So, this former husband of Danielle Steele, Tom Perkins, a billionaire or something, comes up with an idea for a romance novel. He gives it Ms. Steele (or the former Mrs. Perkins or whatever her name would be) and she says, “Only a man could write this!” And what does he do? He writes it himself. Like he’s got nothing else to do. (Newsweek: scroll for it)
Okay, you know how people are all crazy over The Da Vinci Code, right? Well, Dan Brown calls his popularity a circus. He said people wanted his autograph all-of-the-time. Some even ask him to sign a throw-up bag. I think if I see him, I’m going to ask him to sign a Tom Clancy novel.
And you know what Kate Mulgrew reads? Ian McEwan. She says he’s a “wonderful writer,” but easy. “Novels are like chocolate,” she says and she “prefers biography, autobiography.” Calls herself a very disciplined reader.
So, Will Duquette is like an amazing reader, okay? He can read a whole book before I get through the first chapter, and like he reads all kinds of stuff, like stuff that would make me use the bag before I had Dan Brown sign it, you know? But he doesn’t get Lemony Snicket. The other day, he got to the end of The Bad Beginning with his sons, telling them he hated the book every time he picked it up. The writer “talks down” to the readers, he says, and everything is depressing.
And you remember The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo? Well, there’s a new book coming out by the same author! Yeah, yeah, he’s still dead; but this researcher found a serialized novel in old French newspapers. It’s called The Knight of Saint-Hermine and will be out in June.
And did you hear about Mark Levin’s book on the Supreme Court? It’s called Men in Black. No, I don’t know if Will Smith did a forward to it. But it’s a best-seller and the Washington Post quotes a law professor saying, “The fascinating thing is that it’s a bestseller on a subject where 100 percent of us who present ourselves as experts haven’t read it.” The publisher says his readers have been screaming for a book on the Supreme Court. I wonder if they were climbing over each other for Phyllis Schlafly’s book about it.
