Some of our most cherished childhood memories involve YA novels, from the wholesome Baby-Sitters Club to the trashy Sweet Valley High to Lurlene McDaniel’s oddly alluring books about teenagers with terminal illnesses. But back in our day, young-adult books weren’t written by reality-TV celebrities like Lauren Conrad. And while we realize that many YA authors are still primarily authors, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the recent spate of random celebrities, from politicians to musicians to talk-show hosts, penning books for tween audiences.
After the jump, we wade through the hordes of famous people who have remade themselves as young-adult authors. Use the comments to let us know whether you’re for or against this bizarre trend.
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Anna David’s new book Reality Matters
is a collection of personal essays from noted writers about reality TV shows that have shaped them in some way. If there’s anything more entertaining than experiencing the guilty pleasure of reality TV firsthand, it’s reading a bunch of brilliant people trying to rationalize their obsession with the genre. We asked David about the moment that inspired the project, and here’s what she had to say:
One night when I was watching The Real World, I realized that the show actually inspired me to think about my own life — mostly about how happy I am not to be a semi-ignorant, self-destructive twenty-something anymore. Then it occurred to me that other writers might have their own interesting thoughts about what they got out of whatever reality shows they liked. And since watching reality TV is considered so shameful by such a large segment of the population, I figured that it could be fascinating to turn the standard wisdom on its head and say that no matter how ridiculous some of these shows are, they really do have something to offer.
Which makes perfect sense to us. (For the record, if we’d been asked to contribute it would have been impossible to decide between an ode to 16 and Pregnant or Ruby — and that’s just right now.) After the jump, find excerpts from a handful of our favorite essays. Reality Matters hits shelves tomorrow.
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Books spotlighted by publishers as their key titles come with balls of hype trailing behind them. But it seems like we’ve been hearing about David Shields’ barely-200-page treatise Reality Hunger
for ages, and it was only released this past Tuesday.
Maybe it’s because Zadie Smith used the book as a crutch for insecure introspection about her own writing. Maybe it’s because it’s already become required reading in university spheres, galleys passed from one student to the next like an illicit hit of crack cocaine. I know I’ve already had spirited discussions about Reality Hunger with friends and critical colleagues. It’s hard to resist the urge to argue with the text, especially when Shields states his intention “to write the ars poetica for a burgeoning group of interrelated (but unconnected) artists in a multitude of forms and media…who are breaking larger and larger chunks of ‘reality’ into their work” right there on page one.
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Here’s a challenge: Can you identify some of contemporary literature’s most famous voices from just six words of their life story? We’ve pulled some of our favorite pithy memoirs from It All Changed in an Instant
(SMITH Magazine’s new sequel to Not Quite What I Was Planning
), and blacked out the attribution to make things interesting. If you’re feeling stumped, don’t feel bad (and look at the tags on this post for hints), some of them are deceptively simple.
So would you believe me anyway? – James Frey
Heart fattens, skin thins. Who knew? – Sloane Crosley
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As Andy Warhol said, everyone gets their 15 minutes. And some people’s 15 minutes are shorter than others’. We’re tracking the decade’s celebrities, internet and otherwise, who had the shortest staying power after making a huge splash in the cultural consciousness. You know, those people that everyone and their mother was talking about for weeks and then fell off the radar completely when the public eye got bored and turned elsewhere. Who? We know. We’ll remind you.
Our list is admittedly a little 2009-heavy, but the more prevalent the internet gets the easier it is to become an overnight sensation (or mockery). Plus, this year has been a really good one for attention junkies. Check it out after the jump.
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School of Visual Arts alum Rodrigo Corral is responsible for some of the most memorable book covers of the past few years. The red-splashed silhouette for the cover of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; that beautiful sprinkled-covered hand on the cover of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces; those fuchsia lips on Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff — his visuals stick with you as much as the stories themselves.
You can check out more of Corral’s work as part of SVA’s The Wilde Years: Four Decades of Shaping Visual Culture through November 7, and view a slideshow of select pieces featured in the show here »
1. Do you believe that less is more in graphic design?
No, at least not conceptually. I don’t like overly decorated work, but can appreciate design that is layered with multiple ideas, especially in books.
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Please excuse our mixed dystopic metaphors, but Edward Champion reports that bookish types are debating whether or not bookstores should be able to request that visiting authors keep their curse words and dirty talk to a minimum. It all started when a Massachusetts store asked Jennifer Weiner, who is currently touring to promote her new novel, Best Friends Forever, to kindly avoid the word “cock” at a signing. Weiner complied, so score one for puritanical New England-ers. Read More »
Under the hubbub surrounding James Frey’s YA book deal, the politics of book publishing continues — some are winners [via Bloggerel], some are losers. [via Publishers Weekly]
Richard Ford uses a book for target practice. [via Gawker]
Book release party at London strip joint [via Guardian] — too bad it’s some priest’s book and not for Confessions of a Stripper. [via Double X]
Forget NaNoWriMo… try this literary marathon on for size. [via 3 Day Novel]
“It will be a great deal more about the omphallus than the phallus.” [via HTMLGIANT]
The most-anticipated books of 2009 [via The Millions]
On Friday the New York Times announced that James Frey was co-authoring a six-book YA series about alien teens with an unnamed collaborator. The film rights have already sold, with Michael Bay signed on to produce. Doesn’t this sound like something you’d read on McSweeney’s? But it’s true. And here’s what we find confusing: Frey’s agent was shopping the book around anonymously. Read More »
Back in January I told you about the launch of The Rumpus — an exciting new literary magazine that plays by the Internet’s rules — and I’ve been a big fan of Stephen Elliott’s online baby ever since. But a Web site cannot subsist on quality cultural content alone, which is why Stephen is joining forces with Smith Mag and McSweeney’s to bring us You Are Not Alone, an evening of comedy by Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman; music by Matthew Caws of Nada Surf and Amanda Palmer; and readings by Anthony Swofford, Jessica Anthony, James Hannaham, and Amy Tan; all at the Highline on May 30. After the jump Stephen chats about why he’s giving away copies of his upcoming book for free, what still irks him about Gawker, and why he’s not so worried about the future of publishing. Read More »
