lot more before you were better…
First things first: At last night's talk at New York City's Carnegie Hall — an event for thousands of young Harry Potter fans and their parents — J.K. Rowling outed the kindly headmaster.
Responding to a question from a child about Dumbledore's love life, Rowling hesitated and then revealed, "I always saw Dumbledore as gay." Filling in a few more details, she said, "Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald.... Don't forget, falling in love can blind us. [He] was very drawn to this brilliant person. This was Dumbledore's tragedy." She added that in a recent meeting about the sixth movie, she spied a line in the script where Dumbledore waxed poetic about a girl, so she was forced to scribble director David Yates a note to correct the situation.
We guess tomorrow really is another day. Next month, St. Martin's Press plans to publish a prequel to Gone With the Wind that's fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate. This is only the second official spinoff of GWTW, following Alexandra Ripley's widely castigated 1992 novel Scarlett. And this one is all about Rhett — or, as the title says, Rhett Butler's People. Donald McCaig, who wrote the Civil War novel Jacob's Ladder, has supposedly been toiling on it for 12 years.
But the new book got us to wondering about the inevitable film adaptation — or, as was the case with Scarlett, the TV miniseries. (By the way, that one featured Timothy Dalton as Rhett and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, as she was then known, in the title role.) Which contemporary actors would you cast as America's ultimate star-crossed lovers, Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara? The poll lines are open...
I'll admit it: I'm a Janeite. One of those fans obsessed with Jane Austen to the point of being hyper-critical of anything to do
with our beloved author. I tried to resist the urge to yell at the
screen during Becoming Jane but instead gave my friend a running commentary on all the film's inaccuracies. I watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, groaning every time Keira Knightley pouted (so, basically, the entire movie). And yet, in spite of my rage and wish to throw something heavy at Anne Hathaway and Keira Knightley, I actually liked both movies. They're not my favorite Jane Austen films — that honor goes to Roger Michell's Persuasion — but I enjoyed them because I have an Austen sickness. I can't get enough of her: I criticize because I love.
Which leads me to the topic: Jane Austen fanvids. I was innocently searching YouTube for clips from the ITV Jane Austen Season that aired this past spring in the UK (don't worry, my fellow American Janeites, Masterpiece Theatre is airing The Complete Jane Austen in 2008). when I began stumbling across videos with such titles as "You're the One That I Want" — Jane Austen and Tom and Elizabeth and Darcy — "How to Save a Life." Of the ones that I've watched, most turn Austen film adaptations into sappy teenage rom-coms complete with angsty music, which gave me the feeling that I was watching Dawson's Creek or Laguna Beach, but the empire-waist dresses are a dead giveaway for Jane. These are the videos that make me die a little.
Some of the videos are kind-of funny though, like this oft-seen "Maneater" video with clips of the Austen ladies lookin' fine. Nelly Furtado is an inspired choice to play over the women in their best gowns, but my favorite moment is the clip of Willoughby (Greg Wise) from Sense and Sensibility doing the Regency version of the Harlem Shake. Speaking of the Austen men; they get their own montage tribute set to Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man." If you have ever argued over which Jane Austen hero is the hottest (and I absolutely have not... well... maybe not) then this is the video for you.
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"No one in novels watches TV," a character declares early in Jane Austen Book Club author Karen Joy Fowler's Wit's End, by way of explaining why she no longer thinks printed literature is a truly living medium. There are several levels of irony included in that casual dismissal: This character happens to be a wildly successful novelist herself, for one. And Wit's End happens to be a novel in which lots of people watch a lot of TV. Fowler's characters chat casually about Lost, Prison Break, 24, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, and more. She really does capture what it's like to be a post-millennial pop-culture junkie without beating the theme into readers' heads, and that alone makes me respectfully differ with the solid B that Wit's End received in EW recently. I wolfed it down over the course of two recent plane flights, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
So I finally finished reading 
When I read that 
By now, you've probably heard about the new children's book, My Beautiful Mommy, written by a Florida plastic surgeon who wants to help patients struggling to explain to their kids, ages 4 to 7, why mommy is bruised, bandaged, and unable to parent them for a few days after surgery. As the author told Reuters, "This book was written with the best of intentions. It wasn't trying to corrupt society. It is not glamorizing plastic surgery. It is not intended to be a best seller that children read with their parents before they go to sleep." Well, that's good.
Greetings Popwatchers! What's that you say? You're a fan of Kate Jacobs' debut novel from 2006, The Friday Night Knitting Club? Well that's just a ca-ca-ca-razy coincidence, cause I'll be talking to the best-selling author next week about her new novel, Comfort Food, and I'd be more than happy to sneak in a few questions from you. The book, out May 6, is the tale of a chef who has her own TV show and "decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program" with the goal of teaching "regular people how to make rich, sensuous meals — real people making real food." 
I got handed a lot of random stuff at the free-for-all that was 
"HOW THE HELL DID A 
In a society obsessed with inane reality shows (So You Think Your Ferret Can Dance!), hulu.com webcasts (ooh look, Just the Ten of Us on demand!) and other stupid human tricks, is reading books ever a bad thing? According to The New York Times, it can be — especially when it comes to romance. In last Sunday's Book Review, the paper of record ran an essay suggesting that 
When the first Sweet Valley High book was published in 1983, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, identical twin heroines of the soon-to-be wildly popular teen fiction series (and subsequent TV spinoff), were described as blonde, beautiful, and a "perfect size 6." Now bid welcome to a new, thinner, Sweet Valley High: Random House is reissuing 12 books from the original series with a few small editorial tweaks, one of which involves the slightly awkward issue of the Wakefield waistline. The twins' "perfect size 6" has been reduced to a "perfect size 4." Kudos, Random House, for not only introducing body-image issues to a whole new generations of young fans, but proudly 
We've had a lot of fun the last few months with our 
The word "visionary" gets tossed around a lot, but it really fits Arthur C. Clarke — though the author, who 
So I had the apartment to myself for the last four days while my husband took a skiing trip, and that meant I spent many blissful hours lounging around in my pajamas, blaring the music of tragic '80s divas, and reading. Good stuff, except for the fact that I happened to choose
The 
That Times Square-through-the-ages CGI at the end rocked, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (pictured) sure is pretty. That's about all I can rave about. Problem is, when I volunteered to cover last night's debut of the Fox drama, I had no idea that New Amsterdam had almost the exact premise as 
Love and Consequences (pictured, right), Margaret B. Jones' memoir about growing up and running drugs in South Central L.A., hit bookshelves on Friday. But all copies have been recalled, because the author — whose real last name is Seltzer — made the story up. She's not half-Native American. She never lived in foster care under the tutelage of a figure called "Big Mom, which means she never had a foster brother named Terrell who got shot by the Crips. Seltzer's publisher (Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin), editor, and agent hadn't a clue about any of this until Seltzer's sister (her sister!) read 
The Olsen twins, "actress" Mary-Kate and style "icon" Ashley, have "announced" in the "
I have recently become smitten with the monthly stage show 
Just in time for the 
I had an 
Some folks say it's better to give than to receive, but when it comes to books, I prefer a little bit of both, to be quite honest. And in the spirit of the just-concluded holiday season, I thought it might be fun for all of us to post the best tomes we found beneath our trees, and the best ones we wrapped up for our loved ones.
Last evening, I came home to a nice surprise: Enclosed in a nice Christmas card from an especially generous friend was a $100 Visa gift card. (Speaking as a recipient of his seasonal largesse, I firmly believe said friend absolutely deserved that large holiday bonus.) Anyway, it occurred to me this morning that I had no idea how to spend that hundred dollars. 
Yes. For the love of all that’s Lassie, yes, it is.
You may have heard about the dude who looks like Ashton Kutcher 
Ever read the year-end Best & Worst issue of Entertainment Weekly and feel like your favorites—or least favorites—did not get their due? Well here's your chance to turn the beat around, so to speak. This year, we're planning to crown the year's ultimate pop-culture moment, and we're letting you decide what makes the cut.
A new photo book arrived on my desk yesterday with a thud (it’s huge!), Deborah Nadoolman Landis’ 
Face front, True Believers! While we anxiously anticipate another annum of adventurous antics (Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk will hit theaters in 2008), let's turn to this titanic testament to the House of Ideas: The Marvel Vault!
Already tossed your Borat shirt and stopped asking the ladies to "make sexytime?" Fool! Last night, for one glorious moment, you could've been cool again, like the hundreds of fans who thronged a Border's bookstore in Los Angeles to see "Kazakh" "journalist" Borat Sagdiyev on the one and only stop of his American book tour. The double-sided tome, Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A./Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan went on sale November 6, with some 700 copies signed at Borders Wednesday. 
Time didn’t name George R.R. Martin "the American Tolkien" for nothing. With the success of his ongoing epic series A Song of Ice and Fire — whose last few titles have topped the New York Times best-seller list — the author has established himself as a giant in modern fantasy fiction. Not bad for a former fanzine writer who had a stint as a story editor on The Twilight Zone in the mid-'80s. This fall, Martin is publishing two hefty volumes of stories, Dreamsongs Vol. 1 and 2, showing his broad range of narrative styles. 
My least favorite part of the writing process is titling my work. I'm very particular about titles, because I judge all books by their titles. If the author couldn't come up with a few intriguing words for the cover, what exactly should I expect in the following 450 pages? Let's say you're a writer and the title of your book is 
First things first: At last night's talk at New York City's Carnegie Hall — an event for thousands of young Harry Potter fans and their parents — J.K. Rowling outed the kindly headmaster. 
We guess tomorrow really is another day. Next month, St. Martin's Press plans to publish