We had our first clue that SoCal is entering Awards Season (you will recall that we don’t celebrate the traditional seasonal structure here; we are an efficient community, and have streamlined the year in to two halves: Summer and Awards Season) when we tried to buy citronella oil in mid-July. No can do. If you’re going to have an outdoor event, it must be anticipated, planned, and shopped for no later than Memorial Day. Retailers cannot be held responsible for your lack of foresight. The second clue is more of a steady trickle of notices and announcements. For example, you […]

It was a good weekend at The Guardian, and while we’re working our way through their story on editors (this is one that requires deep thought), we turn our attention to the notion of books and libraries and people who are precious about such things. It reminds us of those who only eat pasta with red sauce, and not the spicy kind. In Marina Warner’s argument for the importance of physical books, there is a lot of discussion of word-pictures and the beauty of language and the relationship between the author and the reader. The power of all this is

We are bemused by the fact that The Traveler didn’t catch fire with audiences. Because the author “lives off the Grid” — apparently that statement always requires quotes, possibly even air quotes if said out loud; this leads us to believe most who write this phrase don’t know what it means — Doubleday tried creative marketing approaches. We think it’s a case of the publisher swimming in the shallow end rather than trying the big kids’ pool. We don’t want to see a book fail, but we do so enjoy Monday morning quarterbacking. In this case, it’s the anonymity of

GOOD MORNING: Army Archerd has bowed out from his long-running comfort read “Just for Variety” column. The retiring scribe will now focus his energies on books and memoirs. . .Though Archerd tended to focus on classic Hollywood, his name-dropping columns was refreshingly unique due to Archerd’s use of real words rather than the cryptic (to Hollywood outsiders) language developed by Variety. . .Liz Smith, a New York fixture for years, will now be writing a regular column for the industry broadsheet. No word on whether Liz will pack up her co-op and move West. Old-School Hollywood Gossip to End His

What is a poor writer to do these days? At every turn, someone is complaining about being unfairly depicted. Heck, just last week, we received an email from a writer who received a threatening letter because her character just happened to have the same name as a living, breathing human. It makes us wonder just what the purpose of having a quirky, slightly insane family is. Now far be it for us to come off as cynical, but we might suggest that when a book portrays one (or many ones) in an unflattering light, granting public interviews isn’t necessarily the