Year / 2004
Seven Books in Tibet?
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: Optioned by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for New Line.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time by Mark Haddon: Optioned by Brad Pitt.
Dreamland by Kevin Baker: Optioned by Brad Pitt.
Mark L. Smith script: “Brad Pitt is reading one of his scripts.”
And there’s probably more. The moral of the story: If your book rides the careful crest between literary and pop, Brad Pitt will option it.
I Love You Too, Irvine (Sort Of)
To his supreme credit, Alexander McCall Smith claims that his remarks about Irvine Welsh have been “misinterpreted.” Welsh’s status has been downgraded to “a partially indecent hooligan whom I’ll never buy a drink for.”
A new Michigan law requires publications that depict “explicit content” to be covered up. Booksellers and reading groups are furious. And they’ve filed a lawsuit. In the meantime, they may want to consider covering up Ann Coulter’s books. Pretty explicit stuff, given that she’s advocated blowing up the New York Times building, as well as suggesting, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” (via Sarah)
Catherine Kennan has a very juicy piece on highbrow personals. It doesn’t get any closer to understanding the phenomenon (who can?), but it does feature a very amusing exchange between Kennan and one of the guys behind a personal ad. And it’s impossible to resist this ad: “Find the 10th coefficient in the expansion of the binomial (1+x) to the 20th power. Then love me some more. Mathematical Ms, Cambridge.” (via Chica)
The latest culprit behind declining book sales? USA Today suggests it’s the DVD.
Sarah Waters has turned down a Who’s Who entry because she’s not sure how relevant the directory is to today’s world.
Columbia Journalism Review has a piece on former New Republic editor Gregg Easterbrook. It’s another guy fired because of blog story, but the cause here is far more nefarious (and strangely immediate).
And more on Norr from the Daily Planet. Efforts to track down settlement terms are nice from an outside source, but there are few conditional questions revealed.
Bonfires of the Vanities
Demonstrating to the world that nihilism begins in India, a mob has destroyed 30,000 ancient manuscripts because Oxford University Press spilled the beans about a Hindu king’s parents. Strangely, a similar book in the United States, Bill O’Reilly’s Who’s Lapping Up for You Now?: My Early Days as a Salamander, has not spawned any mobs or burnings. But there have been a few interview walkouts. (via Bookslut)
Martha Freeman’s The Trouble with Babies is a children’s book with a brief passage referencing two gay fathers. Predictably, the yokels are now damning it, citing the book’s “homosexual agenda.” The book’s been removed from library shelves and sales have dropped off because of this misperception. And the proposed Queer Eye for the Straight Dad spinoff series has been cancelled.
Hey, Chip, You Rock My World!
Well, since folks are either making confessionals or unabashedly whoring, I’m more than happy to join the collective hue and cry. In fact, Chip, send me a book and I’ll wash your windows in a garter strap! Not a pretty sight, I know. But if that fails to quell the current cries of sexism, then I’ll legally change my name to “Pia Zadora.”
[1/23/06 UPDATE: Two years and countless criticisms of Sam Tanenhaus later, I haven’t been called by the NYTBR. Not so much as a thank you note for the brownies I sent Sam Tanenhaus. My pitches to my own hometown newspaper have fallen on deaf ears. (Never mind that they have taken out-of-town litbloggers for their pages.) The newspapers don’t want me, either because I come across as too volatile or I simply can’t write. As a man who has been on staff for a magazine, I’d like to think it’s the former. I don’t mean for this update to sound as if I’m throwing a pity party or to imply that I’m bitter or anything. I still plan to go on writing, even if it means most of my words being deposited here. But this is a telltale warning to all you whipper-snappers out there. The fresher, the more distinct and the more original you are, the less likely the mainstream media will want you. At least that seems to be my experience.]