Sure, maybe this HarperCollins HR initiative is just the result of the kind of silly makework that every company's human resources department engages in to make it seem more like they have actual jobs between dealing with random sexual harassment complaints. Or maybe they're subtly implying that layoffs are imminent and that the job market is so bad that people will have to support themselves by entertaining at children's birthday parties.

Judith Regan, the former head of ReganBooks, her imprint at HarperCollins, was hatchet-jobbed by Rupert Murdoch back in December—but her fantastic editorial vision lives on! This week, she has book on the Hardcover Advice bestseller list and on the Hardcover Nonfiction list—billed, as announced in January, as HarperCollins books. HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, a ringleader of the "Jewish cabal" that "forced Regan out" (yes, so many scare quotes there!) has had her final revenge.

Apparently Michael Chabon's new book has been troubled with a bad case of being crap. We've been trying to keep an open mind about The Yiddish Policemen's Union, but he's not making it easy. For starters, it's written in a "hard-boiled, Yiddish-inflected patois." Also, the only thing we've heard about Michael since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won a Pulitzer in 2001 has been his personal child-bearer Ayelet Waldman's irrepressible oversharing about his sexual prowess. Now we learn that HarperCollins pulled it from their publication schedule at the last minute! "While long gestation periods and multiple drafts aren't unusual in the publishing industry, the time and effort expended on behalf of Mr. Chabon's vision are illustrations of the book's importance to HarperCollins," the reporter claims. Exactly. Just switch the word "aren't" with the word "are," and the words "the book's importance" with the words "the book's terribleness," and that sentence becomes almost true.

Logic - and his finances - would dictate our guest editor being supportive of HarperCollins vigilance when it comes to ensuring that copies of its esteemed authors' works aren't floating unchallenged around P2P networks, free to be downloaded by anyone with a hard drive and a yearning for something to read.

Is this a genuine case of a straw breaking the camel's back, or a flimsy excuse for NewsCorp to give its employees something to celebrate right before the Christmas party? (Speaking of: we have it on very good authority that HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman belted a killer rendition of It's Raining Men at karaoke that night!) Anyway, you decide:

Chic Happenswhere the "weekly" bit of "updated weekly" is some nebulous subjective reality meaning "quarterly" or "annually" or "ohhhh, whenever the fuck we feel like it"reports that Michael Gross's recent interview with the NY Post isn't running. Gross, the author of the NY Daily News' weekly gossip column "The Word," recently authored the not-so-flattering book about Ralph Lauren, Genuine Authentic, which is being published by Harper Collins. Rupert Murdoch owns both the Post and Harper Collins, which means that run-the-interview or don't-run-the-interview, he's shooting himself in the foot. Which is sort of entertaining.
Short attention span [Chic Happens]