gawker-book-club
Paris Hilton Is Basically a Racist Porn Star, Says New Book
Richard Lawson · 01/23/09 01:36PMA Sneak Peek at a Fashionista Socialite's Important New Novel
Richard Lawson · 01/22/09 03:14PMBook Cashing in On Ashley Dupre's 'Fame' Arrives
Sheila · 11/24/08 05:53PMHow convenient that former $2,000 an hour girl Natalie McLennan's escorting memoir is being released tomorrow, hot on the heels of Spitzer escort Ashley Dupre's tearful Dianne Sawyer interview! Sometimes, it's just synergy, sometimes it's just luck. Kind of like the time a website sprung up "accusing" her of ratting out her former friend/call girl comrade Ashley Dupre to law enforcement officials, which resulted in a nice Page Six item. (The guest column a few days later was gravy.) For someone who's in a line of work that makes publicity dangerous, McLennan has always known how to work the press; she made the cover of New York magazine in 2005. Now that her book is finally out pretty much the only thing anyone cares about is the Ashley Dupre stuff. So, what does it say? Well. Frankly, it's mostly pornographic! So if you're offended by hottt XXX lesbian action, please do not click here.
Name-Checking Tatiana Boncompagni's Socialite Novel
Sheila · 09/17/08 10:20AMTatiana Boncompagni is a total socialite. How do we know? Because she's related to an Italian princess, her husband is the Hoover vacuum-cleaner heir, she's friends with uber-socialites Tinsley Mortimer and Fabiola Beracasa, and because she just wrote a socialite novel and works at a magazine. (Magazine jobs were lost ago lost to the rich. As such, Boncompagni pens a column for Conde Nast's Cookie, the magazine about children.) The Daily Intel interviewed her recently. Example: does she give money to panhandlers? "Double strollers don't push themselves. So no, not usually." You're probably excited about the book, Gilding Lily. So we excerpted it by doing a search for the required keywords: Jimmy Choo, Louboutin, Bergdorf and Birkin—all the ingredients for a chick-lit society tome!
The Much-Vaunted LOLcat Blog-to-Book
Sheila · 09/16/08 02:28PMA couple months ago, we LOL'd at the book proposal for the upcoming LOLcats book, I Can Has Cheezburger? Then, in a blog-to-book roundup, we declared "do not want" on the LOLcat book, explaining, "The LOLcats experience is fleeting; the site stuffed with content, and copycat sites abound." We were right about some of these blog-to-books: the rushed-to-print Stuff White People Like, for instance, sucked and did not merit a review. But! We have the LOLcats books in our hands right now, and we'd like to overturn our previous verdict of DO NOT WANT.The new book is little and cute and we want! It may not be necessary for the Internet savvy among us (like everyone reading), but it makes a cute gift for someone like your grandma who doesn't understand the Internet but probably would understand funny captioned cat-photos. In the proposal, the authors assured they wouldn't be "just slapping some lolcats on a page and calling it a book." But that's exactly what they ended up doing! It doesn't matter, though. Because today we LOL'd, and we really needed to. And that is the power of the LOLcats. Update: On the book's Amazon.com page, we noticed something very weird:
Touring New York's Restaurants With Mr. Zagat Himself
Sheila · 07/24/08 11:36AMIn his just-released book, The Man Who Ate the World, restaurant critic Jay Rayner explores the oft-overblown luxury dining of the world. In a scene from New York, the man behind the Zagat Survey—Mr. Tim Zagat himself—takes him on a whirlwind tour. It's fun to watch brash American Zagat embarrass Rayner, a Brit with a sense of propriety. Who do they run into at Meatpacking District monstrosity Buddakan other than America's favorite "One Tough Cop," private investigator Bo Dietl—who tells them that he came for the food, but stayed for the "pussy":
Here's the Part of James Frey's New Novel That's Based on Perez Hilton
Sheila · 05/05/08 01:06PMJames Frey's upcoming novel, Bright Shiny Morning, features interwoven narratives from the city of Los Angeles. One of his characters, a gay Cuban internet-based gossip, is based on—you guessed it, Perez Hilton! Aww. (Although, Frey does write that "between six and eight million people a day come to his website," which seems a little high.) Read the excerpt for trajectory of a young Perez Hilton.
"If You Don't Know Any Wealthy People, However, Don't Despair. They're Easy To Meet."
Joshua Stein · 12/11/07 03:19PMIt was April of 1983, and Mary Kirby was an azure-eyed up-and-coming author. She was single, but on purpose, and men would trail her everywhere. She was so good at meeting men that she wrote a book about it! She called it "Mary Kirby's Guide to Meeting Men." Twenty-five years later, the text is still amazingly instructive. Today's homily comes from "Chapter Seven: Zeroing In On Particular Men" Particular in this instance means rich and Christian.
"Sometimes A Little Braid At The Side Of Your Face Can Be More Intriguing Than A Whole Head Of Braids"
Joshua Stein · 11/30/07 12:25PMIt was April of 1983, and Mary Kirby was an azure-eyed up-and-coming author. She was single, but on purpose and men would trail her everywhere. She was so good at meeting men that she wrote a book about it! She called it Mary Kirby's Guide to Meeting Men. Twenty-five years later, the text is still amazingly instructive.
Today In Drizzt Do'Urden: "Hakuun's Spell Exploded Around The Dodging Elf And Pegasus"
Emily Gould · 11/09/07 05:30PMExactly What Makes James Lipton So Irritating
Joshua Stein · 11/09/07 02:05PMOur Intern Mary has applied her sharp analytical mind and excellent Excel skill to Inside Inside, the wretched memoir by Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton. We've already examined the man's choice in epigraphs (pretentious), his favorite holiday (ridiculous) and his taste in women (whorish). But now the hard data is in.
Today In Drizzt Do'Urden: "I Loved You And Lost You Because I Was A Fool"
Emily Gould · 11/07/07 05:45PMDungeons and Dragons-themed fantasy tome 'The Orc King' is a New York Times bestseller, which means some people at some stores bought many copies. Why'd they do that? Maybe it's because orcs fall in love just like Patrick Moberg and the rest of us. In today's book club selection, orc king Drizzt Do'Urden's lady, the human fighter from the Icewind Dale Catti-Brie, reconciles with her once-paramour, the barbarian Wulfgar. Cue mood music!
Today In Drizzt Do'Urden: "Are You So Sure That Ogre-Spawn Can Be Bent To Your Will?"
Emily Gould · 11/06/07 04:05PMToday In Drizzt Do'Urden
Emily Gould · 11/05/07 04:37PMBill Cosby: It Takes A Village Of Overextended Metaphors
Sheila · 10/19/07 12:10PMBill Cosby's new book, "Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors," (written with Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, 243 pages) is a big ball of crazy, kind of like the yearly harangue you get from your grandfather: "Why don't you have a real job yet? Why can't you hang on to a significant other?" Except it's completely directed at black folks! Like W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington before him, Cosby gamely suggests that black people pull themselves up by the bootstraps. From chapters ranging from "What's Going On With Black Men?" to "We All Start Out As Children," Cosby overshares his kooky ideas about the world, pissing and moaning that black Americans need to "tone down the culture" and "get smart about sex." Of course "When we were kids" is used more than once, and, did you know? In those days, kids knew their place (and knew how to act!) To underscore this point, he helpfully puts in quotations any word that seems "hip," "cool," or "new." Let's start with chapter 1, in which Bill Cosby casually enforces racial stereotypes.
James Lipton's 'Inside Inside': A Reconsideration
Joshua Stein · 10/15/07 03:30PMJames Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever
Joshua Stein · 10/12/07 09:30AMJames Lipton, host of Bravo's Inside The Actor's Studio, has a book! It's called Inside Inside and we got our copy today. It's 492 pages long and costs $27.95. If the first two pages are any indication, it might be the most gloriously horrendous book ever written. You have to love a man who starts the memoir of his middle-brow career with an epigraph by Chaucer, from 'The Canterbury Tales': "And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche." Nearly as trenchant as Dostoevsky's "Raskolnikov seemed offended." (Crime and Punishment, pg 144.) Or Faulkner's immortal words, "'Such good beer,' she said." (Sanctuary, pg 140.) Except with the added benefit that Chaucer is a) in Middle English and b) in the prologue. Let's face it, Lipton only has time for prologues. He's a busy guy and can barely read. But can he write? You decide.
Steve Almond To Oprah: "I Don't Give A Shit How Many Books You Sell"
Emily Gould · 09/13/07 01:40PMFormer journalist and current fiction writer Steve Almond writes a letter to Oprah in his new book, (Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions, which was published this week. It's called "How This Book Became an Official Oprah Book Club™ Pick," and it's one of those "Kidding! Haha. Ok, not kidding! Okay, kidding!" type of jokes. It is pretty bonkers.