Why Are This Fall's Big Books So Small?
So you know that Fall is supposed to be when publishers release their blockbusters, right? Back to school studiousness plus Christmas shopping equals prime time for book-reading. So what are the bigwigs at Borders ordering a bunch of this fall? We hear they're focusing on two books: Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) and Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence. Exciting! Also: Boring! So what else is hot?
We hear Putnam is all jazzed for their latest Sue Grafton release, Y is for Y Is This Series Not Over Yet, Bitches. Kidding, it's actually called T is for Trespass and yes, they actually are jazzed. Sad. Over at Hyperion, they're proud to be releasing David Halberstam's last book. It's about the Korean war and it's 80,000 pages long. Merry Christmas, Grandpas and Old Dads!
Little, Brown promises that the new Onion book will be the most offensive yet. Oooh. And Lucky Bones author Alice Sebold's latest, The Almost Moon, should please the book club ladies. Other than that, though, we're looking at some pretty slender pickings from the big five houses. Maybe this is a sign that the written word is becoming irrelevant and within the next five years the only use for written communication will be when we IM directly into each others' brains.