National Book Award Nominees

Earlier this week the National Book Award nominees were announced:

Fiction

• Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions

• Ken Kalfus, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country

• Richard Powers, The Echo Maker

• Dana Spiotta, Eat the Document

• Jess Walter, The Zero
  

Non-Fiction

• Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68

• Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone

• Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

• Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present

• Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
  

The Looming Tower is my early favorite with At Canaan’s Edge on its heels. If Imperial Life in the Emerald City wins I'll chalk it up to judges' anti-Bush sentiment. There aren't any prominent conservatives as non-fiction judges.

Easy to Scoop a Book as Woodard's Tome Proves

The NY Times and the NY Daily News embarrassed the Washington Post by scooping them about portions of Bob Woodward new book State of Denial. How did the Times get a hold of a book that won't be on sale until next week? Easy, they went to a bookstore and got someone to break the strict-on-sale date. At my bookstore copies of Woodard's book were in for days. I could have cut open a box, bought one, and scooped everyone. Of course I would have lost my job. It's even possible the stores didn't think they did anything wrong. Bookstores like most retail outlets is staffed by lots of part-timers. It's hard for managers to communicate all the fine points to all employees. Some bookseller might have just saw a pile of State of Denial in the backroom and thought it would be nice to stock them on the book floor. Stuff like that happens.

Other than plot points to the next Harry Potter novel it's not hard to get a scoop on a book that has been printed and shipped to stores.

"Post Rushes Woodward Story After Other Papers Scoop It"

Wait a While for Final Harry Potter Book

Harry Potter fans, I have to give you some bad news. It will be a while before the final Harry Potter book. J.K. Rowling said, "I'm not close to finishing it."

"Rowling Says Seventh Harry Potter Book 'Not Close to Being Finished"

Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower

When books appear on bestseller lists a bright neon red sign reading "skeptical" pops into my mind. I admit I'm a bit of a snob, but when bestseller lists contain The Da Vinci Code for years on end, and when an Ann Coulter collection of bad-jokes-as-polemic appears at number one immediately after its release you can understand my hesitation at basing the quality of a book on current popularity. That was my initial impression of Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower. However, from the reviews I've read it's a formidable tome. Reviewer Erik Spanberg praises the book writing,

Simply put, this is the most thorough and accessible account of the people, politics, and roiling theology behind Islamic terrorism. It should be required reading for every American; yes, it is that good.

I used to think the Sep. 11 Commission's report was "required reading." That was until we learned they knew about the Able Danger project but decided to mention it in the report. What else did they neglect? Even though we're almost five years from that terrible Tuesday there's much we need to learn about the people, events, and ideas that let to it. We're at a place where an Islamic instructor at the prestigious University of Wisconsin-Madison claims (and will teach his students) the U.S. government destroyed the twin towers. Hopefully Wright's book will help lead us down the path of truth.

"The Who and Why of 9/11" [via Milt's File]

Expert Charges Coulter with Plagiarism

Ann Coulter has more plagiarism problems. Questions about material in Godless has extended to her columns:

John Barrie, the creator of a leading plagiarism-recognition system, claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls "textbook plagiarism" in the leggy blond pundit's "Godless: the Church of Liberalism" after he ran the book's text through the company's digital iThenticate program.

He also says he discovered verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers, including the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel and Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

Barrie also told the NY Post her footnotes are "very misleading." "They're used purely to try and give the book a higher level of credibility - as if it's an academic work. But her sloppiness in failing to properly attribute many other passages strips it of nearly all its academic merits."

"Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro"

Ann Coulter: Deadhead

[via AnnCoulter.com]

It's hard to believe but Ann Coulter love the Grateful Dead. By her rough count she's been to 67 shows all of them without consuming any drugs.

When talking about Deadheads there always comes a point when the hippy stuff gets too descriptive:

I fondly remember seeing the Dead when I was at Cornell. It was the day of the fabulous Fiji Island party on the driveway “island” of the Phi Gamma Delta House. We'd cover ourselves in purple Crisco and drink purple Kool-Aid mixed with grain alcohol and dance on the front yard. Wait – I think got the order reversed there: We'd drink purple Kool-Aid mixed with grain alcohol and then cover ourselves in purple Crisco – then the dancing. You probably had to be there to grasp how utterly fantastic this was.

Ann Coulter covered in purple Crisco? It's taking an amazing amount of willpower to not put that image in my mind.

Seriously, the interview makes Coulter sound like a normal person. So her verbal recklessness is her designed marketing schtick. Sad for conservatives but good for Ann's bank account.

"'Deadheads Are What Liberals Claim to Be But Aren't':
An Interview with Ann Coulter" [via Little Miss Attila]

Conservatism's Encyclopedia

American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia has been out a few months. The massive, 997-page tome gets reasonable coverage in the NY Times:

Sixteen years in the making, American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia appears with American conservatism, the political movement, warring over its future direction.

"We've gone from history's adversary to destiny's child, but governing has brought a whole new level of challenge," said Jeffrey O. Nelson, publisher of ISI Books, the conservative press in Wilmington, Del., that produced the encyclopedia. Criticizing what he called the "big education, big spending, big war, big government" conservatism of Republican leaders, Mr. Nelson said he hoped that the book, whose list price is $35, would help the movement return to its small-government roots.

"If conservatism is going to succeed and thrive in the 21st century," he said, "it's got to look more like the conservative tradition as expressed in this book than the conservatism currently practiced in Washington."

Those people toiling in the capital trenches may not recognize the conservatism represented here. The book omits familiar names like Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove.

It includes the journals University Bookman, circulation 2,600, and First Things. It gives Willmoore Kendall, a political scientist who died in 1967, three times as much ink as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Those proportions are appropriate, said a former student of Mr. Kendall, William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review, who called the reference book "terrific."

Reporter Jason DeParle focuses too much on what was left out: Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, conservatism and race relations. Like most encyclopedias this is a living project with future editions in the works. The ability to dig deep into American conservative thought without needing 50 years of National Review issues is a wonderful accomplishment.

"An A-to-Z Book of Conservatism Now Weighs In"

Selling Naming Rights in Books

Cover Girl bought naming rights in an up-coming teen novel Cathy's Book to be published in September. Novelist Jane Smiley admits she sold the name of a character to the highest bidder in a charity auction. In her case it added a different dimension to her writing:

After the auction, I went up to the purchaser and asked her what sort of character she wanted to be. "High-spirited and ready for anything" was the prescription, and I thought I could surely fit someone like that into a book about real estate speculation.

What was more interesting was the name — Betty Baldwin (thanks again, Betty!). For one thing, all the movie star Bettys of the 1930s and '40s have given the name Betty a certain insouciance, and for another, Baldwin is one of those names bland enough to be suspect. As I thought about Betty Baldwin, I conjured up a whole family background for my character that might not have been the same if I had sold the right to, let's say, D. Wayne Lukas.

The exercise was fun and enlightening, and it showed me something about the contingencies of novel writing — you never know where your inspiration is going to come from, and you never know where any particular detail is going to lead.

In the case of Cathy's Book Smiley feels the use of "Lipslicks in 'Daring'" and "eyecolor in 'Midnight Metal'" "smacks of ad-speak." Like any innovation it's how the artist uses it to advance her work. Developing an new revenue stream for writers isn't catagorically good or bad.

The book has irritated a Ralph Nader group so much "it's peppering hundreds of book review editors with an insistent request not to cover Cathy's Book."

"Best-Sellouts List" [via digg]

Coulter Reignites the Evolution Wars

After reading John Hawkins' interview with Ann Coulter expect her next swirl of controversy to be about evolution:

John Hawkins: If you were to pick three concepts, facts, or ideas that most undercut the theory of evolution, what would they be?

Ann Coulter: 1. It's illogical. 2. There's no physical evidence for it. 3. There's physical evidence that directly contradicts it. Apart from those three concerns I'd say it's a pretty solid theory.

John Hawkins: If the science behind evolution doesn't stand-up, why do you think so many people who should know better so fervently believe in evolution?

Ann Coulter: A century of brain-washing combined with a desperate need to not believe in an intelligent designer.

John Hawkins: Do you think evolution, intelligent design, or something else should be taught in schools?

Ann Coulter: I would say teach them the one that has the strongest scientific basis to it, and if there's any time left over at the end of the day you could also teach them about the theory of evolution.

"RWN's Ann Coulter Interview #3"

Coulter Teasing Her Readers

Nick Schweitzer offers a gallery of Ann Coulter book covers. At her rate we'll be seeing the conservative Twiggy au natural when her next book comes out in paperback. It will probably be titled Deviants: The Sexual Indecency of Liberalism.

P.S. I really, really, really want to say Nick stole my idea. But unless he has mind reading powers he didn't tell us at the BBA Spring Fling I'm assuming he thought it up all by himself, and I'm just a procrastinator.

06.06.06 and Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter is smart enough to know 06.06.06 is a good day to release her new book Godless. Now, I consider her a devil in the conservative movement, but there are occasions when she makes her point well without sounding like a bad stand-up commedian. Her interview with Matt Lauer on Today was one moment as documented by NewsBusters.org:

Right out of the box, Lauer invited Ann to buy into that logic:

"David Gregory said if you ask people what they care about they say Iraq and gas prices. Gay marriages are way down on the list, but that's what the president is talking about and what the Senate is taking up. Why?"

Coulter would have none of it:

"I don't know what people are talking about or how David Gregory knows that. But I do know that gay marriage amendments have been put on the ballots in about 20 states now and passed by far larger numbers than Bush won the election by."

Matt then hit Ann with a classic exemplar of perceived liberal truth - the musings of a WaPo columnist. Lauer:

"Here's how E.J. Dionne puts it in the Washington Post: 'The Republican party thinks its base of social conservatives is a nest of dummies who have no memories and respond like bulls whenever red flags are waved in their faces.' Do you agree with that?

Coulter: "That the base are dummies or that Bush thinks that?"

Lauer: "That he can wave a red flag and they will run to the polls to respond to him?"

Coulter: "They don't need to respond to him. He's not running again."

Lauer: "They want the voters to turnout in the mid-term elections. They don't want to lose control of the congress."

Coulter: "Maybe they want to do what the voters want. Whatever you can say about whether or not Bush has a mandate, the mandate against gay marriage is pretty strong. It passed by like 85 percent in Mississippi. Even in Oregon, and that was the state that the groups supporting gay marriage fixated on and outspent their opponents by like 40:1, it passed even there. There is a mandate against gay marriage."

Lauer: "Do you think George Bush in his heart really cares strongly about that issue?"

Coulter: "I don't know what anybody cares in his heart."

Lauer: "Would you take a guess?"

Coulter: "I know what Americans think because they keep voting, over and over and over again overwhelmingly they reject gay marriage. So why is that a bad thing for politicians to respond to what is overwhelmingly a mandate?"

Coulter didn't call anyone names and frustrated Lauer. That's a top-notch performance.

"Coulter Won't Buy Into Lauer's Liberal Logic"

UPDATE: I'm no fan of Coulter and am as hard on her as anybody, but I wouldn't call her criticism of some Sep. 11 widows as "stomach-churning." [via Crooks and Liars]

Update on Kos Book Sales

Glenn Greenwald in his obnoxious manner examines the sales numbers of Markos Moulitsas' and Jerome Armstrong's Crashing the Gate. I mentioned them previously. Even little old me who is in the bookselling business can't tell you how many sales qualifies as a "hit." (I do know fiction has to sell better than non-fiction.) Sources gave Greenwald sales numbers for Glenn Reynolds' An Army of Davids and Hugh Hewitt's Painting the Map Red. CTG is beating them both.

Glenn Reynolds' source tells us "the average nonfiction book sells around 5000 units in its lifetime." Then Kos and Armstrong are doing well. CTG could sell 15,000-18,000 or go as high as 30,000 in 2006. That's not Da Vinci Code numbers, but that would be great for a political book.

Greenwald is right if CTG is a book bomb then Reynolds' and Hewitt's books are "grotesque flops." Give Greenwald a point.

"Anatomy of the 'Thought' Process of Bush Defenders"

Kos' Book Sales

Drudge reports the Daily Kos book Crashing the Gate has only sold 3630 in the month since it's been published. There may have been a promotion push today because Amazon has it ranked #25 today when it was #52 yesterday. Glenn Reynolds' An Army of Davids is only ranked #1237. Roger Simon, as of this moment, is wrong. Glenn Reynolds' book isn't selling better. (It all depends on how Amazon calculated its best seller list; something I don't know.) Either Nielsen's Bookscan is not very good at tracking total book sales or Amazon doesn't sell as many books as I thought.

I'm going to agree with John Hinderaker who writes, "I doubt that those data mean anything in particular."

2006 Pulitzer Prizes Announced

Since I'm a book nut I'll mention those Pulitzer Prizes announced yesterday:

• Fiction: March by Geraldine Brooks.

• History: Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky.

• Biography: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

• Poetry: Late Wife by Claudia Emerson.

• General Non-Fiction: Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins.

Even being in the book business I never heard of the fiction, history, or general non-fiction winners. (Modern poetry is on an entirely separate wavelength.) That demonstrates there are thousands of books coming out every year. There's more good reading material published in one year than any one can read in a lifetime. These are good times to love books.

I wonder how the drama nominees feel. No one took the award. Were they all so equal--either good or bad--that the committee didn't want one to stand out?

Side-By-Side

Someone should do a duel review of Harvey Mansfield's Manliness and Maddox's The Alphabet of Manliness when it comes out in June. If Mansfield's publisher Yale University Press and Maddox's publisher Citadel Press send me review copies I'll do it myself.

Getting Fit the Leonardo Way

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code jumped the shark when so many people thought much of what's inside the book to be true that the Vatican had to assign an archbishop to rebut the book. In a few months the book finally comes out in paperback and the movie starring Tom Hanks will be in theaters.

In his desparate attempt at a marketing hook Joseph Mullen put out The Da Vinci Fitness Code. With it you will have "the exact fitness and exercise guidance to get into your best shape, and to achieve maximum fitness and health in minimum time." And it can be done by working out once every four days. Going through Mullen's life story of how a "skinny and self-conscious" boy became contest judge handing out titles like "New England's Strongest Man," "East Coast's Strongest Man," and "New England Arm Wrestling Champion" I felt I was missing something. Oh yeah, Leonardo da Vinci. He got left out of the story. No mention of the artist, Jesus, the Holy Grail, or a Catholic conspiracy to keep Americans flabby. Hell, I would have given Mullen a pass had he at least mentioned Dan Brown or Opus Dei. Such a let down.

The sole Amazon.com review of the book is a doozy:

Has no value whatsoever Tells you little to nothing, no charts, programs, a rambling collections of useless information. save your money, I would like mine back.

He gets to the point and without all that proper punctuation getting in the way.

File Under: Fiction

I suspect Random House, the publisher of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, will never re-classify the book as fiction. Adding publisher's and author's notes stating that not everything contained within is true might pacify critics. What it won't do is stop the Brooklyn Public Library from putting the book where it correctly belongs.

It is important that the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) classifies books in its collection in a way that reflects the community's expectations. When BPL learned of public and publishing industry concerns of the discrepancies in James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, we felt it necessary to react in a way that would assure Brooklyn's library users that the information they want and need is easily available and accessible within a clear and truthful classification system.

Slate's Timothy Noah noticed Nan Talese knew about problems with the book's accuracy long before The Smoking Gun story.

I'm fascinated at the differences of opinion between Nan Talese and her husband, non-fiction writer, Gay Talese. A few weeks ago, they were both on CNN. About memoir Gay told Anderson Cooper:

Well, it means a mirror of yourself, as best you can reflect yourself. It doesn't mean absolute truth, because we don't know absolute truth at all. But it certainly means a very vigilant and vigorous attempt to reflect yourself accurately and verifiably

...

Memoir does not mean that you can be at liberty with the truth or with your own research on yourself.

He went on:

I believe that the credibility of the whole story depends upon the total effort of the writer to be responsible, even in matters that might not be relevant to the overall story.

I do not think there's a matter of 10 percent or 8 percent. I believe you really have to be 100 percent accountable. And, even if you fail -- and we all do, much as we try, but we certainly do -- we are flawed, as Jim recognizes himself, as a flawed figure.

But I do believe, when it comes to credibility, in this time when our country so much relies upon -- upon accountability and accuracy, or an attempt at accuracy and not being deceptive, I think that writers, no less than the government of the United States, no less than anyone in corporate life or television, has to be believed and has to be, if not entirely right, at least sincerely committed to being as right as you can be.

And I don't think there's any tolerance for kind of a minimum or minimalist attitude with regard to maximum credibility.

Nan's response was quite limited:

You know, the reason we published the book was because of the power of the narrative of his rehabilitation and what he went through.

Later she said,

But -- but the fact is, here is a person from the age of 10, for 14 years, has been on alcohol and drugs. Perhaps -- I mean, I'm not a psychoanalyst, but perhaps he felt that he needed to make himself worse.

I mean, would an editor say to someone, I really don't believe that you're as bad as you are? I mean, this is what he said. In publishing, we do not check author's facts. The authors present their books and they guarantee they are truth.

If James exaggerated, which he now says he did, these two instances of his being really horrible, it is mistake. He apologized for it, or he didn't apologize, but he acknowledged it. The thing is, the thing that I'm saying is that, without those two scenes, I would have published the book. They are irrelevant to the essence of the book.

So, we have a husband interested in truth or at least an attempt at truth, while the wife concerned more about what the "essence of the book" is.

"Why Brooklyn Says Frey's Fiction"

Ann's Skeptical

Ann Althouse is skeptical of Oprah tongue-lashing James Frey.

"The Winfrey-Frey Fray."

Oprah Takes Her Credibility Back

I meant to publish a post alerting you to James Frey appearing on Oprah today. But, oops, I forgot to hit the "publish" button. I'm going to engage in some literary license (inspired by Frey no doubt) and quote from a post that will never need to see the light of day:

James Frey goes from the non-threatening Larry King Show to the enabling Oprah Winfrey Show. Expect even fewer hard questions about A Million Little Pieces and a lot of tears.

There were tears, but I didn't expect Oprah to shed them from acknowledging she was duped like all the rest of Frey's readers. In a very impressive mea culpa she told her audience:

I gave the impression that the truth does not matter. I made a mistake.

Here's how a Chicago Tribune reporter viewed the scene:

"I made a mistake," a somber Winfrey said at the opening of the live show, "and I left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe."

Winfrey's apology and pointed questions about incidents and people in the book appeared to take Frey by surprise as he sat across the couch from Winfrey today as they had done during a much more convivial show four months earlier.

"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped," Winfrey told a startled-looking Frey who licked his lips often before speaking. "More importantly, I feel you betrayed millions of readers...As I sit here today, I don't know what is true, and I don't know what isn't."

Winfrey looked near tears and her audience gasped when Frey revealed for the first time that Lilly, a central character in the book, didn't commit suicide by hanging, but instead slashed her wrists.

"Why do you have to lie about that?" Winfrey responded.

She continued chiding Frey:

I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.

She asked why he fabricated events in his book. Frey answered,

In order to get through the experience of the addiction, I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was, and it helped me cope. And when I was writing the book, instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.

Questions didn't stop with Frey. Oprah lashed out at Doubleday publisher, Nan Talese. Talese responded by saying the book wasn't fact-checked because publishers don't do that. "I thought as a publisher, this is James's memory of the hell he went through. . . . I do not know how you get inside another person's mind."

A question that I don't know was asked was why Frey allowed Doubleday to publish the book as a memoir when other publishers rejected the book when it was sold to them as a novel? Frey admitted lying to millions of his readers yet said, "I still think it's a memoir."

The Smoking Gun editor William Bastone "felt bad for Frey" after Oprah's onslaught.

Random House, owner of Doubleday, will publish an author's note in all future copies of A Million Little Pieces. There's no mention if the book will be recatagorized as fiction.

No surprise, the blogosphere is buzzing:

• NewsBusters points out another example of Oprah being duped.

• La Shawn Barber watched the show and was "mesmerized."

• Michelle Malkin has some video. I was wowed when Oprah said, "I feel that you [Frey] conned us all."

• AmbivaBlog "almost [felt] sorry for Frey!"

• Celebrity Jihad found out Tara Reid will write a memoir. "Frey is set to blurb the book and add an additional 18 pages which will contain some 'unauthorized' tidbits about Miss Reid's life." I can't wait to not read that.

"Oprah Tells Frey He 'Betrayed' Readers"

"Oprah Throws the Book at Herself"

"Oprah Calls Defense of Author 'a Mistake'"

"James Frey Gets His, Takes It Like Man(?)"

Harsh on Oprah

For someone harsher on Oprah Winfrey than I have been read BizzyBlog.com:

Straight to the point: Oprah has a lot of explaining to do. After reading the article, you’re almost forced to conclude one of two things:

• She runs an operation that’s so intimidating that people within her company who knew better felt they couldn’t speak out.
  
• Or, she knew about Frey’s Lies and has been an active participant in a monumental literary hoax.
  

Are there any other choices?

In Jame Frey's defense his publisher found two witnesses to support his some of his experiences at a Minnestoa rehab center. Even still Frey's descriptions are outlandishly wild compared to the witnesses' memories. In a statement Frey said, "any differences are incidental." The sad state of memoir continues. "Fake but accurate" is the mantra. Imagine when Dan Rather writes his biography.

"Frey’s Lies: What Did Oprah Know and When Did She Know It?"

Frey's Continued Sales

Don Baiocchi at Blogcritics.org wonders why A Million Little Pieces as well as My Friend Leonard are still selling so well despite having it known portions of it are made up:

I didn't expect sales to plummet down to zero, especially after Oprah called in during Frey's interview with Larry King on January 11th and continued endorsing the book, but why are so many people still paying more for the hardcover?

I know some people might hear about all this controversy and think, "Hmm, this book is getting a lot of attention. Maybe I should read it so I know what this is all about."

Or,

"Hmm, this guy is getting all this negative press and Oprah still supports him. Oprah must really like this book a lot. Maybe I should find out why she insists on supporting him so wholeheartedly."

Or,

"I'm an addict (or recovering addict) and I need all the help I can get. Oprah and James and James' mom all say this could help me, so why not? Every little bit helps, right?"

Another reason could be it's a good read despite knowing it isn't accurate. I haven't read it and probably never will so I can't comment on the book's quality. Maybe just maybe it can transcend its current status as memoir. To really do that would require James Frey to come clean. But with Oprah's continued enabling that won't happen anytime soon.

"James Frey Still On Best-Seller Lists"

More Questions about Frey's Fraud

James Frey completely missed the point when he practically admitted 5% of his A Million Little Pieces was made up. If readers know he greatly exaggerated or fabricated his run-ins with the law why should they believe his other experiences? They can't. Now there are questions about other parts of Frey's book. The NY Times reports people who use to work at Minnesota's Hazelden Foundation question Frey's experience at the rehab center:

But more than three months before questions were raised about Mr. Frey's memoir by the Smoking Gun Web site (www.thesmokinggun.com) - before, in fact, Ms. Winfrey first had Mr. Frey as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" - producers at the program were told by a former counselor at the foundation that runs the Minnesota treatment center reportedly used by Mr. Frey that his portrayal of his experience there grossly distorted reality.

Several other addiction counselors who formerly worked for the organization, the Hazelden Foundation, which runs the Hazelden rehabilitation center in Center City, Minn., have also come forward to dispute Mr. Frey's claims about Hazelden. The accusations call into question what Mr. Frey has labeled the "essential truth" of his book, the "420 of the 432 pages" that take place during treatment. It was Mr. Frey's story of redemption that led Ms. Winfrey to make "A Million Little Pieces" a selection for her television book club and propelled it to sales of more than two million copies.

Frey has completely discredited himself, but I'm surprised Oprah Winfrey continues to play the fool. She's a smart woman who I'm sure is privately steaming about being fooled. But she also has an ego--you don't get as successful as she has without one--and is at that point where she'll hold firm and refuse to admit she has been enabling a liar.

"Treatment Description in Memoir Is Disputed"

Gutfeld on Frey's Fraud

From Greg Gutfeld's "Double Secret Hidden Blog":

LESSONS IN LEFTISM: When someone brings up James Frey's fabrications in his book "A Million Little Pieces," simply sigh, and sniff, "Really, how is he any different from George Bush?" For extra credit: "You know, there's another book out there that's full of embellishments: It's called the Bible."
There you go: I have just summarized how to act and sound like a predictable, lame-ass lefty in two simple sentences! What do I win?
(remember: when saying these things, you need to adopt the same voice a grad student would employ when saying "checkmate" to himself while playing computer chess.)

NY Times Chides Frey and Publisher

This NY Times editorial weighs in on James Frey's fraud:

"The power of the overall reading experience," Doubleday said in a press release, "is such that the book remains a deeply inspiring and redemptive story for millions of readers." But would millions of readers have picked up "A Million Little Pieces" and been redeemed and inspired by it if the publisher and the author had called it fiction? Would Oprah Winfrey - despite her phone call during Mr. Frey's appearance on "Larry King Live"- have made so much of the book if she had thought that its subjectivity was something closer to falsehood? The answer is probably not. "The power of the overall reading experience" depended on the faith that "A Million Little Pieces" was the unvarnished truth - not just "his version of the truth" or "true to his recollections." Even in a nation like ours, which is crazy for personal redemption, readers are still willing to distinguish between truth and fiction.

There's also this weblogger who's "disgusted by [Frey's] hubris" and "saddened that Oprah Winfrey didn't further distance herself from him." The woman saved, SAVED Frey's career with one phone call to Larry King.

GalleyCat thinks publishers didn't learn any lessons:

We all enjoyed getting a chance to speak our mind on how true memoirs should be, but this isn't going to change the practices of the publishing industry one bit. The people who feel a commitment to historical accuracy are going to keep hewing to the truth, and the people who believe it's good enough for a story to feel right are going to keep buying manuscripts by writers who spin "subjective renderings" of their pasts.

As for me, I learned my lessons with memoir with Edmund Morris' fictional self in Dutch. You'll be surprised to find a memoir in my hands anytime soon.

"Call It Fiction"

Frey Fights Back

James Frey went on Larry King to defend his fake memoir A Million Little Pieces. Since Larry isn't known for delivering tough questions Frey had plenty of time to say it's ok to make stuff up in memoir. "Memoir -- the word literally means 'my story.' A memoir is a subjective retelling of events," Frey told King. Subjective means having a different view of events. It doesn't mean making things up., going beyond what any reasonable person would call exaggeration. Case in point: turning a drunk driving arrest where Frey served no jail time into a violent confrontation involving drugs, cops, and crack.

Notice what Frey didn't say. He didn't say The Smoking Gun's story was wrong. He pointed out that only five percent of his book was questionable. "Essential truth of these remain," he said. Yes, the Dan Rather standard of "fake but accurate" is recycled.

Oprah had some face-saving to do and called the show. She blamed the publisher for mis-labeling the book, but didn't scold Frey (at least not publically). She went on to say,

But the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me, and I know it resonates with millions of other people who have read this book.

This implies that she might have still recommended the book had it been listed as fiction. Originally Frey tried selling the book as fiction. His publisher Doubleday decided against that.

"Winfrey Stands Behind Pieces Author"

"Frey Grilled a la King"

Reaction to Frey's Fraud

About the revelation that A Million Little Pieces is all made up we have:

• Miss Snark:
  

  So, what's the problem? This kind of fast and loose with the facts makes us look like nitwits. And by "us" I mean every publishing professional working in the industry today. We ALL look like nitwits when some guy gets fifty thousand dollars for turning a novel into a memoir and NO ONE QUESTIONS ANY OF IT.

  Here is the little dirty secret: we knew. Oh ya. We all knew. We didn't have the smoking gun (ha!) but we knew. And no one did anything. And in letting this slide by, we look like exactly what we are today: sleazy nitwits.

• The NY Times reports Frey's publisher Random House and Oprah Winfrey had no comment about The Smoking Gun's story on James Frey.

• T Stoddart at Blogcritics.org writes, "James is a liar, and lying to people who are in most need of the truth, is absolutely despicable."

• Of all people Freakonomics author Steven Levitt doesn't care if the book's fiction:
  

  And if you have a fifteen year old who you think might be pondering drug use, definitely give him/her a copy. It will do far more to deter him/her than any DARE program or parental lecture.

  It reads like fiction anyway. So unlike Freakonomics, I’m not sure it matters whether it is true or not. Others may disagree.

• Kristina at Squishy Sexy:
  

  The book would have still been good whether or not it was pure fiction. But with all the attention and media events he's done with Oprah, by painting himself a success story against self-made circumstance but now ultimately a liar, emptiness replaces the heartbeat.

• Saundra Mitchell feels sorry for Oprah. [I feel more sorry for the Harpo staffer who convinced her to pick the book.]

• Gawker declared 01.09 "Fake Writer Day."

If the writing is as good as readers have said then the book survives the scandal. The book is simply re-labeled as fiction, and Frey moves on to pure fiction writing. He and his publishers wipe the egg off their faces, while Oprah vows never to pick a book from a living author for her book club again.

On a related note, the Freakonomics authors discover they were fooled about the history of one of their subjects.

Was Teddy Drunk When He Named His Dog?

Sen. Ted Kennedy is coming out with a children's book. That's not the funny part. It's co-authored with his dog, Splash.

I wonder what Mary Jo Kopechne's family thinks about that?

"Sen. Kennedy to Publish Children's Book" [via Professor Bainbridge]

James Frey's Literary Fraud

Oprah's got another book problem. Her spat with The Corrections author Jonathan Franzen made the TV queen stop recommending books by living authors until she added James Frey's A Million Little Piece to her book club. Now, there's a problem with that book. It's touted as "true" and "honest" but has little basis in fact as discovered by The Smoking Gun.

"A Million Little Lies" [via GalleyCat]

2005 TAM Book Awards

Like music this year no book really blew my mind. There were some good books filled with great ideas. Like music, there's always next year.

1. Privilege by Ross Gregory Douthat

   Douthat wrote the 21st Century God and Man at Yale. His story of life at Harvard was entrancing. He was surrounded by high achievement to get into Harvard's hallowed halls but the feelings of many of his fellow students was what status was to be reached next. They saw Harvard as a stepping stone for elites to reach even greater heights. Through it you see Douthat's passion for learning and his ability to be honest about himself.

2. Blueprint for Action by Thomas Barnett

   This is Barnett's follow-up to The Pentagon's New Map. It's a plan of how to shrink the gap, spread globalization, and reduce terrorist threats. There's plenty I disagree with, but Barnett has thought deeply and seriously about how to have "a future worth creating." If you want to know what the Bush administration might do in the future read this book.

3. Running the World by David Rothkopf

   Despite Rothkopf being a former Clinton administration man and being unfair towards the Bush administration Running the World is the first history of the National Security Council. It's become the main way Presidents get foreign policy done. He goes through the body's ups and downs with a good look at what the actors had to face.

4. Five Days in Philadelphia by Charles Peters

   Peters gives us a great almost you-were-there account of Wendell Willkie winning the GOP Presidential nomination in 1940. As good as the political drama Peters argues that the stance of the moderate Willkie allowed Franklin Roosevelt to prepare the nation for war.

5. The Cube and the Cathedral bye George Weigel

   Weigel argues that a culture based on Christianity will defend freedom, pluralism, and democracy better than the secular culture plaguing Europe. It's a great case for what's troubling the continent.
   

Rand Opening

Absolutism, cultishness, bad fictional sex scenes, and right-wing utopianism pretty much sum up Ayn Rand's life. Jenny Turner profiles the woman.

"As Astonishing as Elvis" [via The American Scene]

Sowell's Book Picks

Thomas Sowell's Christmas book selections include Bernard Lewis' fine What Went Wrong? It's a slim tome, but it puts the reader on a good path to understanding the troubles of the Muslim world.

It's interesting that about his latest book Black Rednecks and White Liberals he writes, "[It] is apparently one which many liberal and conservative publications alike have found too hot to handle."

"Christmas Books"

Didion Wins National Book Award

Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking has received critical and popular acclaim. It's even selling well in Milwaukee, far away from her East Coast fan base. To top it off she won the non-fiction National Book Award.

"Series of War Stories Wins Book Award"

Lewis' Libidinous Other Life

Did you know Scooter Libby was a novelist? Neither did I. (And no jokes about Iraq WMD. That's too easy.) The Apprentice is written up in the New Yorker with comparisons to other steamy books by conservative authors. A "very good" copy of the out-of-print book can be had on Amazon for the low, low price of only $70!

Thomas Barnett on C-SPAN

Last year, Thomas Barnett won a TAM Book Award for his thought-provoking The Pentagon's New Map. He's taken advantage of the publicity derived from the book and has come out with the follow-up Blueprint for Action. Again, he challenges the conventional thinking of both the Left and Right. He was on Book TV's After Words to talk [mp3] about the book with Rep. Tom Feeney.

Current Reading: Two Lives

Vikram Seth's An Equal Music possesed enough emotional depth to connect with me like few books have. I may never get around to diving into his massive A Suitable Boy but I am enjoying his latest Two Lives. It's a love letter to his late aunt and uncle. They both lived through the tumultuous times of World War II. War burned an imprint on both of them that would never heal. Seth honors them with a humane and personal account.

National Book Award Finalists

In the non-fiction catagory Joan Didion is the early favorite with her The Year of Magical Thinking. She's been a darling of the Left and the most notable name in the catagory. Just behind is Jim Dwyer's and Kevin Flynn's 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. The book's subject should garner judges' consideration. Other nominees are Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch, and Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick.

"National Book Awards Names Finalists"

Book Podcasting

Holtzbrinck Publishers owns such imprints as St. Martin's Press; Henry Holt; and Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. They are now producing podcasts to showcase their new titles. It's a good idea. Even if a readers doesn't consume audiobooks this will expose them to new books in a way that's better than simply reading a dust jacket or reading a book review. Jeff Gomez told DMNews.com, "What we're doing as a trade publisher is allowing users to experience new books whenever they want, the same way that they might not have the time to listen to a radio show the day it's broadcast, but will listen to it later."

"Book Publisher Enters World of Podcasting" [via DVPG]

UPDATE: In related book-tech news Apple is selling a branded Harry Potter iPod and you can also buy all six audio books from the iTunes store.

Mansfield Featured on C-SPAN

Harvey Mansfield was the focus of this month's In Depth on Book TV. The mild-mannered Harvard professor immediately became provocative by suggesting that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt. He mentioned ancient Greeks would seriously consider whether rebuilding a city was the wisest course of action. This isn't a question of if New Orleans will be rebuilt to what it was pre-Katrina. I see no political possibility that it wouldn't happen. But should the city be rebuilt on a spot where another disaster like this could happen? If it was just insurance companies and Louisiana governments covering the bill then I wouldn't care, but billions of federal dollars will go into rebuilding. Is this a wise use of money?

Mansfield should generate more intellectual controversy with his book Manliness due out next year. Martin Marty writes:

Mansfield swings widely, at left and right: "Here is gristle to chew for liberals and conservatives, both of whom -- except for the feminists -- have abandoned manliness mostly out of policy rather than abhorrence." Mansfield's second review book, you guessed it, is on "manliness." His two predictable cracks at feminism aside, he sticks to his praise of manliness and his attack on being sensitive. I wonder, however, what planet Mansfield lives on and what he reads and watches. I won't document in detail here what anyone who spends an hour with cable news shows and shouts, politicians' rhetoric, defenses of our go-it-alone foreign policy, and some Christians' defenses of all the above, will find: consistent attacks on sensitive people as being unworthy and un-American, maybe even un-Christian.

...

Professor Mansfield misplaces his worries as to which virtues have priority in our emerging culture. Sensitive virtues, pace Mansfield, do not have much cultural cachet and are rarely prized.

"Mansfield's Manliness"

My Innocence is Lost

When I saw The Cookie Sutra in my bookstore last week I said, "Wrong, wrong, wrong!" Wholesome Gingerbread Man turned into a sex fiend. I'll never be able to eat one again. And I certainly won't be baking these. Next thing I'll learn is Twinkie the Kid is gay--not that there's anything wrong with it.

TAM Book Series: South Park Conservatives

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of what I hope is a continuing series of interviews with authors and their books. We no longer have C-SPAN's Booknotes, but I hope the TAM Book Series will partially satisfy book lovers interested in non-fiction books. Publishers and publicists if you have a book you think would be great for this series leave a comment or e-mail me at sean--at--theamericanmind--dot--com.

It's cliche to consider our youth the future. But cliches, while banal, do contain meaning. Young people and politics is always ripe as a book idea. Their views change and with them future political currents. Brian Anderson, senior editor of City Journal, ran with Andrew Sullivan's term "South Park Republicans" and produced South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias.

South Park Conservatives better describes an "attitude or sensibility" than a political philosophy. That's what I got from my interview with Brian Anderson. The foundation of modern conservatism starting with Edmund Burke was the conservation and slow reform of presently-existing institutions. Today's SPC's are more interested in conserving "life free from the intrusion of the PC police."

The essence of the book is how new forms of communication are bypassing the newspapers, magazines, and network television talking heads past generations relied on. Books, cable channels, talk radio, weblogs, and even comedy are letting people tired of stale, liberal views express themselves. Anderson was gracious enough to take part in an e-mail interview.

What are "South Park Conservatives" trying to conserve?

Andrew Sullivan coined the phrase "South Park Republican" a couple of years ago to refer to someone who is in favor of a strong military, is fiscally conservative, and is socially liberal, at least on some matters. I use the SPC term a little more loosely to refer to an anti-liberal—someone who may not be on board with everything supported by today’s Republican Party, especially when it comes to things like censorship and popular culture, but who looks at today’s politically correct Nancy Pelosi liberals and wants nothing to do with them. What the South Park Conservative in this sense wants to conserve is life free from the intrusion of the PC police.

In the book, I find lots of evidence for this attitude—and it’s far more an attitude or sensibility than a fully developed world view—among college students, many of whom want nothing to do with campus political orthodoxies, and in a current of social comedy whose archetype is the Comedy Central cartoon South Park itself, which satirizes not just conservatives but also, mercilessly, the Left.

Do these SPCs have any historical or philosophical underpinning for their views? This doesn't feel like Buckley-style conservatism.

As I say, as I’m using the term, it represents an attitude and not a fully developed philosophy of life or politics. But there’s no question this anti liberal spirit is a bit more anarchic and, yes, vulgar, than Buckley-style conservatism. One of the comedians I write about, Nick Di Paolo, a two-time Emmy nominee for comedy writing and the co-creator of the Comedy Central cartoon Shorties Watchin’ Shorties, told me he’s a big Buckley fan, but you wouldn’t describe his humor as Buckleyesque in tone—on the contrary!

What are your favorite weblogs?

I really enjoy and look in on the following regularly (I’ll exclude your fine blog, since you’re interviewing me, and this is off the top of my head): Power Line, NRO’s Corner, Andrew Sullivan, Polipundit, OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web, Instapundit, Captain’s Quarters, Professor Bainbridge (including his wine obsessions), Right Wing News, Libertas (the conservative film blog), Dan Drezner, Kausfiles, the Conservative Philosopher, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Chrenkoff (whose work on Iraq and Afghanistan is brilliant), the BrothersJudd, and the RadioEqualizer (invaluable on radio ratings). I’m a big fan of RealClearPolitics, Arts & Letters Daily, Frontpage, and TechCentralStation, and like everybody else with a computer, I read Drudge all the time.

One of the most gratifying things about the publication of South Park Conservatives for me has been the interest from bloggers and websites. Of course, I’m writing about the new media revolution, so it’s perhaps understandable that some of the pioneers of new media are interested in what I’m writing. Plus, there really haven’t been many books written yet on the blogosphere; it’s still too new a phenomenon.

Do you like the term "blog?" (Me, I hate it, and use it as little as possible.)

What can one do? It’s not the most elegant of words, admittedly—it sounds like a gastro-intestinal eruption of some kind. But it’s the term that has stuck and it won’t go away now, so we might as well get used to it. And sometimes there is an eruptive, gastro-intestinal quality to blogging!

Why do Lefties like Cass Sunstein fear more media choice? Isn't more choice more liberating? Do they fear a diminishment of their status?

Sunstein’s argument can be summed up in a sentence: "People will get the news they want, not the news they need"—the news we need being that delivered by the old, liberal-dominated media. In the twenty-first century republic.com, this argument runs, we’ll all enclose ourselves in ideological bubbles, the truth be damned. Democracy will suffer from cyber-balkanization.

I find this stunningly arrogant, elitist view, though other liberals have echoed it repeatedly.

I think the logic of the Internet in particular makes this worry wildly overstated. In my book, I quote the Yale law prof and blogger Jack Balkin, who spells out that logic: "[M]ost bloggers who write about political subjects cannot avoid addressing (and more importantly, linking to) arguments made by people with different views," he explains. "The reason is that much of the blogosphere is devoted to criticizing what other people have to say. It’s hard to argue with what the folks at National Review Online or Salon are saying unless you read their articles, and, in writing a post about them, you will almost always either quote or link to the article or both." In other words, the blogosphere is much closer to an electronic agora than a world of ideological bubbles.

When liberals make this argument, I tend to hear frustration over the loss of their monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information: "Oh, if only we could go back to the days when CBS News and the New York Times handed down the news from on high, and all the not-too-bright folks out there would accept it as given." Those days—thankfully—are gone for good. I love Jeff Jarvis’s formulation: news is becoming much more of a conversation. And that’s healthy. South Park Conservatives is above all a celebration of that new reality.

Do you see a stratification forming in the blogosphere where big-name weblogs primarily link to other big-name weblogs? Is that bad or a sign of a maturing medium?

I think you will see new sites and bloggers rising to the top, even as some of the big names scale down a bit, as Sullivan has recently done. Keep in mind that 12 percent of adult Americans are now reading political blogs, which is remarkable for a medium that barely existed five years ago but is also just a beginning. I think that percentage will continue to rise in the years ahead, and who knows which blogs will capture the interest of the expanding blog readership?

With the rise of best-selling conservative books, some people still think big bookstores (Barnes & Noble, my employer, for example) are being biased. Why do you think that?

I don’t think the chains themselves are biased at all—just walk into a Barnes & Noble or a Borders and you’ll usually see conservative books piled up everywhere. And of course Amazon offers easy access to all books, conservative ones included. The chains have really helped right-of-center authors because they’re profit-driven and don’t have an institutional politics in the way many independent bookstores do, which tend to be run by left-wingers.

Chain bookstore employees are a different matter. Recall the postings on the Borders employee union website last year, in which store clerks recommended "forgetting" to stock Unfit for Command or finding the copies mysteriously damaged and sending them back to the publisher. "I don’t care if these Neanderthals in fancy suits [read: conservative book buyers] get mad at me," spluttered one Borders worker. "They aren’t regular customers anyway. Other than ‘Left Behind’ books, they don’t read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair." Now that’s a perfect example of what I call "illiberal liberalism"—suppressing ideas and arguments rather than allowing an intellectual marketplace to flourish. What would John Stuart Mill think?

Is there a stereotype for a college conservative today? What is it?

I spent a lot of time talking with college kids who placed themselves on the right for this book, and it became immediately clear that no stereotype really holds any longer—certainly not